Floyd Vivino, the porkpie hat-wearing, piano-playing comedian known as Uncle Floyd, whose very low-budget television variety show on local UHF and cable channels made him a cult favorite of fans, especially in New Jersey, his home state, which he celebrated in song, died on Thursday in Hackensack, N.J. He was 74.
His death, in a rehabilitation facility, was caused by complications of a stroke in 2023, said his brother Jimmy, a guitarist and organist who was the leader of the Basic Cable Band on Conan O’Brien’s cable talk show on TBS.
From 1974 to ’98, Mr. Vivino oversaw a ludicrous, freewheeling weekday program — an unrehearsed blend of music, featuring his stride piano playing; skits; puppets like Oogie, a wooden clown, and the testy skeleton character Bones Boy; parodies of local personalities; and an oddball troupe of actors with names like Weenie, Mugsy and Netto.
“We were a vaudeville type show that was a parody of 1950s kids’ shows,” Scott Gordon, a longtime friend who performed with Mr. Vivino, said in an interview.
Mr. Vivino, who wore colorful hats, plaid sport jackets and a bow tie, found an avid audience among children, teenagers and young adults. His fan club once had as many as 13,000 members; the Friends of Floyd group on Facebook has 7,400 members.
He was sometimes compared to Soupy Sales, a slapstick comic who in the 1960s hosted a syndicated children’s program based at Channel 5 in Manhattan. Uncle Floyd’s silly absurdism seemed to augur the arrival of Pee-wee Herman.
Mr. Floyd’s appeal included rockers he booked on his show, including Cyndi Lauper; Jon Bon Jovi (who, after Mr. Vivino’s death, wrote on Facebook, “Uncle Floyd gave me a shot on his show before anyone”); Elvis Costello; the Ramones; and Blue Oyster Cult, whom Mr. Vivino introduced as “our Halloween super special guest.”
“Managers would say, ‘Cyndi Lauper and the Ramones were on the show, you need to be on,’” Jimmy Vivino said in an interview about potential guests. “And they didn’t know what they were getting into when their limo pulled up behind a dumpster at Channel 68.”
In 1981, David Bowie attended an Uncle Floyd performance at the Bottom Line nightclub in Greenwich Village and later met Mr. Vivino backstage.
“I said to him, ‘How did you hear about the show?’” Mr. Gordon recalled. “And he said, ‘Everybody talks about it,’ and that he and John Lennon and Iggy Pop used to sit and watch the show.” Mr. Gordon said that Mr. Lennon, who had been killed just a month earlier, had wanted to attend the performance.
After meeting Mr. Bowie and his producer, Tony Visconti, “Floyd says, ‘Jimmy get these guys outta here. We got a show to do!” Jimmy Vivino said.
Two decades later, Mr. Bowie wrote and recorded “Slip Away,” a moody song about Uncle Floyd, Bones Boy and Oogie, and included it on his album “Heathen.” He sang, in part:
Twinkle twinkle Uncle Floyd We were dumb But you were fun, boy How I wonder where you are Oh-o Sailing
Floyd John Vivino was born on Oct. 19, 1951, in Paterson, N.J. His father, Jerome Vivino Sr., an Italian immigrant, was a construction architect and played saxophone with Frank Viv’s Orchestra in Paterson. His mother, Emily (Bellow) Vivino, managed the home and played piano.
Floyd began performing early on, giving piano recitals and dancing at the New Jersey Pavilion of the 1964 World’s Fair. At Glen Rock High School, he performed in plays by Molière and Chekhov and in musicals like “Brigadoon.” After graduating, he began performing at amusement parks, in nightclubs and in burlesque houses.
Mr. Vivino began his nearly quarter-century television odyssey in 1974 with “Uncle Floyd and His Friends.” It debuted on a small cable channel, moved quickly to Channel 68, a UHF channel, until 1982, when “The Uncle Floyd Show” had a yearlong deal in late-night with NBC stations that moved the program beyond the New York-New Jersey area.
After NBC, the show returned to its New Jersey roots by a network of UHF public television stations until 1986, then by the Cable Television Network of New Jersey until 1998.
Early in his television run, Mr. Vivino wrote a jaunty ode to his home state, to the tune of “Deep in the Heart of Texas.”
Oh the factory smoke will make you choke Deep in the heart of Jersey. And the city rats run in big packs Deep in the heart of Jersey.
Yet, he concluded:
But it’s my state I think it’s great Deep in the heart of Jersey.
While on television — and long after his show went off the air — Mr. Vivino filled his schedule with live shows.
“Monday, I’m M.C.ing a political banquet,” he told The Jersey Journal in 1997, a typically frenetic year of some 300 appearances. “Tuesday and Wednesday, I play piano and sing at Colucci’s in Haledon. Thursday, I do my Meatball the Clown event for an afternoon school event. Then, in the evening, I put on a tux and host a police banquet.” And he went on and on.
From 1987 to 2013, he also hosted “The Italian-American Serenade,” a radio show that drew on his collection of 250,000 Italian records; performed at Italian American festivals in Boston, Cleveland and other cities; and acted occasionally, most notably in the director Barry Levinson’s “Good Morning, Vietnam” (1987), as a disc jockey at an Armed Forces radio station in Saigon opposite Robin Williams.
Jimmy Vivino recalled that Mr. Levinson “loved” his brother.
“He called him once to do something and Floyd was like, ‘I have a Knights of Columbus gig with Pat Cooper. I can’t come,’” he said.
In addition to his brother Jimmy, Mr. Vivino is survived by another brother, Jerome Jr., a saxophonist known as Jerry; a daughter, Lauren Vivino, two sons, Christopher and Eric, from his second marriage, to Lisa Vitale, which ended in divorce; three more sons, Gregory, Dante and Massimo, from his marriage to Jane Hillenbrand, which ended in divorce; and three grandchildren. His first marriage, to Debra Gallison, also ended in divorce.
In 1998, he spoke to The Star-Ledger of Newark as he prepared for a show at a club in Sayreville, N.J., with many of his stalwart cast members, including Oogie, whom he said was almost as recognizable to fans as Mr. Vivino himself.
“What can I say?” he joked to The Star-Ledger of Newark. “It’s sad when the only constant in your life is a wooden puppet.”
Richard Sandomir, an obituaries reporter, has been writing for The Times for more than three decades.
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