Tom Shales

Making music on TV used to be as common as commercials. In the '60s and '70s, prime time was stuffed with variety shows headlined by such major and treasured talents as Carol Burnett, Red Skelton, the Smothers Brothers and Richard Pryor, who had a very brief comedy-variety hour on NBC that was censored literally to death.

Tom Snyder was born to broadcast. He loved television and it loved him back. In that, he was a member of a vanishing breed, especially as narrowcasting displaces broadcasting, 'online' replaces 'on the air,' and any Tom, Dick or Mary can be monarch of a desktop domain, uplinking themselves to satellites in space.

If the guy out in the woods with the Michigan Militia is a real estate negotiator, instead of some crackpot, and has a normal life, that's unnerving. You don't want to think it's as normal as the guy next door, hedging his lawn. It's easier to demonize or separate them off from 'us.'