Because of their success during the political convention coverage in 1956, Chet Huntley and David Brinkley were assigned to be co-anchors on the nightly fifteen-minute NBC news program which became "The Huntley-Brinkley Report." I was a fan of John Cameron Swayze's "Camel News Caravan," and so was hesitant about accepting the new team at first.
I was in my early teens and loved music. I usually tuned in for the 6:30-7:00 pm time slot to watch fifteen minutes of Dinah Shore, Eddie Fisher, Nat King Cole or some other popular music star then filling the other fifteen minutes with the NBC news show.
Swayze became a spokesman for Timex. On "The Steve Allen Show" two years later, Swayze strapped a Timex watch to a boat propeller to see if it would "take a licking and keep on ticking." It took a licking and came unattached from the propeller. Viewers still don't know if it "kept on ticking." Maybe Timex knows.
I soon acquired a liking for Huntley and Brinkley, seldom missing their news report. I remember when they made a big to-do about broadcasting from coast to coast simultaneously for the first time. One was in California, the other in New York, making TV broadcast history.
Swayze always ended his broadcast with "Glad we could get together." How Huntley and Brinkley ended theirs became much more famous: With just a simple, "Goodnight, Chet. Goodnight, David."
