In the early 1950s, morning television consisted of a test pattern broadcast to screens across the nation. So, when NBC launched Today at 7am on January 14, 1952, it was a TV first. The show’s host was bespectacled, bow-tied, six-foot-two-inch Dave Garroway. He was both affable and authoritative.
In Today’s early days, the show delivered news reports based on newsreels, wire photos and news telephoned in from overseas. It was broadcast from a specially designed studio, which was built into the ground floor of the glass-fronted R.C.A. Exhibition Hall in New York City’s Rockefeller Center. The public could watch the operation of the show as they stood on the sidewalk outside the studio. With a set full of monitoring screens, teletype machines and bulletin boards displaying newspapers from around the world, NBC’s press department declared that the Today studio would become the “nerve center of the planet.”
From the beginning, the production of Today involved as many as forty people. Jack Lescoulie served as the show’s sports announcer. James Fleming was the newscaster. The program was not immediately a success. Critics complained that the communications center “looked like a command post for an invasion.” There were technical problems with some of the equipment. Garroway calmly coped with the early chaos of the show. Eventually, it became a grab bag of news, interviews & reviews. Interspersed between it all were weather forecasts and advertisements. Garroway was the commentator, interviewer, reader of news headlines and master of ceremonies, all rolled into one. Viewership of Today gradually increased and companies ultimately signed up to have Garroway pitch their products on the air. Sponsors of the show were varied – so Garroway voiced ads for Jell-O, Bayer aspirin, Puss ‘n Boots cat food, and Rock of Ages tombstones.
Garroway’s skill at segueing from selling consumer products to serious subjects like Apartheid in South Africa or military preparedness in the United States and Russia was legendary. His wide-ranging interest in everything from astronomy to jazz was reflected in topics covered by the show. On Today he could speak knowledgeably to almost anyone about anything. Garroway did not take himself too seriously, though. He was not afraid to indulge in some clowning around with the show’s chimpanzee mascot, J. Fred Muggs. The chimp was an instant hit on Today from his first appearance in 1953.
People who had never before watched television in the mornings became avid viewers. Garroway received fan mail and complaints. One woman wrote in that her “husband is forever popping out of the bathroom while shaving and going into the living room, leaving a trail of lather and drippings on the carpet, to take in bits of your program. It’s a wonder he doesn’t slash his throat.”
New Yorkers and out-of-town visitors to Rockefeller Center occupied the sidewalk when Today went on the air, angling for a view of the show in production and any celebrity guests. Bystanders held up homemade signs sending greetings to those they hoped may be watching at home. The camera operators of Today obliged by panning the streetside audience periodically, giving those on the sidewalk their own sliver of TV fame. Sometimes Garroway himself joined the crowds outside for special demonstrations or commercials that needed more space than the studio would allow.
Today’s three hour, Monday through Friday, broadcast schedule gave ample time for Garroway to cover a multitude of topics beyond the news. He interviewed entertainers, authors and politicians.
The range of guests was vast. Frank Lloyd Wright appeared on Today and so did beauty pageant winners. It was with Garroway on Today that President John F. Kennedy introduced his entire Cabinet to the American people.
Garroway was a fervent advocate of free speech as a pillar of democracy. His felt his own obligation was to present all sorts of ideas – the popular and the unpopular – with the goal of encouraging critical thought and discussion. In an article for Look magazine in June of 1960, he warned Americans that freedom, “like a muscle, must be exercised, lest it atrophy.” He asserted, “it’s the habit of not exercising freedom that makes a people easy prey for dictators.”
By 1960, Garroway’s Today salary exceeeded $300,000 a year. In an interview for Ladies Home Journal he said, “I inform, I exhort, I sell … I amuse – sometimes. I philosophize. A potpourri of talent, if you like, for which, I nevertheless maintain, I am terribly overpaid.” Garroway’s Today signature sign-off was a single word – “peace,” voiced as he held out his right hand, opened like a benediction.
Garroway left Today in 1961 to spend more time with his children after the death of his wife, but the show lives on. Today’s legacy is the inspiration it provided for every morning news and talk show on television in the modern era. The Dave Garroway papers at the American Heritage Center consist of eleven boxes, and include scripts & scrapbooks from Today, articles about Garroway, and press covering the 25th and 30thanniversaries of Today. There are also photographs, audio and visual materials, and information related to Garroway’s career before and after Today.
Post contributed by AHC Writer Kathryn Billington.
