Posted on 11/02/2005 11:32:39 AM PST by HitmanLV
When Craig Dexter Calame, better known as Mugsy on TV's "Uncle Floyd Show," died Monday night at 56, he went out like a showman.Some 20 friends, including Floyd Vivino himself and many alumni from the show, came to Mugsy's bedside at his Hackensack home to say farewell.
"We all knew it was time," said colleague David Burd, who was Artie Delmar on the show. "We came to his bedroom, said what we had to say, and gave him a standing ovation. We said our goodbyes and left the room. Fifteen minutes later, he was gone."
Mr. Calame, who battled cancer on and off for more than 10 years, was one of the cutups who helped make "The Uncle Floyd Show," which began on Channel 68 in 1974, an underground phenomenon for more than 20 years - and not just in New Jersey.
John Lennon and David Bowie were reportedly Floyd fans - they caught the show late at night in their hotel rooms.
Abetting Floyd, with his porkpie hat, bow tie and honky-tonk piano stylings, and a constellation of guest rock bands (Jon Bon Jovi, Cyndi Lauper and The Ramones all made appearances) was a raucous supporting cast: among them Netto, Oogie the puppet, Looney Skip Rooney, Michael T. Wright, Charlie Stoddard and Scott Gordon. And Mugsy.
"He was a great writer, a great creative mind and the nicest, biggest-hearted guy you could ever meet," Wright said.
A guitarist and percussionist, Mr. Calame brought his musical as well as comedic talents to the show. But one of his greatest talents, Burd recalls, was causing a ruckus.
"When Floyd was playing piano, he would sneak under the cameras and poke him in the [butt] with a stick," Burd said. "He was the 'bad boy' of the Floyd show."
Originally from West Orange, Mugsy got his nickname because of the red "Bowery Boys" cap he wore, which made him look like a gangster. He never liked his real name, friends recall.
"He would call himself Chris," Burd said. "He called himself a lot of things. He was upset that people would pronounce his last name 'Calamay' so he dropped the 'e' and said it was 'Calam.' He had girlfriends who never knew his real name."
On the show, one of Mugsy's specialties was impersonating rock stars and parodying their songs. He came up with characters like Willie Half-Nelson, Tom Waste and Bruce Stringbean years before "Weird Al" Yankovic arrived on the scene.
He also wrote original songs, Burd recalls:
"You tried to make me love you
You knew just what to do
You threw away all your lipstick
And started using Crazy Glue
And now I'm stuck on you, baby ... "
"He was as morose as possible, Mr. Gloom and Doom," Burd said.
"He could always find the cloud in any silver lining. But he had this little-boy sense of humor. When he had the opportunity to disrupt things, play pranks, that's when he came alive."
After "The Uncle Floyd Show" went off the air, Mugsy created his own cable TV show, "The 11th Hour."
Coincidentally, his friends say, that was precisely the hour he died Monday night.
"He kept saying, in his last days, 'I'm so lucky, so lucky to have all these people around me,'Ÿ" Wright recalled. "He hardly had any family. We were his family."
Mr. Calame was married twice.
Visitation is today from 2 to 4 and 7 to 9 p.m. at Kiernan Funeral Home, 101 Union Ave., Belleville. The funeral service is at 8 p.m.
How sad. What a great show that was!!! One of the best things on TV in the late-seventies, early-eighties. The musical parodies were hilarious. I had the pleasure of seeing it live when they took the show on the road during the mid-to-late eighties. Rest in Peace Mugsy.
Young fella. A shame. 'The Uncle Floyd Show' is a genuine classic - I wish I had more of it in my collection. all I have is one commercially released DVD with 2 hours worth of skits.
Thanks for the laughter, Mugsy!
You don't have the DVD???????
I have the DVD - it's excellent but makes me hungry for a few hundred more hours of Floyd & the gang!
I wish Floyd performing 'Deep in the Heart of Jersey' was on the DVD! :-)
Does anyone have any old vhs tapes?
"We don't care about Stamford, AND, we don't care about the Mets!"
The village rats, all run in packs
Deep in the Heart of Jersey!
I love the Liberal vs Conservative segments - I had forgotten all about them and there are a few on the DVD and they just floored me.
The while DVD is awesome! I'm going to do a pilgrimage to Vivano's one day when he performs.
LOL! I'm sure rogercolleridge would love to join you!
I have the videotapes, but as Hitman says, it's just not enough!!!
Never heard of the Uncle Floyd Show. Was it local.
The only Floyd I had is the 2-hour DVD, which is great, but I'd like several hundred more hours! :-)
I always loved Charlie Stoddard's old Italian Lady in the "Pasquale's Pizzeria" skit. "Pay or Die TV" was also a good one.
The DVD I have has two 'liberal vs the conservative' skits which I just popped in last eve to salute Mugsy privately.
I actually was in tears at how funny they were. The whole DVD is a riot.
GREAT SHOW! You would think with hundreds of cable channels showing junk, somebody would run stuff like Uncle Floyd, Dick Cavett, Dean Martin Show, Sammy Davis Jr Show, and other stuff instead of mindlessly repeating sitcoms that most people got tired of a decade or more ago.
So true. I think I'll start bombarding TVLand with requests for Uncle Floyd!!!1
TVLand shocked me about 1/2 a year ago when they began running SCTV late at night on Saturdays. I didn't see that one coming, so writing TVLand may do some good. I'll join you!
After all, how much could the right to broadcasts old Uncle Floyds on cable cost? I bet we could raise the money from a dozen people! :-)
I loved the show. Sad to see Mugsy passed away.
Floyd is perhaps the most unlucky performer in showbiz history. A man of IMMENSE talent (musical, comedic, etc.) and charm, he never got the break or fame he deserved. The anarchic humor of the old show blows anything away, save the classic SNL of the same period.
His one break was botched so badly. NBC gave the show a late night tryout for about a month in 1982(?), but he had to change it to fit a national audience and a lot of the low-budget local charm was lost. It just wasn't right, and Floyd fans would be the first to say so. NBC didn't let it build any audience long enough for people to get the in-jokes, and it died.
Worst of all, most of the tapes of the old classic show were thrown out, erased, or taped over for budgetery reasons! Precious little exists, denying Floyd a chance to make a living off it or claim his place in comedy history.
Another big insult was the success of "Pee-Wee's Playhouse" in the '80's, which was a COMPLETE rip-off of Floyd's show, down to the exact same puppets, props and characters.
And then there was the time Joe Franklin sued Floyd for his 'Joe Frankfurter' sketch....
And Floyd's roles in "Good Morning Vietnam" and "One Trick Pony" which ended up on the cutting room floor.
Floyd's now heard mostly as an Italian-language radio host in NY. His brother Jimmy Vivino is a famous guitarist, I believe he's on Conan O'Brien nightly.
UGGGGHHH!!! You just dashed my hopes of ever seeing these again!!! I'll just have to keep checking E-bay, in hopes that some devoted fan had the foresight to videotape the show all those years ago. :)
Incidentally, we had an 80th birthday party for my father a few years ago, and my aunt hired a suprise special guest star to tell a few jokes. I almost fell out of my chair when I saw that the entertainment was Uncle Floyd!
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