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BY ADDISON HERRON-WHEELER
"The Tomorrow Show" with Tom Snyder was a popular talk show in the 1970s that featured guests who were notable fixtures in pop culture. Four episodes of this show have recently been put together in a collection called "Tom Snyder's Electric Kool-Aid Talk Show," after journalist Tom Wolfe's famous book "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test."
The first episode in this collection is, in my opinion, the most interesting. It features an interview with Ken Kesey (author of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest") and his friend Jerry Garcia (of the Grateful Dead).
As leader of the Merry Pranksters in the late '60s, Kesey gained his greatest fame by touring the country in a psychedelic bus and, later, hosting "acid tests" in San Francisco during an era when LSD was a popular recreational drug. The Pranksters' adventures were romanticized in Wolfe's account.
The episode also features live performances by the Dead and, later, an interview with the entire band. The Dead's whole set on the show is acoustic, and it is really cool to watch them perform "Dire Wolf" in such a laid-back setting.
The only real downsides to the interviews are that there is simply not enough time for Kesey and the Dead to get their points across, and that Snyder is really not a good interviewer at all. His questions about how many drugs Kesey and the Dead consumed only touch on the topic, which is extensively covered in Wolfe's book. During the Grateful Dead interview, Snyder sticks to generic questions about why the band plays music together, why they think they are so successful and how they got together.
The next two segments of the show are interviews with Wolfe himself. Although I was somewhat disappointed that Snyder makes no mention of "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test" or anything relating to it during this interview, it is interesting nonetheless. Snyder seems a lot more comfortable talking to someone who doesn't do massive amounts of psychedelic drugs, and Richmond native Wolfe sounds so intelligent and interesting--and has such a nice Southern accent--that I maintained interest in his interview the whole time.
Timothy Leary, the LSD guru famous for saying "Tune in, turn on, drop out," was on next. I was really disappointed in this segment, which basically consisted of Snyder unsuccessfully trying to elicit a statement from Leary about how he had been wrong in trying to turn teenagers on to acid, and Leary just sounding really out of it while promoting his future debate tour that would hit universities.
These precious gems from back in the day are always a bit more bland than we count on, but getting to see Kesey and Wolfe onscreen--and those amazing acoustic Dead songs--made it a worthwhile watch for me. Definitely check this out if it sounds like your cup of tea, but for an introduction to the culture of these historical figures, I would suggest reading "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test" instead.
Addison Herron-Wheeler is a senior
