Cleveland television legend “Big Chuck” Schodowski, a beloved personality on WJW (Channel 8) for more than 60 years, has died. He was 90.
Fox 8 News made the announcement Monday morning.
The amiable, cleft-chinned broadcaster served as an engineer and bit player on horror host Ernie “Ghoulardi” Anderson’s “Shock Theater” program in the 1960s before co-hosting his own shows and working as an Emmy-winning producer and director.
Charles Mitchell Schodowski was born June 28, 1934, in Cleveland.
“When I was a kid, I was very shy,” he once told the Akron Beacon Journal. “I always wanted to be in a school play but I could never, ever get onstage.”
So instead, he’d get an old curtain or bedsheet and “I would recruit my friends to be the actors. I would make this theater, I would make the tickets, I would sell the tickets, I would write the plays. I’d do everything but be in it.”
After graduating from Cleveland South High School in 1952, he worked the midnight shift at the Alloys & Chemicals Corp. foundry. Eager to get out of the difficult, dangerous work, Schodowski began to study broadcasting technology in 1957 at the National Radio School in Cleveland. He attended night classes for three years and earned a certification in 1960.
He soon landed a job as a summer replacement engineer at Channel 3, now WKYC, and moved to Channel 8 that year as a full-time engineer. Former Channel 3 announcer Ernie Anderson and funnyman Tim Conway followed him to WJW.
In 1963, Anderson began appearing as Ghoulardi, a horror movie host on “Shock Theater.” The program was so popular, it was credited with a plunge in juvenile delinquency on Friday nights because kids were staying home to watch.
In 1966, after Anderson left for Hollywood, WJW hired Bob Wells, “Hoolihan the Weatherman,” to succeed him.
“The Hoolihan & Big Chuck Show” ushered in a new era of late-night entertainment. Wells and Schodowski served as horror hosts and starred in vaudeville-style comedy skits and parodies. Among the recurring bits were “Ben Crazy,” “Readings By Robert,” “Soulman,” “The Kielbasy Kid,” “Pizza Fight of the Century” and “Mary Hartski,” plus memorable sketches such as “Dueling Accordions,” “The Chase,” “The Streak,” “Troglodyte,” “Junk Food Junkie,” “Ajax Liquor Store,” “The Last Wish” and “Certain Ethnic Varieties.”
Wanting to do ethnic humor without offending anyone in particular, Schodowski coined the term “Certain Ethnic” as a generic term for an unspecified culture. He wore a fake mustache, rumpled hat and striped sweater while bumbling through skits. “Certain Ethnic” has been a part of the Ohio vocabulary ever since.
