My lovely Wife, Liz, surprised me to no end on my recent birthday not only with a "Fudgie The Whale" Ice Cream Cake from the Carvel Ice Cream store, but with an awesome gift. A DVD of "The Best of the Uncle Floyd Show". Uncle Floyd was a big part of my teenage years in New Jersey. The show typically started out with Floyd and his puppet pal, Oogie, doing an opening monologue. Check out Oogie in action below:
Castmember Mugsy recollects: "For twenty-five years the Uncle Floyd Show has been entertaining the masses and eradicating the blues, if only for a half hour a day, five days a week, 52 weeks a year. In a place in people's hearts not unlike Johnny Carson, Floyd was welcomed into millions of homes each night. Leading a weird bunch of misfits and even stranger puppet pals, the Floyd program was definitely an exception. It was a show that brought people together when everything else in the world was driving them apart. It was a show that parents could watch with children, husbands with wives. Teenagers would watch in one house and senior citizens in another. A show you might talk about the next day in school or work. Where the signs of status and success meant getting a picture on the wall or even Viewer of The Week!"
Mugsy sadly passed away after battling lung cancer in October 2005.
Floyd is a phenomenal piano player. He would play old-time Dixieland and Vaudeville favorites, songs that you typically had never heard before, but you loved all the same. In 1999, Floyd set the Guinness World Record for Continuous Piano Playing where under the watchful eyes of the Guinness judges, he played he piano for 24 hours and 15 minutes!
I might add that Hugo was a staple on the Floyd Show long before Pee-Wee Herman added "Hugo" to his act. In fact, watching Pee-Wee's original HBO special will remind you quite a bit of the Uncle Floyd Show for some strange reason.
Another of Mugsy's hilarious puppet creations is "Cuppy", a headless baby doll with a paper coffee cup for a head. Click on the clip below to see "Cuppy" in action:
Go find out for yourselves how ingenious and hilarious this local, no-budget television show was.
Thanks, Liz, for bringing Uncle Floyd back to me!
Monday, August 14, 2006
The Uncle Floyd Show
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3 comments:
Nice writ up on Floyd.
Drop me an email with a mailing address and I'll send you a couple of DVD's.
webmaster[at]unclefloyd.com
Patrick Mirucki
one of my best friends father is uncle floyed vivino, i get all free stuff from him because im one of her friends, and living in jersey of course i love itt!
I am trying to contact Uncle Floyd in particular and any close friend of Mugsy, I went to Jr. and Senior High School with him. We were very good friends but I lost track of him over the years. I recently learned of his passing which sadden me greatly. I have many funny stories about Mugs and would like to share them and would also like to hear what Mugsy was like in his older years. His comic genuis showed even as a kid and he entertained us as for many hours with his wit and antics. I can be reached at 603 934 1369 during the day if anyone would like to call. You can email me at sommajj@wattsind.com. I would love to hear from you. Mugsy was a special guy and I'm glad he made so many laugh.
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