Speaker 1: Callaroga Shark Media. Hey, I'm Johnny Mac. This is a
Speaker 1: bonus episode.
Speaker 2: This episode's going to be a very very loose Uncle Floyd.
Speaker 2: Floyd Vivino has passed away to age seventy four, So
Speaker 2: to a large portion of view you're like, who's that.
Speaker 2: But if you're from the Tri state New York area,
Speaker 2: you're going to feel this one. I'll share my experiences
Speaker 2: later in the episode because I don't want to at
Speaker 2: all make this about me, but I worked with Floyd
Speaker 2: and new Floyd.
Speaker 1: Floyd's numbers in my phone, but to.
Speaker 2: Catch everybody else up a late night er, I think
Speaker 2: may have done the best obituary of them all.
Speaker 1: They explain.
Speaker 2: Floyd Vivino debuted the Uncle Floyd Show on local cable
Speaker 2: TV in New Jersey in nineteen seventy four, launching the
Speaker 2: program at his own expense. So I'll jump in there.
Speaker 2: Just picture a bear bones TV show, A guy sitting
Speaker 2: at a desk wearing a colorful jacket and a mismat
Speaker 2: colorful hat, and he's got a puppet. The puppet is Ugie,
Speaker 2: and Floyd would stick his hand through the puppet shirt,
Speaker 2: so the puppet's right hand was really Floyd's right hand,
Speaker 2: but it totally worked. It just looked like he was
Speaker 2: kind of snuggling with the puppet, and the puppet would
Speaker 2: speak in a falsetto that also had a thick New
Speaker 2: Jersey accent.
Speaker 1: Ridiculous.
Speaker 2: So I thought about pulling clips, but any clip I pull,
Speaker 2: You're gonna be like, what the heck was that? That
Speaker 2: was crazy? But the charm of the show was how
Speaker 2: low budget it was. It wasn't trying too hard. And
Speaker 2: these are just guys from New Jersey banging this stuff
Speaker 2: out every day and kids like me are watching it.
Speaker 1: Hi, boys and girls, I'm Uncle Floyd. Then this is
Speaker 1: my partner, Ugie.
Speaker 3: Now before we start the show, I should apologize to everyone.
Speaker 1: Ugi is gonna be very upset today.
Speaker 3: You could tell by his face.
Speaker 1: Look at that face, look like, don't start telling everybody.
Speaker 2: I'm fed up. But I'm tired.
Speaker 1: I'm gone again. Get paid around here. I want to
Speaker 1: get paid for my contribution to the show. I want
Speaker 1: my money putting the bank for me. I want it
Speaker 1: putting a trust fund. Why a trust fund? Because I
Speaker 1: don't trust you?
Speaker 2: Love So The Uncle Floyd Show debuted in nineteen seventy four,
Speaker 2: late Night, it writes. The variety show, which was formatted
Speaker 2: as a children's show but often appealed to an adult
Speaker 2: audience with its absurdist humor, featured vivino and sketches, musical numbers,
Speaker 2: puppetry skits, and viewer interaction segments, and then the show
Speaker 2: also featured musical guests. Now, some of the musical guests
Speaker 2: who came on included the Ramones, Blondie and Elvis Costello.
Speaker 2: So where did you find the show? I grew up
Speaker 2: in Queens, New York City. We didn't get cable until
Speaker 2: I think it was nineteen eighty seven. We definitely didn't
Speaker 2: have cable in nineteen eighty six when the Mets won
Speaker 2: the World Series, which as a kid who could see
Speaker 2: Shay Stadium, Home of the Mets out my bedroom window,
Speaker 2: was incredibly frustrating. Here they are the Met's playing a
Speaker 2: mile away, and I can't watch seventy five of the games.
Speaker 1: But I digress.
Speaker 2: So as a kid, I would sit there and play
Speaker 2: with the UACHF button. You know, in the seventies you
Speaker 2: had in New York City two, four, five, seven, nine, eleven, thirteen,
Speaker 2: and then whatever you found on UACHF. So you know,
Speaker 2: One night i'm dialing around, I put on channel thirteen.
Speaker 2: I discovered Monty Python. One night I'm playing with the
Speaker 2: other dial and I think it was channel twenty one,
Speaker 2: the PBS station from Long Island. I find Hitchhiker's Guide
Speaker 2: to the Galaxy. And then on channel sixty eight there
Speaker 2: was the Uncle Floyd Show. Now I don't remember being
Speaker 2: honest here Chicken or the egg for Channel sixty eight
Speaker 2: total side by here. In the days before cable in Queens,
Speaker 2: you could get HBO the HBO man. I'm not still
Speaker 2: sure how this would work. The HBO man would come
Speaker 2: and they would hook some kind of antenna up on
Speaker 2: the apartment building where I lived, and on channel six
Speaker 2: you could subscribe to HBO. But if you slipped the
Speaker 2: cable guy or the HBO guy a couple bucks, you
Speaker 2: would have HBO forever. So my dad may have done that.
Speaker 2: So we had HBO, but other people had something called
Speaker 2: WHT with mech go Home Theater. But the thing about
Speaker 2: WHT is they would show nazy films after midnight. Okay,
Speaker 2: but how did WHT work? I'm going somewhere. Channel sixty
Speaker 2: eight during the daytime was a normal channel. Then at
Speaker 2: some point they would scramble the signal, so you had
Speaker 2: to have a box and the box would de scramble
Speaker 2: the signal so that you could watch movies on WHT
Speaker 2: and they had real movies. It was like an HBO equivalent,
Speaker 2: except on WHT you had the naughty stuff at midnight,
Speaker 2: but it was still over the air, just scrambled. So
Speaker 2: if you were up around midnight and you put on
Speaker 2: U sixty eight, it was scrambled. But if you were
Speaker 2: a young man, occasionally you might see, you know, a
Speaker 2: little scrambled nudity, which was very exciting. So I can't
Speaker 2: remember if I came to channel sixty eight for Floyd
Speaker 2: or if I came to channel sixty eight for the
Speaker 2: you know, the scramble. And I'm not the only one.
Speaker 2: You all know the deal anyway, Uncle Floyd was on
Speaker 2: at six o'clock after s speed Racer. I hated speed Racer.
Speaker 2: Speed Racer sucks, but speed Racer was the thing I
Speaker 2: would stare at killing Thomas six o'clock and then Uncle
Speaker 2: Floyd come on Channel sixty eight for half an hour
Speaker 2: back to late nighter, reaching viewers in the New Jersey
Speaker 2: and New York areas. The Uncle Floyd Show became an
Speaker 2: underground favorite throughout the seventies and eighties. In nineteen eighty two,
Speaker 2: and I've mentioned this too much, Chisholm from The Letterman Show,
Speaker 2: this is the thing that happened. In nineteen eighty two,
Speaker 2: the show expanded its reach around the country with a
Speaker 2: seventeen city syndication deal. In New York, it became part
Speaker 2: of WNBC's late night programming following Saturday Night Live. That
Speaker 2: deal only lasted a year. The Uncle Floyd Show kept
Speaker 2: going in the Tri State area on various cable UHF
Speaker 2: and VHF channels. I don't remember any VHF channels, but
Speaker 2: I won't argue with Late Nighter. The Uncle Floyd Show
Speaker 2: continued into the nineties, the final new episodes in nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety eight. Floyd's brother Jerry posted on Instagram early Friday
Speaker 2: with a heavy heart, I'm sad to announce the passing
Speaker 2: of my brother and everybody's favorite Uncle Floyd Vivino. After
Speaker 2: two and a half year battle with ongoing health issues.
Speaker 2: His curtain peacefully closed at six oh five pm on
Speaker 2: Thursday in January twenty second. Floyd was born in Patterson
Speaker 2: grew up in multiple towns in New Jersey, including Glen Rock,
Speaker 2: where he went to high school. One of his fans,
Speaker 2: David Bowie, said, back in the late seventies, everyone that
Speaker 2: I knew woul rush home at a certain point in the
Speaker 2: afternoon to catch the Uncle Floyd show. He was on
Speaker 2: UHF Channel sixty eight. The show looked like it was
Speaker 2: done out of his living room in New Jersey. All
Speaker 2: his pals were involved in.
Speaker 1: It was a hoot.
Speaker 2: It had that soupy sales kind of appeal and that
Speaker 2: ostensibly aimed to kids. I knew so many people my
Speaker 2: age who just wouldn't miss it. Would be on the floor.
Speaker 2: It was so funny. I loved that show. David Bowie
Speaker 2: said it may have been John Lennon who introduced David
Speaker 2: Bowie to the show. Bowie has a song, slip Away,
Speaker 2: released in two thousand and two. Some of the lyrics
Speaker 2: to slip Away include Oogie waits for just Another Day,
Speaker 2: Oogie is the puppet that I referred to earlier, the
Speaker 2: chorus sailing over Coney Island, twinkled twinkle, Uncle Floyd, We
Speaker 2: were dumb, but you were fun boy. How I wonder,
Speaker 2: How I wonder where you are?
Speaker 4: Oogie Waite for just enough day, Dred Speones.
Speaker 1: To see the Yay kids play.
Speaker 2: Now, I've been doing this. My daughter got me into
Speaker 2: this song of the day thing. You just add a
Speaker 2: song every day to your playlist. That's going on my
Speaker 2: playlist today.
Speaker 1: All right.
Speaker 2: Cripping from Wikipedia here they talk about some of the cast. Now,
Speaker 2: as a kid, we always liked the cast members. There
Speaker 2: was Scott Gordon, but then the other guys had names
Speaker 2: like Muggsy and Netto and Loony Skip Rooney, so it
Speaker 2: was all characters. Floyd would come out, he would do
Speaker 2: the opening bit with oogie, and he would sometimes sing
Speaker 2: these like old timey songs, and some of them were naughty.
Speaker 2: I pulled one and this is a song called shaving Cream.
Speaker 2: And let's let uncle Floyd take the first verse.
Speaker 1: I have a sad story to tell you. It may
Speaker 1: hurt your ears just a bit.
Speaker 3: Last night, as I walked in my bathroom, I.
Speaker 2: Stepped in a big pile of shaving cream.
Speaker 3: Be nice and clean, shave every day and you'll always be.
Speaker 1: In later days.
Speaker 2: From nineteen eighty seven to twenty thirteen, Floyd Vivino broadcast
Speaker 2: on WVIPFM from Newrochelle, New York, where he played a
Speaker 2: wide range of Italian music on a Sunday afternoon program,
Speaker 2: The Italian American Serenade, and that will become relevant to
Speaker 2: my own career in a bit. Floyd claimed to have
Speaker 2: the largest collection of Italian records in the world. In
Speaker 2: twenty thirteen, Uncle Floyd's Garage Sale Music began on WVOX
Speaker 2: fourteen sixty. That show featured an eclectic variety of records
Speaker 2: from Floyd's large personal collection, most of which he found
Speaker 2: in thrift shops, yard sales, and curbside garage piles. In
Speaker 2: twenty thirteen, Floyd began the internet based radio program The
Speaker 2: Uncle Floyd Radio Show, which I did not know existed
Speaker 2: and was streamed twice a week. I just found five
Speaker 2: episodes of what I Think is that on Spotify, so
Speaker 2: you can look that up.
Speaker 1: Let me get the break in.
Speaker 2: What's talk a little more about Uncle Floyd. So I
Speaker 2: knew Uncle Floyd a little bit. I've told you a
Speaker 2: lot of his career and I had a few years
Speaker 2: where we cross paths. So I'm it's serious. And I
Speaker 2: get tagged to work with Stephen van Zandt on something
Speaker 2: called The Wise Guy Show. This was right in the
Speaker 2: middle of Sopranos Mania, and Steven van zandt as you know,
Speaker 2: was on The Sopranos. So Steven had the idea, all right,
Speaker 2: what if we created a radio show that just sounded
Speaker 2: like the Fellas hanging out at the botta, being that
Speaker 2: was the premise of the show. So I worked with
Speaker 2: Stephen Vinnie Pastor, who was Big Pussy on The Sopranos.
Speaker 2: He was the star of the Wise Guys show h
Speaker 2: New York City DJ Joe Causey, who's a great guy.
Speaker 2: He was brought in to be, you know, keep the
Speaker 2: trains on time, try and make this an actual radio show,
Speaker 2: because it was Joe the radio professional, and a bunch
Speaker 2: of people who were not radio professionals. So Joe would
Speaker 2: keep the trains on time, you hat, Vinnie and then
Speaker 2: a bunch of other character actors, including a guy that
Speaker 2: went by the name Cha Cha who appears in the
Speaker 2: later episodes of The Sopranos, Vinnie Vella Giorgano. A lot
Speaker 2: of the like secondary characters on this Pranos would come
Speaker 2: up and do guest spots. So I spent a little
Speaker 2: bit of time just immersed in that world. In all ways,
Speaker 2: I could tell you some stories some other day. But
Speaker 2: at one point I suggested to Steven that we bring
Speaker 2: in uncle Floyd. Now I loved working with Steven van Zanda.
Speaker 2: I'm a big Springsteen fan, but when you work with me,
Speaker 2: I'm also a professional. And I was just saying to
Speaker 2: my wife last night, I don't know why, for some reason,
Speaker 2: Steven's name came up, and I said, I think it
Speaker 2: was five years before I said anything like Bruce or Springsteen.
Speaker 1: It's not why we were there, you know.
Speaker 2: Our relationship was he was Steven, and it was his
Speaker 2: show and his vision, and I was the guy producing it,
Speaker 2: and we just had that relationship. Good guy to work with.
Speaker 2: And I went to him and I go, why don't
Speaker 2: we bring it Floyd? And he was like Floyd, And
Speaker 2: I explained him that Floyd was doing the Italian American
Speaker 2: show and that Floyd could play piano and could bring
Speaker 2: it in a little more entertainment to the show and
Speaker 2: bring in some more laughs because the show was airing
Speaker 2: on one of the comedy channels, and just make the
Speaker 2: show just a touch bit lighter without totally telling the
Speaker 2: original BOTA being premise in. So we brought in Floyd
Speaker 2: and he fit like a glove, because the guys would
Speaker 2: still sit at the table and do their thing, and
Speaker 2: Floyd would sit at the piano, and then Vinnie Pastor
Speaker 2: could throw it to Floyd, who just knew how to
Speaker 2: play all these songs off the top of his head,
Speaker 2: and he could do these really wonderful short bursts. And
Speaker 2: you know, Floyd being a pro, new one to get
Speaker 2: in and new one to get out, and knew his role.
Speaker 2: On any radio show, you want to know your role,
Speaker 2: so he knew what he was there to do, would
Speaker 2: do it and execute flawlessley and then throw the ball
Speaker 2: back to Joe Causey and Vinnie Pasteur. And he was
Speaker 2: able to hang with those guys, and when they were
Speaker 2: getting a little rough and tumble, some of them were
Speaker 2: character actors who may have been more characters than actors,
Speaker 2: if you know what I mean, Floyd could hang with them,
Speaker 2: and then Floyd could sit at the piano. A late
Speaker 2: night er, UH dusted off an interview they did with
Speaker 2: Chris Gethard, also a Jersey guy, who said, Uncle Floyd
Speaker 2: is probably, in my mind, the most underappreciated entertainer of
Speaker 2: recent memory. He was huge for me. He's kind of
Speaker 2: cut from a different cloth. He's very versatile. He's absolutely
Speaker 2: a genius. There's a number of people in comedy, especially
Speaker 2: if they grew up in the Northeast, who really obsess
Speaker 2: over Uncle Floyd. A lot of people who think differently
Speaker 2: point to Floyd to someone who was doing stuff that
Speaker 2: was really original, really hilarious, and really pure, like really
Speaker 2: cracked open from his own brain and it didn't always
Speaker 2: make sense, but boy, it was effing awesome. So if
Speaker 2: you're from the New York City ish New Jersey area,
Speaker 2: you get it. And if you're not from around here,
Speaker 2: this is the first time you're hearing of this guy.
Speaker 2: I hope I was able to bring a little bit
Speaker 2: of how awesome Floyd was to you. There are clips
Speaker 2: on YouTube, but it's one of those things that you
Speaker 2: had to be there, and if you were there, it
Speaker 2: was awesome. Uncle Floyd's gonna take us out here. Rest
Speaker 2: in peace, Floyd Vivino. Uncle Floyd and the crazy hissing
Speaker 2: you hear is, of course an inflatable dinosaur.
Speaker 1: Boys and Girls.
Speaker 3: This is my last show here on New Jersey Network,
Speaker 3: and that's.
Speaker 1: All there is.
Speaker 3: There is no more. My contract has not been renewed
Speaker 3: here at New Jersey Network. I thank everybody for so
Speaker 3: many nice times. But we'll meet again, as we always
Speaker 3: say whenever we're going, will meet again.
Speaker 1: Don't know where, don't know when, but.
Speaker 3: I know will meet again some nonny days. Keep smiling through,
Speaker 3: just like you always do, till the blue skies chase
Speaker 3: the dark clouds so far away.
Speaker 1: So won't you please say hello to the folks that
Speaker 1: I know. Tell them I won't be long. They'll be
Speaker 1: happy to know that. As you saw me go, I
Speaker 1: was singing this song.
Speaker 3: Will need again, Don't know where, don't know when.
Speaker 1: That I know will need again.
Speaker 3: So see you day
Speaker 4: M hm