Bob McAllister
Encyclopedia
Wonderama
Wonderama was a long-running children's television program that appeared on the Metromedia-owned stations from 1955 to 1986, with WNEW-TV in New York City being its originating station....
.
Early career
Born in PhiladelphiaPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...
, Bob first made his name as a ventriloquist on NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
on the Today Show in the 1950s, while still in his teens. He appeared in 1953 on CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
on Ted Mack
Ted Mack (television host)
Ted Mack , born as William Edward Maguiness, was the host of Ted Mack and the Original Amateur Hour on radio and television....
's Original Amateur Hour
Original Amateur Hour
The Original Amateur Hour is an American radio and television program. The show was a continuation of Major Bowes Amateur Hour which had been a radio staple from 1934 to 1945. Major Edward Bowes, the originator of the program and its master of ceremonies, left the show in 1945 and died the...
and was able to get his first regular television job hosting his own program on WTAR in Norfolk, Virginia
Norfolk, Virginia
Norfolk is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. With a population of 242,803 as of the 2010 Census, it is Virginia's second-largest city behind neighboring Virginia Beach....
. The "Bob and Chauncey Show" paired McAllister with a wise-cracking dummy ("Chauncey").
This led to his being hired on at WJZ-TV
WJZ-TV
WJZ-TV, channel 13, is an owned and operated television station of the CBS Television Network, located in Baltimore, Maryland. WJZ-TV's studios and offices are located on Television Hill in the Woodberry section of Baltimore, adjacent to the transmission tower it shares with four other Baltimore...
Channel 13 in Baltimore, Maryland
Maryland
Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...
in 1963 on The Bob McAllister Show, a half-hour program of comedy character and puppet sketches, magic acts, pantomime, cartoons and sight gags intended to revive the absurd visual surrealism of Ernie Kovacs
Ernie Kovacs
Ernie Kovacs was a Hungarian American comedian and actor.Kovacs' uninhibited, often ad-libbed, and visually experimental comedic style came to influence numerous television comedy programs for years after his death in an automobile accident...
' television work.
The Bob McAllister Show was a big success and led to an offer from WNEW-TV
WNYW
WNYW, virtual channel 5 , is the flagship television station of the News Corporation-owned Fox Broadcasting Company, located in New York City. The station's transmitter is atop the Empire State Building and its studio facilities are located in the Yorkville section of Manhattan...
Channel 5 in New York
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
to host his own program there, where it premiered on September 9, 1968. The New York version of the show was not as successful as the Baltimore broadcast, and time constraints and budget restrictions led to its cancellation on Friday, September 5, 1969, after which it went into reruns.
Wonderama
McAllister was concurrently brought in as host of the syndicated popular show WonderamaWonderama
Wonderama was a long-running children's television program that appeared on the Metromedia-owned stations from 1955 to 1986, with WNEW-TV in New York City being its originating station....
, produced by WNEW-TV, to replace the departing Sonny Fox
Sonny Fox
Irwin "Sonny" Fox is an American television host, executive and broadcasting consultant, who was the fourth full-time host of the children's television program, Wonderama.-Biography:...
. McAllister's version of the show premiered Sunday, August 13th, 1967, and became Metromedia TV
Metromedia
Metromedia was a media company that owned radio and television stations in the United States from 1956 to 1986 and owned Orion Pictures from 1986-1997.- Overview :...
's most popular children's series. It included material similar to that on The Bob McAllister Show with the added attractions of game shows that he selected children in the audience to participate in. These included twisting the tops off cans to see whether snakes or a bouquet of flowers sprung out; the child who opened the sole can with the flowers won the grand prize. Bob gave each snake-receiver a consolation prize — usually a toy or a board game — for answering a trivia question correctly.
The musical theme of McAllister's Wonderama
Wonderama
Wonderama was a long-running children's television program that appeared on the Metromedia-owned stations from 1955 to 1986, with WNEW-TV in New York City being its originating station....
was an orchestral arrangement of the song "I Ain't Down Yet" from Meredith Willson
Meredith Willson
Robert Meredith Willson was an American composer, songwriter, conductor and playwright, best known for writing the book, music and lyrics for the hit Broadway musical The Music Man...
's Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
musical The Unsinkable Molly Brown
The Unsinkable Molly Brown
The Unsinkable Molly Brown is a 1964 American musical film directed by Charles Walters. The screenplay by Helen Deutsch is based on the book of the 1960 musical The Unsinkable Molly Brown by Richard Morris. The song score was composed by Meredith Willson. The plot is a fictionalized account of the...
. Audience children typically waved their arms in a diagonal criss-cross fashion to the beat of the music when it opened and closed each show.
McAllister also hosted reproduced Wonderama
Wonderama
Wonderama was a long-running children's television program that appeared on the Metromedia-owned stations from 1955 to 1986, with WNEW-TV in New York City being its originating station....
shows at various locations, including the Six Flags Great Adventure
Six Flags Great Adventure
Six Flags Great Adventure is a theme park in Jackson Township, New Jersey, owned by Six Flags Entertainment Corp., the world's largest amusement park corporation...
amusement park in Jackson Township, New Jersey
Jackson Township, New Jersey
-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 42,816 people, 14,176 households, and 11,269 families residing in the township. The population density was 427.9 people per square mile . There were 14,640 housing units at an average density of 146.3 per square mile...
, and the Harvard Club of New York
Harvard Club of New York
The Harvard Club of New York is a private club in Midtown Manhattan, New York, New York, USA. Anyone who has attended Harvard University may apply to become a member. Incorporated in 1887, it is housed in adjoining lots at 27 West 44th Street and 35 West 44th Street...
. He also found the time to host a few children's television specials for WNEW-TV during the late 1960s and early 1970s.
The weekday afternoon version of "Wonderama
Wonderama
Wonderama was a long-running children's television program that appeared on the Metromedia-owned stations from 1955 to 1986, with WNEW-TV in New York City being its originating station....
" was not as successful as the original Sunday afternoon/Sunday morning format and was dropped on Friday, August 21, 1970, returning to its Sunday morning schedule where it continued until Sunday Morning, December 25, 1977.
Characters
Characters McAllister played on Wonderama and The Bob McAllister Show included:- The Crazy Magician, whose attempts at magic usually ended in disaster.
- Prof. Fingelheimer, a quirky German-accented inventor who sang a nonsensical but catchy song before showing off his latest contraption:
Fingelheimer, Fingelheimer, Fingel-Dingel-Heimer,(Info on "Prof.Fingelheimer"can be found in article on"The Bob
Fingelheimer, Fingelheimer, Fingel-Dingel-Heimer.
The more you Fingel, the less you Heimer,
The less you Heimer, the more you Fingel.
Fingelheimer, Fingelheimer, Fingel-Dingel-Heimer.
McAllister Show" and on "Wonderama"by Kevin S.Butler at www.tvparty.com)
- A janitor who furnished a can of "instant" whatever and used it to facilitate chores.
- Mike Fury, a superhero who boasted about his supernatural deeds of daring-do and created "explosions" by taking a bite of his "Super Onion" and exhaling forcefully. He also taught children healthy hygienic habits (tooth-brushing, washing, nose-blowing, etc.) by setting a good example for them as "a Goody."
- Zip Code, a Beatnik folk singer
- Salamander Dilly, an artist who stroked a brush across a blank canvas, creating an image through a "blue screen" technique, a superimposed video special effect that gradually "wiped" the image onto the canvas along with the path of the brush. His name was a playful spoof on that of surrealist painter Salvador DaliSalvador DalíSalvador Domènec Felip Jacint Dalí i Domènech, Marquis de Púbol , commonly known as Salvador Dalí , was a prominent Spanish Catalan surrealist painter born in Figueres,Spain....
.
- Seymore the Snake, a puppet providing humorous commentary about the show's zany goings-on.
Other programs
In 1973, McAllister hosted a TV special, Herbie Day at Disneyland, which exhibited Herbie the Love Bug of Walt Disney PicturesWalt Disney Pictures
Walt Disney Pictures is an American film studio owned by The Walt Disney Company. Walt Disney Pictures and Television, a subsidiary of the Walt Disney Studios and the main production company for live-action feature films within the Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group, based at the Walt Disney...
fame before an excited crowd at the Disneyland theme park in Anaheim, California
Anaheim, California
Anaheim is a city in Orange County, California. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city population was about 365,463, making it the most populated city in Orange County, the 10th most-populated city in California, and ranked 54th in the United States...
. This special was produced in conjunction with the personified Volkswagen Beetle
Volkswagen Beetle
The Volkswagen Type 1, widely known as the Volkswagen Beetle or Volkswagen Bug, is an economy car produced by the German auto maker Volkswagen from 1938 until 2003...
's latest feature film, Herbie Rides Again
Herbie Rides Again
Herbie Rides Again is a 1974 comedy film. It is the sequel to The Love Bug, released six years earlier, and the second in a series of movies made by Walt Disney Productions starring an anthropomorphic 1963 Volkswagen racing Beetle named Herbie...
.
In 1975, Monty Hall
Monty Hall
Monte Halperin, OC, OM , better known by the stage name Monty Hall, is a Canadian-born MC, producer, actor, singer and sportscaster, best known as host of the television game show Let's Make a Deal.-Early life:...
, impressed by McAllister, flew him out to Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
to host a pilot for a new game show called Carnival. By all accounts, the pilot was well-done, but it was never picked up as a series.
He was forced to leave Wonderama following the series' Christmas Day 1977 broadcast. In the fall of 1978 McAllister briefly returned to children's television as the host/performer and interviewer of ABC TV's Kids Are People Too!
Kids Are People Too!
Kids Are People Too was a television series that ran on Sunday mornings from 1978 to 1982 on ABC. The series was a variety/news-magazine show oriented towards kids with the intention of recognizing them as people. During its four year run, the series was nominated for five Emmy Awards and won the...
, a show that took its name from the title of McAllister's closing Wonderama theme.
But the show that he was hired to emcee was aimed at teens, not children, and this led to creative disputes with the producers and network executives. In November 1978, Bob McAllister was fired from Kids Are People Too! and he was replaced by Michael Young and later Randy Hamilton as the program's host.
Later years
McAllister would spend the remainder of the 1970s and 80s performing at corporate banquets and picnics and, for a time, served as co-owner of a roller skating rink in Westchester County, New YorkWestchester County, New York
Westchester County is a county located in the U.S. state of New York. Westchester covers an area of and has a population of 949,113 according to the 2010 Census, residing in 45 municipalities...
. He tried a return to children's television with an in-school educational program called Tuned In, produced by WNET
WNET
WNET, channel 13 is a non-commercial educational public television station licensed to Newark, New Jersey. With its signal covering the New York metropolitan area, WNET is a primary station of the Public Broadcasting Service and a primary provider of PBS programming...
for PBS
Public Broadcasting Service
The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
in the early 1980s. He played the teacher, Mr. Graff, who involved his pupils in television production.
Bob received recognition in the magic field with numerous awards, including the prestigious "Magician of the Year" award from the Society of American Magicians
Society of American Magicians
The Society of American Magicians is the oldest fraternal magic organization in the world. Its purpose is "to advance, elevate, and preserve magic as a performing art, to promote harmonious fellowship throughout the world of magic, and to maintain and improve ethical standards in the field of...
.
He died on July 21, 1998 of lung cancer
Lung cancer
Lung cancer is a disease characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissues of the lung. If left untreated, this growth can spread beyond the lung in a process called metastasis into nearby tissue and, eventually, into other parts of the body. Most cancers that start in lung, known as primary...
.