TV Guide Spot - 1979

TV Guide commercial with Tom Snyder.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• TV
• Guide
• Commercial
• Tom
• Snyder
• 1979

[NewsOnDemand]

I always loved that freaky music they used in the old TV Guide spots.

[pbanta62]

I remember that music! As a kid I used to sing to it "TeeVeeGUIDE! TeeVeeGUIDE!" over and over when I saw one at the grocery store checkout. Always got a chuckle out of the line and a good eye-roll from my Mom.

[MattTheSaiyan]

That futuristic music FTW!

[ldchappell1]

I think that music was supposed to sound "futuristic" in those days. I remember when TV Guide was 15 cents. Everybody had one on the coffee table. Back in the days when you had to get off your ass to change the channel on your black and white tv. I remember the first thing I looked up was what movies would be broadcast.. Before VCRs you had to wait about five years for a movie to make it to network TV. If you were lucky, there might be 2 good movies a week.

[dmendiol]

I remember this commercial as a kid. I Dig that Background music for that TV Guide Spot. I would have like to have been in the recording studio when that made that music. CLASSIC! Thanks for posting, KLXT77.

[MrJacMac1986]

I miss the 1970's.Why did that decade have to end?The 2000's and 2010's suck.Times were simpler then

[fromthesidelines]

This particular issue was dated October 13, 1979, at the time Tom was working on both "THE TOMORROW SHOW" and NBC's short-lived newsmagazine "PRIME TIME SUNDAY".

[auggdogrules]

like the music and the voice,can't match it even today

[wmbrown6]

I've been apprised that the TVG announcer - from at least the early 1960's to 1981 - was the late legendary (and oft-controversial) Philadelphia TV and radio broadcaster Taylor Grant. There is on the web an audio of a 1953 radio news broadcast he anchored, and the inflections (though he was younger) are in line with those on ads like this.

[rayjr62]

Tom Snyder's late show (on NBC) was awesome. The interviews didn't always go so smoothly, but Snyder more than made up for it with sheer guile and chutzpah.

He later said that it was the advent of Ronald Reagan (and his de-regulating the FCC) which led to both an onslaught of late night TV info-mercials and the end of shows like his. The industry had changed, the suits took over the networks and deemed shows like Tom's to be "not economically viable." Letterman would replace him in 1982.

[MattTheSaiyan]

Simple but fun.