I always had him on my interview wish list, but never got around to interviewing him. The great former WCFL jock (and the original Svengoolie) Jerry G. Bishop has passed away at the age of 77. Robert Feder has all the details.
I once interviewed his Svengoolie successor, Rich Koz, and this is what he said about Bishop, the man who gave him his big break:
The job with Jerry actually came about when he was leaving WFLD after they cancelled his Svengoolie show - he was in talks with NBC for both radio and TV, and he thought enough of me to try and get me involved as part of his team for the radio side. He did some fill in at WMAQ, with me filling the afore-mentioned sidekick/producer/goofball role- and, when they brought him in full time- first, in afternoon drive, then in morning drive- I went along for the ride.
It was a great gig, other than having to get up so early for the morning show- we’d ride in, going over the papers, and he’d read something about Dean Martin, and say-“let’s do a bit on this- you be Dean!” I’d write stuff and be about 85% of the characters and “celebrities” that called in- I’d write song parodies for him, invent new bits, and we’d do sponsored commercials as bits- for example, I played the president of a lumber/home improvement chain, playing him as a sort of dopey guy, in a running series of live read commercials, and they went over really well.
Plus, on Monday mornings, when the show started an hour earlier than usual, for a while, Jerry had me do that first hour by myself! Jerry was the best--very generous, and, as I’ve always said, the guy who’s responsible for me getting into the broadcasting business…so blame him!
In the mid seventies, someone at a local TV station had approached Jerry G. about maybe doing a summer gig reviving his Svengoolie character. At that time, Jerry felt he didn’t really want to do so, part of the reason being that he was thinking that- someday- he might actually want to run for a political office- and didn’t want his opponent holding up pictures of him as Sven saying “THIS is my worthy opponent?!” But- he already felt confident enough in me that he suggested that I could be the Sven character- as “Son of Svengoolie”- and he would produce and write it with me.
We had some false starts on it, and it didn’t really go anywhere- until Jerry was about to leave for the west coast, and asked what I planned on doing. I said I might try to pitch a TV show to local stations- and he said that, if I wanted to try and do the Son of Sven bit, he’d give me permission. It’s a long story, but, it finally ended up at WFLD- with me doing the Son of Svengoolie- in my original audition, I looked exactly like Jerry’s character, but, since they felt that looked too dated, I devised the look that finally premiered.
My character was pretty much based on how Jerry played the character, layered on my own personality, with the accent being, as Jerry puts it “Bela Lugosi crossed with Lawrence Welk!” I did the character there for 6 and a half years- and, even after that, was requested to do the character for appearances, radio and TV guest gigs- right up until I came to WCIU.
When I was taking the job here, Jerry was in town, and we talked about it- I mentioned that, even by the end of my WFLD run, there were people who said “SON OF Svengoolie? Who’s Svengoolie?”-and that I thought I might shorten the name or something. Jerry said –“I tell you what- you’re all grown up now- just be Svengoolie!” It was nice of him to hand over usage of the name to me.
