1/21/2008
I have neglected to mention an incident that occurred on this week’s Svengoolie show- and that is- the walking-off the show of Qwerty, the tarantula web master in our mail segments. The eight-legged, multi-voiced varmint, feeling he was under-appreciated and not liked by the Sven audience, did as Jack Paar (leaving the Tonight Show) and Regis Philbin (leaving the Joey Bishop show) did- and walked off the program- actually, kind of “rappelled” off, rising out of camera range on his piece of fishing line- I mean, his silk web strand. Unlike Ed the bat, he was NOT fire by our station vice-president and general manager- Qwerty opted to exit on his own terms.
The feeling here is that he just never caught on- unlike the famed mail dinosaur, or the “Wacky Dactyl from WOOO in Berwyn,” the public did not seem to enjoy his presence- and Seemed even less to favor his strange habit of having as many different voices as he had legs (maybe even more, by my count)- though some fans seemed to enjoy his “Peter Lorre” voice, or, in smaller numbers, his “Ralph Kramden” voice.
His “Hulk Hogan” voice would seem to have been before its time, what with the Hulkster now calling the action on “American Gladiators.” (That remind me of an old joke- the teacher asks anyone in the class to use the word “gladiator” in a sentence. Little Timmy says, “A crocodile ate my sister, and I’m gladiator.” Now THAT’S comedy…)
I used to enjoy having my musical sidekick Doug Graves do the mails segments with me, but his busy schedule of various gigs pretty much makes that impossible these days. I’ll never forget when we were doing a mail segment back in our original WCIU studio (the same one where “Soul Train” began) back in the Chicago Board of Trade building-and we were suddenly surrounded by smoke, as a small spotlight located just below us caught fire! Also entertaining were a few segments Doug did with the old ventriloquist doll Durwood, in which the dummy managed to crack Doug up!
So- who might do the mail with me in the future? Should I just go it alone, and have my questions answered by our many sound effects? I know that Tombstone doesn’t seem to be available to do the mail segments, or we’d have used him a long time ago. Someone her brought up the possibility of having the new Sven look-alike ventriloquist dummy created by Alex Ross- my “brother” Fraido- join me, but it might be hard for me to hold the mail- and him- at the same time.
Any suggestions? Send them to svengoolie @ wciu.com
The feeling here is that he just never caught on- unlike the famed mail dinosaur, or the “Wacky Dactyl from WOOO in Berwyn,” the public did not seem to enjoy his presence- and Seemed even less to favor his strange habit of having as many different voices as he had legs (maybe even more, by my count)- though some fans seemed to enjoy his “Peter Lorre” voice, or, in smaller numbers, his “Ralph Kramden” voice.
His “Hulk Hogan” voice would seem to have been before its time, what with the Hulkster now calling the action on “American Gladiators.” (That remind me of an old joke- the teacher asks anyone in the class to use the word “gladiator” in a sentence. Little Timmy says, “A crocodile ate my sister, and I’m gladiator.” Now THAT’S comedy…)
I used to enjoy having my musical sidekick Doug Graves do the mails segments with me, but his busy schedule of various gigs pretty much makes that impossible these days. I’ll never forget when we were doing a mail segment back in our original WCIU studio (the same one where “Soul Train” began) back in the Chicago Board of Trade building-and we were suddenly surrounded by smoke, as a small spotlight located just below us caught fire! Also entertaining were a few segments Doug did with the old ventriloquist doll Durwood, in which the dummy managed to crack Doug up!
So- who might do the mail with me in the future? Should I just go it alone, and have my questions answered by our many sound effects? I know that Tombstone doesn’t seem to be available to do the mail segments, or we’d have used him a long time ago. Someone her brought up the possibility of having the new Sven look-alike ventriloquist dummy created by Alex Ross- my “brother” Fraido- join me, but it might be hard for me to hold the mail- and him- at the same time.
Any suggestions? Send them to svengoolie @ wciu.com
0 TrackBacks
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: 1/21/2008.
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.wciu.com/blogs/mt-tb.cgi/24
Leave a comment