Floyd Vivino, known to several generations of New York City-area fans (including more than a few rock stars) as local kids TV host Uncle Floyd, died Thursday, January 22, after suffering ill health for nearly three years. He was 74.
His death was announced today by his brother Jerry Vivino, a musician and former member of Conan O’Brien’s late-night house bands. Neither a cause nor place of death was disclosed, but Floyd Vivino had previously spoken in recent years of having a stroke, bladder and prostate cancer and Covid, all in the early 2020s.
“With a heavy heart I am sad to announce the passing of my brother and everybody’s favorite uncle, Floyd Vivino,” Jerry Vivino wrote on Facebook today. “After a 2 and a half year battle with ongoing health issues his curtain peacefully closed at 6:05pm on Thursday January 22nd. Rest in peace big brother. You will be missed, but always remembered by friends, family and your loving fans.”
Vivino hosted the barely-a-budget, New Jersey-based cable program The Uncle Floyd Show from 1974 to 1998, his sly, silly comedic approach – which could be viewed as traditional kiddie show fare or a winking satire of it – was beloved by children and, by the 1980s, admired New York-based hipsters including John Lennon, David Bowie, the Ramones, Iggy Pop and Cyndi Lauper.
Lauper, in fact, once performed on the show, as did Bon Jovi, Squeeze, New York Dolls frontman David Johansen, Blue Öyster Cult, Joe Jackson and Tiny Tim.
In 1981, Bowie attended a live performance of The Uncle Floyd Show at the Bottom Line in Manhattan, with Vivino later recalling the meeting in a New York Times interview, ‘He said John Lennon told him about it.”
In 2002, Bowie paid tribute to Vivino in his song “Slip Away,” included on the rocker’s album Heathen (an earlier version, titled “Uncle Floyd,” was intended for Bowie’s abandoned but much-bootlegged Toy album, which found an official release as part of a box set in 2021). The wistful “Slip Away” lyrics make reference to the show host as well as puppet characters Oogie and Bones Boy:
“Once a time, they nearly might have been
Bones and Oogie on a silver screen
No one knew what they could do, except for me and you
They slip away, they slip away
“Don’t forget to keep your head warm
Twinkle twinkle, Uncle Floyd
Watching all the world and war-torn
How I wonder where you are
Sailing over Coney Island
Twinkle twinkle, Uncle Floyd
We were dumb, but you were fun, boy
How I wonder where you are”
In an interview, Bowie reflected on the inspiration for the song.
“Back in the late ’70s,” he said in 2002, “everyone that I knew would rush home at a certain point in the afternoon to catch The Uncle Floyd Show. He was on UHF Ch. 68 and the show looked like it was done out of his living room in New Jersey. All his pals were involved and it was a hoot. It had that Soupy Sales kind of appeal and though ostensibly aimed at kids, I knew so many people of my age who just wouldn’t miss it. We would be on the floor it was so funny. Two of the regulars on the show were Oogie and Bones Boy, ridiculous puppets made out of ping-pong balls or somesuch … I just loved that show.”
Explaining the song, Bowie once said, “It’s about a television hero in America from the ’70s that myself, and Lennon and Iggy Pop used to watch in the afternoons. Crazy guy, and we were very addled and used to love fooling around watching this guy Uncle Floyd.”
Floyd Vivino (with Oogie) at 2021 New Jersey Chiller Theatre Expo
Bobby Bank/Getty Images
Uncle Floyd, like Soupy Sales before him, was often thought to be a likely influence on later comics who walked the line between kids show homage and parody like Pee-wee Herman and Andy Kaufman.
By the late 1980s Vivino’s popularity skirted wider, mainstream appeal to the point that he was invited to appear opposite Robin Williams in the 1987 hit film Good Morning, Vietnam. In a rare dramatic role, he played Eddie Kirk, a New York disc jockey recruited by Williams’ character to work for the Armed Forces Radio Network in Saigon.
After the movie’s release, Vivino told The New York Times, ”I’m home one day, and I get this call. The guy on the line says that he’s with Touchstone Films and would I consider this part opposite Robin Williams that they’re shooting in Bangkok, Thailand, and can I be on a plane this Thursday?”
Born Florio Vivino in Patterson, New Jersey, on October 19, 1952, Vivino was a child tap dancer in Atlantic City before joining a friend’s pirate radio station while in high school. In 1974, while in his early 20s, he launched his childrens TV show on local Newark, New Jersey, UHF cable channel WBTB, with a small cadre of friends and staffers with whom he’d casually interact while on-air.
Featuring musical guests and a regular cast of puppet sidekicks – most notably the clown-like Oogie and the skeleton child Bones Boy – Uncle Floyd, in his plaid coat and porkpie hat, soon counted a generation of East Coast kids, their parents and a devoted following of New York hipsters. In 1981, punk rockers The Ramones wrote and recorded the song “It’s Not My Place (In The 9 to 5 World” which include a verse paying tribute to some of the band’s apparent heroes:
“Hanging out with Lester Bangs, you all
And Phil Spector really has it all
Uncle Floyd shows on the T.V
Jack Nicholson, Clint Eastwood, 10CC”
By 1986, the local program, under a succession of slightly altered names and varying formats, was seen statewide on Cable Television Network of New Jersey. First run episodes ended in ’92, with CTN showing reruns until 1999. A version of the show aired for a single cycle of episodes in 1998 from an Oakland, New Jersey, cable station.
Outside the show, Vivino made guest appearances on Law & Order, 100 Centre Street and Cosby, and appeared (in a scene later deleted) with Paul Simon in 1980’s One-Trick Pony. He returned as Uncle Floyd for a cameo in Insane Clown Posse’s 2000 movie Big Money Hustlas.
In more recent years, Vivino pivoted to local and internet radio, often playing songs from his beloved collection of Italian music records.
Complete information on survivors was not immediately available, but brother Jerry Vivino wrote on Facebook that family members will hold a private funeral, with a memorial celebration of life to be announced at a later date.
After news of Vivino’s death broke earlier today, New Jersey’s Paterson Mayor Andre Sayegh told the city’s Bergen Record newspaper, “Uncle Floyd was like family to me. My mother laughed at all of his jokes and my wife thoroughly enjoyed his comedic routine. Sadly, one of the funniest Patersonians to ever live has left this life. May Floyd Vivino rest in eternal peace.”
