WEBVTT
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Callaroga Shark Media. Hey, I'm Johnny Mac. This is a
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bonus episode.
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This episode's going to be a very very loose Uncle Floyd.
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Floyd Vivino has passed away to age seventy four, So
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to a large portion of view you're like, who's that.
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But if you're from the Tri state New York area,
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you're going to feel this one. I'll share my experiences
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later in the episode because I don't want to at
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all make this about me, but I worked with Floyd
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and new Floyd.
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Floyd's numbers in my phone, but to.
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Catch everybody else up a late night er, I think
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may have done the best obituary of them all.
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They explain.
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Floyd Vivino debuted the Uncle Floyd Show on local cable
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TV in New Jersey in nineteen seventy four, launching the
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program at his own expense. So I'll jump in there.
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Just picture a bear bones TV show, A guy sitting
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at a desk wearing a colorful jacket and a mismat
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colorful hat, and he's got a puppet. The puppet is Ugie,
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and Floyd would stick his hand through the puppet shirt,
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so the puppet's right hand was really Floyd's right hand,
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but it totally worked. It just looked like he was
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kind of snuggling with the puppet, and the puppet would
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speak in a falsetto that also had a thick New
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Jersey accent.
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Ridiculous.
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So I thought about pulling clips, but any clip I pull,
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You're gonna be like, what the heck was that? That
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was crazy? But the charm of the show was how
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low budget it was. It wasn't trying too hard. And
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these are just guys from New Jersey banging this stuff
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out every day and kids like me are watching it.
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Hi, boys and girls, I'm Uncle Floyd. Then this is
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my partner, Ugie.
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Now before we start the show, I should apologize to everyone.
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Ugi is gonna be very upset today.
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You could tell by his face.
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Look at that face, look like, don't start telling everybody.
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I'm fed up. But I'm tired.
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I'm gone again. Get paid around here. I want to
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get paid for my contribution to the show. I want
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my money putting the bank for me. I want it
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putting a trust fund. Why a trust fund? Because I
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don't trust you?
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Love So The Uncle Floyd Show debuted in nineteen seventy four,
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late Night, it writes. The variety show, which was formatted
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as a children's show but often appealed to an adult
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audience with its absurdist humor, featured vivino and sketches, musical numbers,
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puppetry skits, and viewer interaction segments, and then the show
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also featured musical guests. Now, some of the musical guests
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who came on included the Ramones, Blondie and Elvis Costello.
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So where did you find the show? I grew up
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in Queens, New York City. We didn't get cable until
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I think it was nineteen eighty seven. We definitely didn't
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have cable in nineteen eighty six when the Mets won
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the World Series, which as a kid who could see
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Shay Stadium, Home of the Mets out my bedroom window,
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was incredibly frustrating. Here they are the Met's playing a
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mile away, and I can't watch seventy five of the games.
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But I digress.
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So as a kid, I would sit there and play
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with the UACHF button. You know, in the seventies you
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had in New York City two, four, five, seven, nine, eleven, thirteen,
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and then whatever you found on UACHF. So you know,
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One night i'm dialing around, I put on channel thirteen.
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I discovered Monty Python. One night I'm playing with the
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other dial and I think it was channel twenty one,
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the PBS station from Long Island. I find Hitchhiker's Guide
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to the Galaxy. And then on channel sixty eight there
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was the Uncle Floyd Show. Now I don't remember being
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honest here Chicken or the egg for Channel sixty eight
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total side by here. In the days before cable in Queens,
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you could get HBO the HBO man. I'm not still
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sure how this would work. The HBO man would come
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and they would hook some kind of antenna up on
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the apartment building where I lived, and on channel six
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you could subscribe to HBO. But if you slipped the
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cable guy or the HBO guy a couple bucks, you
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would have HBO forever. So my dad may have done that.
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So we had HBO, but other people had something called
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WHT with mech go Home Theater. But the thing about
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WHT is they would show nazy films after midnight. Okay,
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but how did WHT work? I'm going somewhere. Channel sixty
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eight during the daytime was a normal channel. Then at
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some point they would scramble the signal, so you had
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to have a box and the box would de scramble
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the signal so that you could watch movies on WHT
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and they had real movies. It was like an HBO equivalent,
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except on WHT you had the naughty stuff at midnight,
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but it was still over the air, just scrambled. So
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if you were up around midnight and you put on
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U sixty eight, it was scrambled. But if you were
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a young man, occasionally you might see, you know, a
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little scrambled nudity, which was very exciting. So I can't
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remember if I came to channel sixty eight for Floyd
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or if I came to channel sixty eight for the
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you know, the scramble. And I'm not the only one.
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You all know the deal anyway, Uncle Floyd was on
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at six o'clock after s speed Racer. I hated speed Racer.
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Speed Racer sucks, but speed Racer was the thing I
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would stare at killing Thomas six o'clock and then Uncle
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Floyd come on Channel sixty eight for half an hour
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back to late nighter, reaching viewers in the New Jersey
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and New York areas. The Uncle Floyd Show became an
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underground favorite throughout the seventies and eighties. In nineteen eighty two,
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and I've mentioned this too much, Chisholm from The Letterman Show,
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this is the thing that happened. In nineteen eighty two,
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the show expanded its reach around the country with a
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seventeen city syndication deal. In New York, it became part
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of WNBC's late night programming following Saturday Night Live. That
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deal only lasted a year. The Uncle Floyd Show kept
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going in the Tri State area on various cable UHF
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and VHF channels. I don't remember any VHF channels, but
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I won't argue with Late Nighter. The Uncle Floyd Show
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continued into the nineties, the final new episodes in nineteen
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ninety eight. Floyd's brother Jerry posted on Instagram early Friday
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with a heavy heart, I'm sad to announce the passing
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of my brother and everybody's favorite Uncle Floyd Vivino. After
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two and a half year battle with ongoing health issues.
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His curtain peacefully closed at six oh five pm on
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Thursday in January twenty second. Floyd was born in Patterson
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grew up in multiple towns in New Jersey, including Glen Rock,
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where he went to high school. One of his fans,
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David Bowie, said, back in the late seventies, everyone that
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I knew woul rush home at a certain point in the
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afternoon to catch the Uncle Floyd show. He was on
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UHF Channel sixty eight. The show looked like it was
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done out of his living room in New Jersey. All
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his pals were involved in.
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It was a hoot.
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It had that soupy sales kind of appeal and that
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ostensibly aimed to kids. I knew so many people my
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age who just wouldn't miss it. Would be on the floor.
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It was so funny. I loved that show. David Bowie
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said it may have been John Lennon who introduced David
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Bowie to the show. Bowie has a song, slip Away,
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released in two thousand and two. Some of the lyrics
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to slip Away include Oogie waits for just Another Day,
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Oogie is the puppet that I referred to earlier, the
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chorus sailing over Coney Island, twinkled twinkle, Uncle Floyd, We
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were dumb, but you were fun boy. How I wonder,
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How I wonder where you are?
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Oogie Waite for just enough day, Dred Speones.
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To see the Yay kids play.
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Now, I've been doing this. My daughter got me into
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this song of the day thing. You just add a
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song every day to your playlist. That's going on my
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playlist today.
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All right.
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Cripping from Wikipedia here they talk about some of the cast. Now,
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as a kid, we always liked the cast members. There
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was Scott Gordon, but then the other guys had names
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like Muggsy and Netto and Loony Skip Rooney, so it
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was all characters. Floyd would come out, he would do
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the opening bit with oogie, and he would sometimes sing
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these like old timey songs, and some of them were naughty.
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I pulled one and this is a song called shaving Cream.
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And let's let uncle Floyd take the first verse.
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I have a sad story to tell you. It may
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hurt your ears just a bit.
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Last night, as I walked in my bathroom, I.
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Stepped in a big pile of shaving cream.
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Be nice and clean, shave every day and you'll always be.
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In later days.
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From nineteen eighty seven to twenty thirteen, Floyd Vivino broadcast
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on WVIPFM from Newrochelle, New York, where he played a
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wide range of Italian music on a Sunday afternoon program,
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The Italian American Serenade, and that will become relevant to
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my own career in a bit. Floyd claimed to have
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the largest collection of Italian records in the world. In
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twenty thirteen, Uncle Floyd's Garage Sale Music began on WVOX
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fourteen sixty. That show featured an eclectic variety of records
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from Floyd's large personal collection, most of which he found
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in thrift shops, yard sales, and curbside garage piles. In
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twenty thirteen, Floyd began the internet based radio program The
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Uncle Floyd Radio Show, which I did not know existed
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and was streamed twice a week. I just found five
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episodes of what I Think is that on Spotify, so
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you can look that up.
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Let me get the break in.
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What's talk a little more about Uncle Floyd. So I
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knew Uncle Floyd a little bit. I've told you a
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lot of his career and I had a few years
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where we cross paths. So I'm it's serious. And I
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get tagged to work with Stephen van Zandt on something
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called The Wise Guy Show. This was right in the
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middle of Sopranos Mania, and Steven van zandt as you know,
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was on The Sopranos. So Steven had the idea, all right,
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what if we created a radio show that just sounded
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like the Fellas hanging out at the botta, being that
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was the premise of the show. So I worked with
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Stephen Vinnie Pastor, who was Big Pussy on The Sopranos.
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He was the star of the Wise Guys show h
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New York City DJ Joe Causey, who's a great guy.
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He was brought in to be, you know, keep the
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trains on time, try and make this an actual radio show,
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because it was Joe the radio professional, and a bunch
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of people who were not radio professionals. So Joe would
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keep the trains on time, you hat, Vinnie and then
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a bunch of other character actors, including a guy that
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went by the name Cha Cha who appears in the
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later episodes of The Sopranos, Vinnie Vella Giorgano. A lot
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of the like secondary characters on this Pranos would come
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up and do guest spots. So I spent a little
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bit of time just immersed in that world. In all ways,
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I could tell you some stories some other day. But
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at one point I suggested to Steven that we bring
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in uncle Floyd. Now I loved working with Steven van Zanda.
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I'm a big Springsteen fan, but when you work with me,
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I'm also a professional. And I was just saying to
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my wife last night, I don't know why, for some reason,
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Steven's name came up, and I said, I think it
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was five years before I said anything like Bruce or Springsteen.
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It's not why we were there, you know.
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Our relationship was he was Steven, and it was his
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show and his vision, and I was the guy producing it,
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and we just had that relationship. Good guy to work with.
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And I went to him and I go, why don't
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we bring it Floyd? And he was like Floyd, And
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I explained him that Floyd was doing the Italian American
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show and that Floyd could play piano and could bring
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it in a little more entertainment to the show and
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bring in some more laughs because the show was airing
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on one of the comedy channels, and just make the
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show just a touch bit lighter without totally telling the
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original BOTA being premise in. So we brought in Floyd
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and he fit like a glove, because the guys would
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still sit at the table and do their thing, and
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Floyd would sit at the piano, and then Vinnie Pastor
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could throw it to Floyd, who just knew how to
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play all these songs off the top of his head,
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and he could do these really wonderful short bursts. And
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you know, Floyd being a pro, new one to get
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in and new one to get out, and knew his role.
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On any radio show, you want to know your role,
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so he knew what he was there to do, would
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do it and execute flawlessley and then throw the ball
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back to Joe Causey and Vinnie Pasteur. And he was