OT: Frank Avruch dies at 89

[Actual Pats Fan]

Longtime WCVB personality Frank Avruch dies at 89


Our country desperately needs people like him and Fred Rogers...

"Red carpet, you say?"

 

[maust]

RIP "Bozo" possibly the only not so creepy clown I can recall.

 

[captain stone]

Another lost television icon, along with Major Mudd, Rex Trailor, Bunker Hill & Willie Whistle, from my youth spent in Dorchester in the 1960s & '70s.

Time, you are a Thief.

 

[patfanken]

Another lost television icon, along with Major Mudd, Rex Trailor, Bunker Hill & Willie Whistle, from my youth spent in Dorchester in the 1960s & '70s.

Time, you are a Thief.

I grew up in the Franklin Field projects in the 50's and was teaching at the OW Holmes from 69-81. If you were one of my students, that would explain a LOT about your sometimes pessimistic observations.

 

[BlueThunder]

Don't forget Captain Kangaroo !!

 

[RobertWeathers]

The man was a survivor in a brutal industry. God speed.

 

[Patsfanin Philly]

For those too young to have seen it, here's a taste that harkens back to a simpler time.....



I or one of my siblings could be one of those cute cherubs in the studio audience. I know we were on Boomtown and Bozo a few times...

 

[Seacoast Fan]

For those too young to have seen it, here's a taste that harkens back to a simpler time.....



I or one of my siblings could be one of those cute cherubs in the studio audience. I know we were on Boomtown and Bozo a few times...

Loved Boomtown.

 

[maust]

I grew up in the Franklin Field projects in the 50's...

Growing older is unavoidable, growing up is optional. My wife would tell you it's an option I have never exercised. Moments like this sure do serve to remind some of us just how much of that unavoidable has passed though...

 

[XLIX]

 

[RayClay]

I have a Frank Avruch story.Back whenever [70s?] there was a celebration on the common, Public Garden etc.called "First night" [first ever celebration].

All sorts of festivities were planned, but it turned out it was -5 or lower temperature. There was a big hot air balloon, which turned into a ground hugging flapper due to the temp.

We hung out, a lot with some other crazy guys and girls and hit the local packies for bottles of hard stuff [Seagram, jack daniels etc.].

All music, weather balloons etc were cancelled, but eventually, organizers occupied the stage to kick off the first Boston "First night" as best they could.
Filled with anti freeze, we were laughing at the whole effort until the spokesperson introduced, resplendent in tuxedo, Frank Avruch.

Beyond toasted,the blitzed crowd looked around and, recollecting a common childhood, started pitifully, alcoholically, to shout " Bozo, Bozo, Bozo. Poor Frank Avruch could hardly get a word out, but at least he knew, he had made an impact on a generation of Bostonians.

 

[RayClay]

Actually breaks me up.He was a link to a whole other era.

 

[XLIX]

Didn't he host some Candlepin on Saturday afternoons on Channel 5?

ah, Candlepin.... Now there's a sport the rest of the nation just doesn't get....

 

[maust]

Didn't he host some Candlepin on Saturday afternoons on Channel 5?

I remember 'Candlepins for Cash' with that perv Gamere but iirc it was on channel 7

 

[tuckeverlasting]

I remember 'Candlepins for Cash' with that perv Gamere but iirc it was on channel 7

i think that might have been on around 6 or 7 at night during the week. i remember candlepin bowling on the weekends as well. man, that bozo video brings back some memories.

 

[captain stone]

I grew up in the Franklin Field projects in the 50's and was teaching at the OW Holmes from 69-81. If you were one of my students, that would explain a LOT about your sometimes pessimistic observations.

Close; we grew up on a little dead end street between Columbia Road and Bowdoin Street, and attended the Mather school.
We went to only a couple of Bozo tapings at the old WHDH-TV studio at Columbia Circle, but more than a couple Major Mudd tapings, because the old WNAC-TV studio (which is of course now the new WHDH-TV studio) was downtown at Bowdoin Square, so our Irish mom, who didn't drive, could take us there on the train.
We never went to any of the Boomtown tapings at the WBZ-TV studio on Soldiers Field Road, unfortunately, but my wife's brothers did.

 

[captain stone]

I have a Frank Avruch story.Back whenever [70s?] there was a celebration on the common, Public Garden etc.called "First night" [first ever celebration].

All sorts of festivities were planned, but it turned out it was -5 or lower temperature. There was a big hot air balloon, which turned into a ground hugging flapper due to the temp.

We hung out, a lot with some other crazy guys and girls and hit the local packies for bottles of hard stuff [Seagram, jack daniels etc.].

All music, weather balloons etc were cancelled, but eventually, organizers occupied the stage to kick off the first Boston "First night" as best they could.
Filled with anti freeze, we were laughing at the whole effort until the spokesperson introduced, resplendent in tuxedo, Frank Avruch.

Beyond toasted,the blitzed crowd looked around and, recollecting a common childhood, started pitifully, alcoholically, to shout " Bozo, Bozo, Bozo. Poor Frank Avruch could hardly get a word out, but at least he knew, he had made an impact on a generation of Bostonians.

That's a great story, and didn't it seem that most of those First Nights were So Damn Cold?

 

[captain stone]

Didn't he host some Candlepin on Saturday afternoons on Channel 5?

ah, Candlepin.... Now there's a sport the rest of the nation just doesn't get....

That was the great (and Late, sadly) Don Gillis, and you are correct, sir, it was indeed on Channel 5 (both WHDH and WCVB) on Saturdays at noon. And who can forget the Hi-Lo Jackpot if either bowler converted the 1-7-10 split?

 

[Deus Irae]

RIP

And thanks for the memories

 

[Joker]

"All mankinde is of one Author, and is one volume; when one Man dies, one Chapter is not torne out of the booke, but translated into a better language."

a far smarter man than I wrote this...RIP