Irv. Danny. Van. Carol. The men and women who’ve watched and listened to have become family enough that we only need their first names. Buffalo has a deep and rich broadcasting history. Here are some of the names, faces, sounds and stories which have been filling Buffalo’s airwaves since 1922.
Scroll to read more about Buffalo’s Radio & TV History from one of WNY’s most counted upon broadcasting historians or search for a specific person or station…
Buffalo, NY – When Jim Fagan was inducted into the Buffalo Broadcasting Hall of Fame, I sat with him and we went through dozens of his photos and mementos from his decades in radio– from his days as a disc jockey at Buffalo’s old WINE Radio in the 50s, to his decades as a newsman at WKBW.
When he showed me this photo as a clipping from the Tonawanda News, he beamed with pride at being photographed with Hubert Humphrey.
Congressman Thaddeus Dulski, Jim Fagan, Viced President Hubert Humphrey, and EC Dem Chair Joe Crangle. 1968.
“A good guy, a really good guy,” Jim said, his unmistakable voice trailing off.
Jim died this week, and everyone who knew him, felt about him the same way he felt about Hubert Humphrey. He was just a really good guy. Let perpetual light shine upon him. May he rest in peace.
Nolan Johannes asking some lucky viewer at home, “Do you know the count and the amount?” (Buffalo Stories archives)
“A lot of friendliness and little schmaltz seem to work just fine for ‘Dialing for Dollars’,” wrote News Critic Gary Deeb in 1971, by which time, the show had already been a midmorning mainstay on Channel 7 for seven years.
Nolan Johannes on the set of “Dialing for Dollars,” inside WKBW-TV’s Main Street studios. (Buffalo Stories archives)
Nolan Johannes came to WKBW-TV in May 1964 — and by the end of the year, was the permanent host of the brand new “Dialing for Dollars.” His first co-host was Liz Dribben, who left Channel 7 to eventually join CBS in New York as a writer for such luminaries as Walter Cronkite and Mike Wallace.
Liz Dribben and Nolan Johannes sitting on the hood of a car offering a word from our sponsors.
The half-hour show grew to 90 minutes, and in 1969, weatherman and “Rocketship 7” host Dave Thomas joined Johannes as co-host.
Nolan Johannes and Dave Thomas (Buffalo Stories archives)
Aside from phone calls trying to give away money, the show was filled with interviews of the everyday women in the audience, twice-weekly exercise tips from UB’s Dr. Len Serfustini, syndicated features from “The Galloping Gourmet” Graham Kerr and “Fashions in Sewing” with Lucille Rivers.
And even nearly 40 years after the show went off the air, most Buffalonians of a certain age will be able to recall without hesitation the names of the guys in the “Dialing for Dollars” band — Jimmy and Johnny.
Jimmy Edwin, drums, and Johnny Banaszak, accordion, on the set of Dialing for Dollars. Banaszak was also the man inside the Promo the Robot costume on Rocketship 7. (Buffalko Stories archives)
In 1978, Thomas left Channel 7 for Philadelphia, and “Dialing for Dollars” was reformatted to become “AM Buffalo.” Johannes left Channel 7 in 1983 to become a news anchor in Scranton, Pa. Johannes died in 2015 at the age of 81.
In September, 2016, Thomas returned to his hometown for Johannes’ posthumous induction in to the Buffalo Broadcasting Hall of Fame. Thomas was inducted in 2001.
The concept of the American Teenager as we know it today is a relatively new one.
(Buffalo Stories archives)
In the simplest of terms, after decades of economic depression and war, young people of the late 1940s had less responsibility, more economic freedom and a growing segment of pop culture being cultivated to employ and take advantage of that free time and free cash.
For 70 years, more mature generations have been panning the choices of teenage girls and especially the fervor with which they make those choices. The names change, but from Frank Sinatra to Justin Bieber, rigid-minded adults can’t understand all the swooning over (some singer) with (some bizarre haircut, bizarre dance, etc.).
Frank Sinatra sang with Tommy Dorsey Orchestra and his popularity exploded when he became a singing front man himself. His young fans, bobbysoxers, were the first teenagers to swoon in force at the voice of a matinee idol and singing sensation. In Buffalo, radio programs and downtown shoe sales were targeted directly to bobbysoxers just after the war. (Buffalo Stories archives)
By 1964, American fuddy-duddies had withstood the waves of bobbysoxers and Elvis’ wagging hips — but the arrival of a moppy-headed quartet of singers from England took the genre up another notch.
If there’s a start date for Beatlemania, you might choose Feb. 9, 1964 — the date of the band’s first appearance on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” About 60 percent of American televisions were tuned to the performance of the nation’s No. 1 top single, “I Want to Hold Your Hand.”
Immediately, adults started to try to make sense of the mania.
In a matrix that has repeated itself time and time again as American Pop Culture has evolved, the aversion to the Beatles was just as strong as the fanaticism of their young followers.
What was it about the Beatles? everyone seemed to want to know. Was it the haircuts, asked the Courier-Express’ “Enquiring Reporter” of Western New York high school students?
One boy from Cardinal O’Hara High School was convinced that it was “The Beatles’ weird looks more than their musical ability” that made them popular. Many others agreed, but said it was the combination of talent and different looks that made the Beatles “just far out.”
Whether you loved the Beatles or hated them, they were clearly a growing economic force to be reckoned with.
It wasn’t just with the expected idea of record sales at places like Twin Fair, more staid institutions such as AM&A’s were offering “The Beatle Bob” in their downtown and branch store beauty salons. Hengerer’s was selling Beatles records and wigs.
A month after the group’s first appearance on Ed Sullivan, a couple of doors down from Shea’s Buffalo, the Paramount Theatre sold out a weekend’s worth of closed-circuit showings of a Beatles concert.
Girls scream for The Beatles on the big screen at the Paramount Theatre, March, 1964. (Buffalo Stories archives)
Eighteen uniformed Buffalo Police officers were hired to help keep the peace among the more than 2,500 teens who showed up to watch the show at the Paramount, which was hosted by WKBW disc jockey Joey Reynolds. The only slight hint of misbehavior on the part of Beatles fans came when the infamous rabble-rouser Reynolds declared on the stage, “I hate the Beatles!” and he was pelted with jellybeans.
Beatlemania continued at a fever pitch through all of 1964 and 1965.
The Mods, formerly “The Buffalo Beetles” from Buffalo Teen News magazine. (Buffalo Stories archives.)
Local bands like the Buffalo Beetles, later renamed the Mods, enjoyed popularity and even their own records on the radio. After the July, 1964 release of The Beatles’ first film “A Hard Day’s Night,” the summer of 1965 saw the release of the Beatles’ second movie, “Help!,” which opened at Shea’s before moving onto the smaller theaters and the drive-ins.
The Beatles also played a concert at Toronto’s Maple Leaf Gardens in August 1965. There were at least a couple of dozen Buffalonians in attendance courtesy of the WKBW/Orange Crush Beatles caravan, hosted by Danny Neaverth.
Buffalo Stories archives
Sixteen-year-old Jay Burch of Orchard Park High School described Beatlemania from the midst of it in 1964 this way: “The Beatles’ singing is OK, but it’s the haircuts and dress that make them standouts. … The Beatles are different. They got a good gimmick and made it work.”
Many of Buffalo’s Beatles dreams finally came true on Oct. 22, 2015, when Paul McCartney made his first appearance in Buffalo, singing songs that many in the audience had first heard 51 ½ years earlier for the first time on a Sunday evening with Ed Sullivan.
Paul McCartney during his 2015 show at First Niagara Center. (Sharon Cantillon/Buffalo News)
In every era of Buffalo television, there have been local commercial pitchmen who’ve left us wondering if maybe we should go read a book. While the usually low budget spots become grating when they play over and over, like most things familiar — they become fun to remember when they’re gone.
Jim Pachioli was the owner and raspy-voiced pitchman for Factory Sleep Shop. He was often seen in energy-filled TV commercials wearing boxing gloves as he delivered the company slogan, “Nobody beats us, we guarantee it!”
The commercials weren’t great, and Pachioli knew that. “I think it’s a bad commercial,” he told The News in 1985. “But if it’s bad, they remember.”
If you were near a Western New York TV set in the early ’80s, you couldn’t avoid the TV spots. Factory Sleep Shop, reported News Critic Alan Pergament, was spending about $35,000 every month on television ads.
“Not since car dealer Dan Creed looked into the camera and said ‘Shame on you,’ has one local television commercial gotten so much mileage,” wrote Pergament in 1983.
Pachioli admitted in an interview with News reporter Jane Kwiatkowski that while he was embarrassed when people told him his commercials were terrible, the pain was eased when those words came as the people where buying a mattress from him. He was on the floor of his shop 12 hours a day, six days a week. A Buffalo guy who came from a poor family, Pachioli was proud of the business he built and operated from 1960 until his death in 1999.
Having spent my early formative years in front of televisions in Buffalo living rooms in the late ’70s and early ’80s, at least half of the viewing choices (and most of my favorite shows) came from north of the border. We didn’t get cable on Allegany Street in South Buffalo until I was in kindergarten or first grade at Holy Family, so it was 2, 4, 7, 17, 29 and whatever the rabbit ears could bring.
Behind the scenes at the Uncle Bobby Show with Bimbo the Birthday Clown, 1976. (Buffalo Stories archives)
I was part of a generation caught between ample kids’ TV in Buffalo. Rocketship 7 closed up shop when Dave Thomas flew off to Philadelphia in 1978. Commander Tom was still a staple — but only on weekend mornings. Channel 29 offered a wide array of cartoons, but most were C-grade when they were new 20 or 30 years earlier.
“Heckle & Jeckle,” “Casper the Friendly Ghost,” “Mighty Mouse,” and “The Tales of The Wizard of Oz” were all in heavy rotation on WUTV, and that probably would have been fine had a little dial switching and tin foil scrunching not brought the glow of Canadian magic into our early mornings.
In the same way we look on in awe at toddlers’ mastery of smart phones and tablets, adults must have marveled at my skills in using the big clunky separate 2-13 VHF and 14-82 UHF dials and well as my ability to manipulate the foil-covered rabbit ear antennas.
Through the wavy technicolor lines and hissing audio of bad reception, we became adoring fans of programs that might as well have come from another solar system with planets named Etobicoke, Saskatchewan, Peterborough and New Foundland.
Some of my earliest TV memories involve waking up early before my parents, grabbing an apple for my brother and myself, and, in the darkness of a 1981 morning, trying to tune in Channel 9 to catch the 6:30 a.m. start of the Uncle Bobby Show.
Even with the advent of the social media and the proliferation of web-based nostalgia for just about everything, I’m fascinated by the numbers of Buffalonians within 10 years of my age either way who have no memory of “The Uncle Bobby Show” — until they watch.
And somehow, from somewhere deep inside their consciousness, they sing the “Bimbo the Birthday Clown” song along with the YouTube clip — flabbergasted and a bit weirded out by how they know it.
My memory of “The Uncle Bobby Show” was that it was on early in the morning, but it aired during the noon hour for most of the show’s run on CFTO-TV Channel 9. I’ve written extensively about Uncle Bobby and even interviewed him once, but the undisputed king of Canadian children’s television remains “Mr. Dressup.”
Mr. Dressup, Casey and Finnegan held the 10:30 a.m. timeslot on CBC’s Channel 5 through most of four decades. The show was a part of my preschool life, and like many Buffalonians, was a part of most sick days on the couch, home from school.
In my house, we had our own “tickle truck,” much like Mr. Dressup’s. It was an old cardboard case for beer bottles — Schmidt’s, I think. We drew flowers on it and filled it with hats, sunglasses and some of my ol’ man’s old ties.
The only squabble anyone in my house ever had with “Mr. Dressup” was my mother. Many episodes would end with Mr. Dressup making lunch for Casey and Finnegan. This would naturally lead to us feeling hungry and looking for lunch as well.
“Maybe they eat at 11 at Mr. Dressup’s house,” I remember my saintly mother saying, “but in our house we eat lunch at noon.” Or, in TV-speak, after “The Price Is Right.”
Since the show was around for so long, and in the same time slot, most of us don’t have much problem remembering Mr. Dressup. Not as much the case for another show with a similarly long run, which bounced around into different time slots.
“The Friendly Giant” was a low-key show that invited you to “look up … waaaaaay up,” a few different times per episode, including when the Friendly Giant himself would set out dollhouse furniture for us kids watching at home to sit in.
There was “a rocking chair for someone who likes to rock,” which lead to more than one fight in my house over who would get to sit in that rocking chair if we ever made it to the Friendly Giant’s castle.
A list like this wouldn’t be complete without a mention of CHCH-TV Channel 11’s “Hilarious House of Frankenstein.”
From what I can tell, during the time when I was watching this stuff, this show was up against Uncle Bobby, and I think I’ve made my allegiances perfectly clear.
While I don’t have clear memories of watching this show, I do have clear memories of seeing Vincent Price in Chips Ahoy! commercials in the mid-’80s and trying to ask my friends if they remember him from “that show.” I’ve long since been used to blank stares from friends.
Finally, there’s “Sesame Street” — which is about as American as it gets. But we Buffalonians were among the very few who became trilingual through Sesame Street.
When Goldie wasn’t asking us to bring our mommies to the TV, we learned to count to 10 in Spanish by watching “Sesame Street” on WNED-TV Channel 17. Many of us learned some French, too, by watching “Sesame Street” on CBC’s Channel 5 from Toronto.
Aside from “the letter ‘zed’ ” and swapping Spanish for French, there were a few other differences with Canada’s Sesame Street. For example, if you remember attempting the Japanese art of origami after watching Sesame Street, you were watching that day on Channel 5, not 17. These origami pieces were created for Canadian audiences.
It’s of little surprise, then, after having grown up on Canadian kids’ shows, that as adults we would watch more hockey and drink more Labatts than any other city in the country.
Early morning TV in Buffalo, 1976. Buffalo Stories archives.
They were two of Buffalo’s favorite up-and-coming announcers and emcees during the 1930s on the Buffalo Broadcasting Corp.’s WGR Radio.
When The Buffalo Evening News wanted to wrestle away WGR’s top rating for its own station, WBEN, it was Clinton Buehlman (left) and Smilin’ Bob Smith (right) they hired.
Buehly and Smith, along with Johnny Eisenberger (who was later better known as Forgetful the Elf), were lifelong friends who grew up together on Buffalo’s East Side. When they were brought to WBEN from WGR in 1943, Buehlman hosted the early morning show and Smith did mid-mornings.
In between their own programs, they co-hosted “Early Date at Hengerer’s,” live from the downtown department store.
“Early Date” at Hengerer’s, WBEN. (Buffalo Stories archives)
While Buehlman’s pace was fast and his persona was slapstick, Smilin’ Bob was more laidback and homespun. He caught the ear of NBC executives in New York City looking to build a team for the network’s Big Apple flagship station.
Bob Smith, WBEN. (Buffalo Stories archives)
Shortly after Smith left WBEN for the New York’s WEAF Radio in 1946, longtime News and Courier-Express radio critic Jim Trantor wrote:
“Buffalo’s Smilin’ Bob Smith, who’s become one of NBC’s fair-haired boys on the New York scene … is going great guns at the head of a television show for youngsters down there and looks to have just about the rosiest future imaginable.”
The show, of course, was Howdy Doody, and Smith was destined to become one of the great early stars of television.
There were smiles all around at the Statler Hilton on Election Day 1967. Buffalo Common Council President Chester Gorski (left) and Buffalo City Comptroller George O’Connell (right) had both just been re-elected to another term.
Buffalo News archives
The photo shows Gorski and his wife Helen, Erie County Democratic Party Chairman Joe Crangle, and O’Connell and his wife Beatrice.
Gorski was the father of Dennis Gorski, who served as Erie County Executive (1988-99), and is currently Cheektowaga Town Justice. The elder Gorski was also the father of Jerome, the now-retired State Supreme Court and Appellate Court justice.
Chester Gorski served in Congress from 1949-51 and as Buffalo’s Common Council President from 1960-74.
George O’Connell was Buffalo Comptroller from 1962 until his death in 1975. Among his seven children are Buffalo Theatre founder and actress Mary Kate O’Connell and longtime television weathercaster Kevin O’Connell, who is expected to retire soon from WGRZ-TV.
Television wasn’t even 3 years old in Buffalo when this photo was snapped inside WBEN-TV’s “Studio D” on the 18th floor of the Hotel Statler in 1951.
Buffalo News archives
Channel 4 was still Buffalo’s only television station, and its offerings of live, locally produced dramas were among the most popular shows that The News-owned station broadcast.
This one in particular, “The Clue,” is perhaps the best remembered. It was written and directed by Buffalo theater icon Fred A. Keller, and it starred Evening News Radio-TV columnist Jim Trantor as Private Eye Steve Malice. He can be seen in the scene wearing a hat.
It wasn’t long before local dramas were pushed off local stations around the country as networks began creating more high quality content for those stations to use.
Through the 1980s and ’90s, there were dozens of featured news anchors on Channel 2, but two of the most popular remain Rich Kellman and Laurie Lisowski. They were paired on the anchor desk at 5 p.m. in 1990.
Buffalo News archives
While Channel 2 was nearly wall-to-wall in the third-place news basement during Rich Kellman’s 32 years at the station, he was always a bright spot as ownership and other on air faces changed.
A reporter’s reporter with a slew of Emmy statues weighing down his mantle, Kellman’s strengths have always been in showing empathy without being sappy, being sensitive while still getting answers, and just being a human, friendly person in a medium where that can’t be taken for granted.
In her seven years at WGRZ, Lisowski was paired with no fewer than five co-anchors. She came to Channel 2 in 1989 after weekend duty at Channel 7, and within a year was replacing Alison Rosati as the station’s primary female anchor, on the desk for the 5 p.m. news with Kellman and the 11 p.m. news with Don Postles.
News critic Jeff Simon called her short-lived pairing with Nick Clooney as good as the best in Buffalo TV news history. The father of George and brother of Rosemary, Clooney was only in Buffalo for four months in 1994 before he left for a job with cable TV’s American Movie Classics channel. Lisowski also worked alongside Ed Caldwell and Marty Aarons taking turns reading the WGRZ TelePrompTer.
Since leaving the anchor chair in 1996, Lisowski has appeared as a spokesperson for a handful of local businesses — but most visibly for Frey Electric, her husband’s family company.
When 28-year-old Carol Crissey came to Buffalo at the tail end of the 1970s, her resume boasted a working knowledge of four languages (German, Spanish, French, plus Greek and Latin) and four instruments (cello, guitar, oboe and piano).
Buffalo News archives
Leaving Buffalo 25 years later, she was Buffalo’s pre-eminent and “most watchable” news anchor.
Often described as “elegant” in the pages of The News by reporters and critics, readers also voted Carol as the “Sexiest Woman in Western New York” several years running in the late ’90s.
With Kevin O’Connell, 1990. (Buffalo News archives)
Carol was there as the world and the world of TV news became increasingly less misogynistic. At stodgy, stuffy old Channel 4, where until recently the TV news anchors hadn’t changed much since the ’50s, Carol was the first woman to anchor the news regularly on weeknights. It was news — glimmer of hope for humanity variety — when she signed a contract that would allow her to anchor the news into her 40s.
“There was a time when I thought I wouldn’t have a job in my mid-30s,” she told News Critic Alan Pergament in 1987. “When I started in broadcasting in 1973 … women weren’t allowed to age on television.”
Another glass ceiling was broken when she signed a contract that would send her into our homes at 6 and 11 past her 50th birthday.
“Isn’t it wonderful?” she reflected in 1998. “When I heard that women in their mid- to late 40s were considered very valuable, it did my heart very good. I’m told it’s because baby boomers are watching other baby boomers.”
Through the 23 years she worked at WIVB-TV, Carol Jasen (who is noe known as Carol Crissey-Nigrelli) anchored at various times the noon, 6 and 11 p.m. newscasts with a long list of co-anchors. Her first assignment was co-anchoring with John Beard in 1980, then Bob Koop in 1981, Kevin O’Connell in 1990, Don Postles in 1993, and occasional stints with Rick Pfeiffer, Rich Newberg and Kathy Polanko, among others.
On set with Bob Koop, 1986. (Buffalo News archives)
Through most of those years, Carol and her co-anchor were No. 2 in the ratings, as the less theatrical alternative to Irv, Rick and Tom on Channel 7. After one late ’80s ratings jump closed the gap with Eyewitness News, News Critic Anthony Violanti prophesied, “Move over Uncle Irv. Here comes Aunt Carol.” After Irv Weinstein’s retirement in 1998, Carol and Channel 4 took over the No. 1 spot until she retired and beyond.
With Jasen becoming Buffalo’s most popular and longest-tenured news anchor with Weinstein gone, in Irv’s book– handing the hairspray-can-baton over to Carol seemed to be as good a choice as any.
“Carol is not only one of the best anchors, she’s also got class,” Weinstein said upon Carol’s induction to the Buffalo Broadcasting Hall of Fame. “We were competitors, but we were enemies who thoroughly respected each other.”
Buffalo News archives
Carol retired from TV news in 2002 and married former Channel 4 reporter Craig Nigrelli, who is now a news anchor in Omaha. Looking at television news today, she’s glad she played her part when she did.
“If I was a success at Ch. 4,” she told News critic Jeff Simon in 2011, “it was because I was surrounded by professionals. The anchors, producers, reporters and photographers all had years of experience. In the age before the Internet, every newsroom had walking, talking encyclopedias who could tell you the history of the city, the history of an issue, the movers and shakers in town — and they were willing to teach anyone who was new.”
By Steve Cichon
