Less Snider than the next guy.

Tom Snyder has died at the age of 71. Growing up, my only knowledge of him was due to Dan Ackroyd's uncanny impersonation of him on SNL in the mid-70s ("...the key to impersonating Tom Snyder -- is to wet and stick out your lower lip.") Later, I'd catch him occasionally on The Late Late Show after Letterman and though brusque, I found him to be a witty and erudite individual with a knack for getting to the truth without insulting or chastising his guests, an art lost by today's interviewers. Mark Evanier has a good writeup of him over here.








Here is Tom in conversation with Harlan Ellison and a few members of the Star Trek troupe...



I can't find any clips of Ackroyd as Tom, but this ST parody has Ackroyd as Bones, sounding an awful lot like his Snyder persona. (It's infringing copyright to show the whole thing, so it's been spliced with In Living Color & The Wonder Years.)



And finally, last night I caught an episode of Home Movies which was produced by Snyder's production company, Soup2Nuts.

His Ears Were Caught in an Automated Rice-picker.

Sure enough, the finale is TCOTEOF (The City on the Edge of Forever) written by Harlan Ellison. This one has it all: time travel, romance, angst, lunatics, war, humour and a sexy chick. It is probably the most intelligently written script ever penned for Star Trek, though poor Harlan had to go through quite a trial to get his finished product on the screen.

The sexy chick is a social worker (Edith Keeler) who tries to set up a peace movement, then Kirk falls in love with her, tragedy happens and everything is back to normal at the end except for a heart-trodden JT Kirk. Joan Collins is wonderful in the role of the innocent do-gooder and how she ended up her career playing harpies and tramps is beyond me. Personally, my favourite role of hers is as the sleazy realtor in the b-movie, Empire of the Ants.