The Uncle Floyd Show

This show started on a UHF channel back in the 70's and was so bad it was good. If you like Mystery Science Theater without the movies, or Saturday night live without the fractional effort at professionalism,and the haphazard style of The Soup on E!, you will love Uncle Floyed. It was a parody of children's shows, like Sesmae street and Magic Garden which were still relatively new at the time. Floyd Vivino hosted using colorful characters and puppets. The audience was always supposed to be adults. It took on cult attraction as people waited for Looney Skiproony and BabaBooy. It is a slice of life from a time now gone. It still takes me back to some happy memories. I truly wonder if anyone born in the last 20 years can appreciate it.

You know, to be honest, I can't really remember this show very well, other then it was one of my favorite shows on television when I was young. I so remember Oggie, I was such a big fan my brother made me a clay bust of him.

Whenever the show came on, I would run around the house screaming "it's the uncle Floydy show!" Another plus was that is was on right around the time Doctor Who was. So I was always watching that waiting for my favorite show to come on.

I saw Uncle Floyd recently and I was really suprised about how little I remembered from it. But still, I have enough vague childhood memories relating to it to last a lifetime~

The longest running local show in New Jersey history, Uncle Floyd was a hilarious local New Jersey TV show that aired most of the 1970s. It's a spoof of 1950s variety shows and their awful vaudeville humor, with a cast of charming burnout dudes acting as the guests, dressed in costumes they look like they brought from home. The memorable howling "laugh track" is courtesy of whatever rowdy cast members are off camera, and the whole show was filmed in front of a cardboard-brown wall with viewer-drawn pictures tacked to it. Also, crummy, scary puppets such as "Cuppy," a monstrous dadaist creation in a Yankees nightshirt with a cup for a head are frequent guests. The awe-inspiring chutzpah of Floyd Vivino was the driving force of this madness. The Ramones were big fans. Conan O'Brien has said this was one of his favorite shows, and if you like the demented skits on Conan, Uncle Floyd is right up your alley. Floyd Vivino (Uncle Floyd) also plays a mean piano, and in September of 1999, he set the Guinness record for non-stop piano playing at 24 hours and 15 minutes.

The Uncle Floyd Show was transmitted on a UHF channel from New Jersey. Uncle Floyd and his merry pranksters gave the appearance of being a bunch of friends having a good time. Floyd's talents were in his imitations, his accents, his humor, his ability to laugh along with his silly cast and to make fun of them. This tape compiles some of the funniest bits. This was a very very low budget show that worked as the humor came through. After getting this tape and being in a state of non stop laughing I showed it to my daughter who watched it in the 80's and she remembered it and laughed along. My son who was born in 1985 seeing it for the first time laughed uproriously. Floyd could play that piano. I won a trip to Wild West City and there was Floyd on the piano. My daughter's birthday was announced on the show. The extension of Floyd's hand was Oogie the smartest, most sarcastic puppet who was a riot. Looney Skip Rooney laughing off camera was contagious. The other cast members looked like regular guys and the comraderie was great. This tape translates that. Buy it if you ever saw Uncle Floyd and buy it if you haven't. Anyone who liked Soupy Sales or Mad Magazine will be at home.

Someone told me about this TV show that very underground that was being shown on a UHF station. My friend told me that there were cool bands to see and that it was really a show for adults because of the many dirty and off the cuff jokes that were made. Needless to say, I saw the show and was hooked on it. Part of the show always seem to have Uncle Floyd singing and playing the piano to some song. I used to love it when Uncle Floyd would sing "Pennies from Heaven" and the cast would throw real pennies at him and he would duck while singing. Some of the skits were really off the wall. I remember the skit "The Dull Family", where the cast would dress up as red necks and debate if they should turn on the TV. Just my two cents here, I think that the fascination that so many people had with this show was the bad production. The show in the beginning of it's run had only one camera and it was not uncommon to have something fall down or apart while the cast was doing a skit. As teenagers we would just start laughing at things like that. The fact that it was a NJ show was important as well. Keep in mind that NJ has always had an identity crisis. In northern NJ, we watch New York stations because New York City is not far away and it's news media has always been criticized for not reporting enough on NJ. So to watch a home grown TV show like Uncle Floyd seem to be a special treat. It was like your own underground TV program that you could watch that promoted and made fun of New Jersey. I miss you Uncle Floyd.