WMUR

[Doug Drown]

>I have often wondered whether Uncle Gus actually hated kids or if parents 
>who brought kids to be in the audience of a low-budget TV show generally
raised brats.

I don't know about Uncle Gus Bernier, but there is a long-standing urban 
legend (that has been going around Massachusetts for at least 35 years) to 
the effect that "Big Brother" Bob Emery on WBZ-TV couldn't stand children
and was once heard to make an exceedingly nasty remark about them one day 
before his mike had been turned off.
I've never quite believed it; I was on the show once I when I was a little 
kid and he seemed like a heck of a nice guy.  A friend of mine from my 
college days, who was raised in Needham, swears it's true and that he heard 
Emery say it.

. . . And then there's the story about Channel 5's Bozo (Frank Avruch) and 
the squirrel joke.  We won't get into that.

(Donna, can you confirm or deny any of this ---?)

-Doug


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bud Yacomb" <outofthebusiness@gmail.com>
To: <boston-radio-interest@lists.BostonRadio.org>
Sent: Monday, March 24, 2008 10:33 AM
Subject: RE: WMUR


>I have often wondered whether Uncle Gus actually hated kids or if parents
> who brought kids to be in the audience of a low-budget TV show generally
> raised brats.
>
> Uncle Gus was hysterical; its major prop was an outline of the United 
> States
> and Gus would call kid after kid up to the desk to try to identify each of
> the several states.  Years later when the Uncle Floyd show became popular 
> on
> NJPTV, it evoked many memories of Uncle  Gus.
>
> And, of course, when I saw him doing the Atlantic weather, this fit with
> Frank Avruch as Bozo and recognizing his voice as a station announcer, and
> Captain Bob also giving art lessons on Dateline: Boston, and Bill 
> Harrington
> as Nozo, a TV/radio news reporter, and husband of Romper Room's Miss Jean.
> This led to a theory that kids' show hosts were in it for the fun and had
> other employment where they made actually money, as opposed to being paid 
> in
> giant Tootsie-pops and Butchie-boy grab bags.