'Tomorrow's' People: John, Paul, Tom & Ringo

| Print Post This | Like (0) | Comments (1)

IT'S BEEN ALMOST 28 years since Mark David Chapman pulled a trigger and killed John Lennon.

Chapman murdered Lennon just a few weeks after the release of the former Beatle's comeback album, "Double Fantasy."

Just for the what-could-have-been factor alone it's a no-brainer to recommend the new DVD set "The Tomorrow Show: John, Paul, Tom, and Ringo" from the nostalgians at Shout! Factory. While the collection is obviously not a Lennon-only affair, it's his segment that makes the two-DVD package worth owning.

Disc one is a memorial rebroadcast from Dec. 9, 1980 — the day after Lennon was shot — of Tom Snyder's 1975 interview with Lennon, which turned out to be the last TV interview he ever gave, thereafter forgoing music to focus on his family. The 1980 Snyder observes — incorrectly — that the interview isn't "terribly entertaining or enlightening," though he is correct to apologize for the leisure suit he wore during the interview.

Watching Snyder's sonorous yet self-deprecating style and his habit of leaning in toward guests, it's easy to see his influence on his late-night successor, David Letterman, as well as on Keith Olbermann. Reporter Lisa Robinson gives a sweet yet mostly non-treacly account of Lennon's house-husband life, though Lennon's producer Jack Douglas gives the most affecting appearance: tear-filled and numb after a sleepless night, obviously using most of his energy just to keep from losing it.

Snyder spends a few minutes asking Lennon why it took so long for adults to "get" that the Beatles were something special and world-changing. (He also asks this of Paul McCartney on disc two.) Snyder's feeling that you can't know ahead of time who the next Beatles might be may explain why he was big on booking cutting-edge acts like The Ramones and Elvis Costello. (Of course, being on at 1 a.m. kind of guaranteed him the club-going hipster demographic anyway.)

The conversation briefly gets meta when Snyder asks if there's ever anything new in music or if it's all just cyclical, at which point we learn that Lennon liked disco (!) and also reggae ("The newest thing to happen to music in the last five years.").

One amusing highlight is Snyder's roundabout attempts to ask Lennon about having groupies backstage, only to be met by Lennon's deadpan answers that must have raised a few 1975 eyebrows even in late night.

The interview concludes on a surreal note as Lennon's lawyer comes on to answer questions about the government's ongoing attempts to deport him, ostensibly for overstaying his visa. (Lennon was a reliable irritant to President Nixon and would've likely reassumed his gadfly role in the Reagan '80s.)

Asked why he's fighting to stay in a place he's not wanted, Lennon wryly noted, "Because I'd like to live in the land of the free, Tom."

The only essential on disc two is a December 1979 Wings pre-concert satellite interview from London. Linda McCartney alternates between bored and manic while Paul puckishly goofs on Snyder, who at times seems to be in on the joke — though he's definitely clueless when Paul explains what a music video is.

As with many of those early videos, McCartney's included clip for "Spin It On" is delightfully literal: the band members actually twirl around onstage. Sir Paul also sports a Joe Strummer look that's too close to be accidental.

One thing to look for during the McCartney segment is an establishing shot of the London concert hall's marquee: Upcoming shows included Dire Straits, The Jam, The Damned, Queen and The Police. A bright musical future awaited the pop world, but not Wings, whose what-turned-out-to-be-final tour was abruptly clipped three weeks later when Paul's Tokyo airport pot bust saw him arrested, imprisoned and then deported.

The 1981 Ringo Starr interview is mostly useful only for Starr's one-liners. When asked about Yoko Ono's relationship with John, he acidly suggests, "I think you should ask him about that." And in a surreal-in-2008 moment, Snyder actually asks whom Ringo would call at 3 a.m. in an emergency. (Hint: It's not Obama, Clinton or McCain.)

You do feel some sympathy for the guy: a great drummer overshadowed by brilliant songwriting bandmates who is then made to play the dunce in their films. But it's harder when you see the included video for "Wrack My Brain," in which Ringo dresses like a short Freddie Mercury and plays cards with the Mummy and Frankenstein. Plus there's a brain in a jar that looks to have been borrowed from the BBC's vintage "Doctor Who" prop closet.

The Angie Dickinson interview on disc two, which was part of the original Ringo episode broadcast, is completely skippable unless you're curious to know how the backseat sex scene in "Dressed to Kill" was filmed. Even so, this set is still a strong buy, especially for the price ($19.99 list).

Watch it and muse on the twisted irony that Chapman, insanely obsessed with "Catcher in the Rye," somehow chose to kill one of the least phony people imaginable.

Written by Express contributor Paul Stelter