3/22/2007

The e-mails just keep coming at svengoolie@wciu.com (not to mention svenonu@aol.com - for those of you who e-mail the first, and have it bounce back, try the second )-and there’s always stuff I’d like to share with you guys. First- once again, for some reason, we have been inundated with requests to have us mention a birthday, an anniversary, etc. Much as I would love to help make these special days even more special for you Sven fans- we don’t do birthdays. Or anniversaries. Or personal checks (no, wait, that’s our t-shirts.) The reason? Well, as I may have mentioned before, it goes back to my “Son of” days at WFLD. We mentioned birthdays on air, and the list got longer and longer each week- eventually, we’d have Tombstone read the list while it ran on the screen- while a thrill for those listed, it made for some pretty boring tv for everybody else. Then, we put two and two together and realized that a major portion of these names were not really birthdays- they were just people who wanted to hear their names on television. So- it became safer to not do them. Also, it ends up being unfair to mention some, but , if we don’t have time, or we get it too late, not to mention others. That reminds me of something else- there are times when we’re shooting shows way ahead of their airdate, due to our production schedule-and we’d get the request after the show was taped already. So- please- don’t ask us to acknowledge birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, etc. Exceptions may occur once in a great while, and even then, I know it’s not a good idea. So-let this be my official personal congratulations to you on these occasions. Hope you have a great (fill in the blank.) On to another topic- Dave, who I met at a recent appearance, and whose son Alex dressed as a very nice replica of yours truly, asked if I had ever heard this rumor, which was a huge urban legend at Homewood’s Willow School back when he was a kid. The rumor was that Svengoolie, then Jerry G. Bishop, had been banned from tv for- get this- cooking a hamster in a microwave oven during a “live” broadcast. Obviously, this never happened (I don’t even think channel 32 HAD a microwave oven back then in the early 70s, not that Jerry ever would have used it for that purpose.) I had never heard that story before, but wondered if it was confused with the story/rumor that Cleveland’s “the Ghoul” was once suspended/kicked off the air for blowing up a live frog with a firecracker. Not sure that ever happened either, although the Ghoul did love to blow up stuff, supposedly. Maybe it’s one of those rumors/urban legends like the one that sprang up in every city that had a Bozo show…hmmm…I’m running out of room here, so let’s pick this up tomorrow!