NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] 1975 Video: "The Credibility Gap" - Tom Snyder - UFOs - and CIA Poisons!
1975 Video: "The Credibility Gap" - Tom Snyder - UFOs - and CIA Poisons!
http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000771.html
Greetings. As I've continued extracting video from my previously
declared "dead" videocassettes, I've been searching for some of my
treasured long-lost recordings, mostly just faint memories at this
point ( http://bit.ly/bnARSi [Lauren's Blog] ).
I hit pay dirt yesterday, and successfully recovered one of my
favorite clips. It has nothing whatever to do with technology,
computers, privacy, or the Internet, but it's certainly making me
smile -- an increasingly challenging task these days -- so I hope
you'll forgive my off-topic posting in this case, as I hope to bring a
smile to you as well.
Dating from October 2, 1975 -- almost exactly 35 years ago -- it's a
segment from the late Tom Snyder's eclectic late-night "Tomorrow
Show" (aka "Tomorrow Coast to Coast"). During my period of
youthful, intense nighttime code hacking, "Tomorrow" was on my
regular viewing agenda.
This wonderful video segment features Snyder playing a taped
performance (that he claims he had not seen previously) recorded by
three members of the legendary "Credibility Gap" comedy group --
Harry Shearer, Michael McKean, and David L. Lander
( http://bit.ly/9qXbNc [YouTube] ).
The performance is (for me at least) a hilarious send-up of Snyder and
the "Tomorrow" show itself, with Shearer playing Snyder, McKean a
UFO researcher, and Lander a very poorly disguised CIA operative.
A few words of warning about this particular video. First, it is not
"politically correct" by 2010 standards (or by 1975 standards, for
that matter). Also, at a "critical" juncture of the "interview," the
audio briefly drops out and there appears to be a video cut. These
effects were apparently indeed part of the joke itself, and have been
present since the original transmission several decades ago.
Finally, this material was extracted from among some of my oldest
personal tapes, and even after dousing this segment with a great deal
of processing "CPU Juice," it begins abruptly and still is in fairly
ragged shape as you'll see (especially near the beginning). Please be
patient, it settles down considerably during the course of the
presentation. But believe me, the original unprocessed source video
makes the posted version look like near perfection by comparison.
I hope you'll find this small slice of comedy history as entertaining
as I do.
Enjoy.
"The Credibility Gap" - Tom Snyder - UFOs - and CIA Poisons!
http://bit.ly/9qXbNc [YouTube] (~10 minutes)
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein (lauren@vortex.com)
http://www.vortex.com/lauren
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800
Co-Founder, PFIR (People For Internet Responsibility): http://www.pfir.org
Co-Founder, NNSquad (Network Neutrality Squad): http://www.nnsquad.org
Founder, GCTIP (Global Coalition for Transparent Internet Performance):
http://www.gctip.org
Founder, PRIVACY Forum: http://www.vortex.com
Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/laurenweinstein
Google Buzz: http://bit.ly/lauren-buzz