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Larry:"Who do you know who’s everybody’s pal?”
Audience:
‘ BIG AL’
As on-air sidekick and producer of
Big Al’s Ranch Party the three years bridging the 60s
into the 70s, that was my question to the assembled five
to ten year olds in the studio audience, and their full-
throated response was the daily launch to what was then
the most widely watched after-school show in Southern
Ontario, extending its reach into northern New York, and
lower Michigan.
If there hadn’t been a last minute
change of mind on the part of Hamilton’s CHCH-TV, it’s
very likely that Al would never have come to Kitchener,
and Big Al would never have become synonymous with CKCO.
Al was actually in dry runs at CH
with an upcoming air-date in 1959 when the
powers-that-be made the decision to go instead with
Cap’n Andy. So Al came to Kitchener. CKCO was already on
the air with Wally Walrus, - Sports Director Tom
Rafferty in papier mache Walrus head and flippers, with
sidekick Bob Bestell – so Al joined the Sales staff.
When Tom died, Al was seconded to the time-slot, and Big
Al`s Ranch Party began its 50s-60s-and 70s run.
 Ranch
Party was a live half-hour, 4:30 to 5:00 Monday to
Friday, with a studio audience surrounding Al on camera.
The audience were regulars who made an after-four
beeline to the studio from neighbouring King Edward and
Sacred Heart schools in Kitchener, along with visitors
from through-out the bigger CKCO viewing area
celebrating birthdays and other special occasions –
Westons supplied an iced birthday cake daily, for the
featured cake draw.
The show was a mix of interaction
with Al recognizing those with birthdays, (more than
once leaving a warm, wet mark on Al`s lap), audience
participation games, cartoons, drop-in guests – volunteers
from the K-W Humane Society with prospective pets were
regulars – and talented youngsters booking in from
Collingwood to Niagara to Windsor, singing, dancing, and
reciting under direction of their teachers, or under
their own initiative. Among the regular and
semi-regulars were multi-talented Dierdra King of
Kitchener; the Warrington family – Mom, Dad, and kids -
from Collingwood, who made a day of it entertaining at
KW Hospital as well as appearing with Big Al;
an
eleven year old with a spot-on imitation of Phyllis
Diller enjoyed a regional mini-career as a result of her appearances on ‘Big Al’;
and magician Bobby Breadner, from Waterloo, who
successfully springboarded pre-teen appearances on `Big
Al` into a lucrative national career in his later teens
and twenties, before opting to run the family business
in lieu of a life in entertainment. The talent segments
of the show were eventually spun off into the Sunday
noon-hour Big Al’s Talent Showcase, and an annual
Christmas Showtime special.
On Ranch Party Al was backed by
studio musicians George Kadwell, originally, then Pat
Ludwig. Bob Bestell made the transition as sidekick from
Wally Walrus, succeeded by Marnie Wharnsby in cowgirl
costume, then by Genie Kraatz as ‘Big Alice’, and in
turn, myself, as Larrio - the name Al came up with when
I was assigned to the Ranch Party as producer with the
on-air support role and back-up as needs be on his
noon-hour Cartoon Capers.
Cartoon Capers, with Al first in a
western-theme set, then in railway station set with
opening train engine video filmed at Kitchener’s CN
station, interspersed cartoons with viewers’ birthday
pictures and drawings which Al painstakingly mounted on
picture boards, saving the postmarked envelopes for the
PR department which mapped them as proof of viewership –
backing up the numbers that gave Al 50% of the viewing
audience in a twelve-station market for both his after
school and his noon hour shows. Al consistently outdrew
CH’ Cap’n Andy, Buffalo’s Dave Thomas on Rocketship 7
and Tom Jolls as Commander Tom, CBC’s Misterogers, later
Friendly Giant, Maggie Muggins and Razzle Dazzle, all in
the same time slots.
 Out
of the studio, Al was CKCO’s man about Western Ontario,
on call for appearances in parades, at fairs, and other
promotional events, which included handing out
Hallow’een candy to trick-or-treaters who showed up at
CKCO studios. His two sequined costumes, one red, one
blue, were tailored by the famous Nudies of Hollywood.
The red convertible came from Harvey Krotz Ford in
Listowel, which then supplied all of CKCO’s vehicles.
The trademark Texas Longhorn steer horns on the hood
were assembled by a leather-working friend of mine in
Chicago.
Al’s career in entertainment began
in the Hungry 30s as a depression-era drummer working
gigs across Canada, evolving eventually into time sales
with emerging Northern Ontario radio stations, with MC
roles and talent promotion on the side. Betty Thompson
once recalled to me that her initial public appearance
was as an 8-year old with Big Al at the Aragon in
Peterborough. Throughout his years in Kitchener, Al,
through connections with Toronto agencies, regularly
supplied talent for any number of area organizations
looking for entertainers.
Away from CKCO, Al was regularly
spotted at HiWay Market in Kitchener, while he, wife,
Gerry, and daughter, Kathy, did the family shopping.
Gerry was a vivacious French Canadian red-head from Fort
Colounge on the Ottawa River. Al’s father, a widower,
retired CNR conductor, lived with them in their south
Kitchener home. Pat Ludwig, coincidentally, was their
next door neighbour.
Al left CKCO for retirement in the
late-70s, his health becoming problematic and eventually
requiring bouts of hospitalization. At his funeral, in
his eulogy, Rev. Grant McDonald of St Andrew’s
Presbyterian Church, stated Al’s death was truly the end
of an era, his passing the closing of a chapter in the
lives of the generation for whom Al was ‘everybody’s
pal’, who now with families of their own, fondly
regarded him as an key figure in their growing up, and,
more widely, of life in Southern Ontario and television
in 50s, 60s, and 70s. True. Three and four decades after
those years, I frequently meet individuals who recall
proudly how they were once ‘on Big Al’.
Thanks to Larry
McIntyre for these memories of Al and the show. If
you have any memories you wish to share please forward
them to the address below. |
