The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Plenty of stuffing left for second serving
Author: Plenty of stuffing left for ‘Cleveland TV Tales Volume 2’
On the surface, he was Henry Brookerstein, mild-mannered director trainee at Cleveland’s WUABTV 43. But Henry had a secret identity. ¶ After exiting a phone booth and wearing a cape and tights with an “SH” across his chest, he became Superhost! ¶ Did Superhost fight crime and save damsels in distress? Well, no, not really. He mostly hosted Saturday matinee movie presentations on Channel 43, did short sketches and read community announcements. ¶But were a crime to be committed nearby, he surely would have … oh, never mind.
Also, his name wasn’t even really Henry Brookerstein. It was Marty Sullivan — still is, in fact.
Sullivan, who now calls Oregon home, is one of the folks from Cleveland’s TV history who did not get star treatment in “Cleveland TV Tales,” a book authored in 2014 by the husband-andwife team Mike and Janice Olszewski, who live in Aurora. But Sullivan gets his own chapter in the new “Cleveland TV Tales Volume 2,” which, like its predecessor, was published by Clevelandbased Gray & Co.
In the chapter — titled “Supe’s On!” — the Olszewskis chronicle how Sullivan came to don the cape and hang on to the Super gig for 24 years.
“He would just do some silly things in between the breaks of some of the (movies they showed),” says Mike Olszewski, during a recent phone interview.
“It was specifically for kids, but the thing is adults could sit and watch with the kids. It became sort of a bonding thing.”
The chapter includes plenty of little stories, such as the time fellow Cleveland TV personalities Charles “Big Chuck” Schodowski and “Lil’ John” Rinaldi, while taping a commercial at Channel 43, swiped Sullivan’s phone booth, which next appeared on their “The Big Chuck and Lil’ John Show” on WJW-TV 8.
“We knew there was plenty for a second book. We didn’t know (initially) if people wanted to hear more about (Cleveland TV). Wow, were we wrong." — Mike Olszewski, coauthor of “Cleveland TV Tales Volume 2”
“They all had a good laugh, Superhost got his booth back, and he kept a close eye on it after that,” the Olszewskis write in the book.
Olszewski says he and Janice repeatedly heard two “complaints” about “Cleveland TV Tales.” The first, he says, was folks picked it up, planning to read for a few minutes but couldn’t put it down.
“The other thing they said: ‘We wanted more.’
“There were plenty of stories to go around and plenty more to be told,” he continues. “We knew there was plenty for a second book. We didn’t know (initially) if people wanted to hear more about (Cleveland TV). Wow, were we wrong.”
The first book heavily featured folks such as Ernie Anderson and his alter ego, Ghoulardi; Linn Sheldon, also known as Barnaby; and Ron Penfound, aka Captain Penny. “Volume 2” generally reminisces about folks from a slightly more recent past, such as “Morning Exchange” host Fred Griffith, late sportscasters Casey Coleman and Nev Chandler and future national TV weatherman and celebrity Al Roker.
“He loved it here,” Olszewski says of Roker. “And people loved Al, too.
“He said he never wanted to leave here. But New York was his hometown, and he wanted his parents to see him.”
When Roker was in Cleveland, in the late 1970s and early ’80s, the Olszewskis knew him a bit.
“I always got the impression he was going to be on to bigger and better things,” he says.
Speaking of TV weathermen,
the Olszewskis devote a chapter to Mark Koontz, who while at WEWS-TV 5 was a certain kind of target to his coworkers.
“I don’t know one person that said they didn’t like Mark Koontz,” Olszewski says. “And they played one practical joke on him after another.
“And when he went to Channel 8, the same thing happened,” he says, adding that Koontz’ new coworkers would call his former colleagues
to find out if they’d already tried this joke or that one on him.
A few other people and events included in “Cleveland TV Tales Volume 2”:
• Then Cleveland Mayor Carl Stokes, who began his TV career on a children’s show on former station WKBF-TV 61.
• WOIO-TV 19 reporter and anchor Gretchen Carlson, a former Miss America who has been on the Fox News Channel for a decade.
• WUAB’s foray into the profitable world of TV news.
• Those who tried to follow in the footsteps of Ghoulardi.
• Investigative reporters including Paul Orlousky, Tom Meyer and Carl Monday.
And it’s not like you won’t read about some of the faves featured in the first book. For example, the Olszewskis saved at least one story about a certain legendary newswoman for “Volume 2.”
“People cannot get enough of Dorothy Fuldheim,” Olszewski says. “Dorothy Fuldheim was just one of those characters who was bigger than life.”
Olszewski believes people from Northeast Ohio had a special relationship with many of the folks featured in these two books. In a meaningful way, they were like friends.
He recalls a conversation he had with a producer friend, who believes Cleveland is like no other city.
“If you see people from Cleveland at a party, they’re talking” Olszewski says, paraphrasing his friend. “Unless you’re from Cleveland, you can’t get in the conversation. What are they talking about? The last time they were in Cleveland and Cleveland TV.”