Ex-WLLH Personality Ed McMahon Has Passed Away

[Kevin Vahey]

I met Ed McMahon a few times and he was a nice guy.

First when I was 11 he posed for a picture outside the Little Theater
where he was working with Johnny on a daytime game show for ABC

Then later in the 60's I would try and get standby tickets for the
Carson show and found out if you grabbed him at the Walgreens lunch
counter at 30 Rock he would get you in for the taping as in those days
it wasn't a hard ticket.

Most memorable was somehow the infamous WXPO-TV was able to get him to
co host the Lowell Holiday Festival Parade with a another Lowell radio
personality who I think was Tom Clayton. We didn't have a mobile truck
so poor Ed was perched on a fire escape on the side of the Dutton St
building overlooking the diner and Merit Station while I am trying to
shoot the parade.

Years later I saw him in Burbank and he remembered that fiasco well
and told me he still had the check from WXPO because it bounced. But
he also gave me the thrill of a lifetime as he brought me backstage to
meet Johnny and Carson laughed hysterically at the whole parade story.