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Interesting to hear the original version of this back on the radio during Roger Ashby's weekly Oldies Show. I know there's very little air evidence of Boliska's work left for some reason, but I think there was at least one LP released of this feature, such was its popularity.
But there may be more gold to mine than just that. Turns out Boliska syndicated the idea to radio stations across the country and some of them may still have it kicking around in their archives. So hopefully, Mr. Ashby will be able to play more of this vintage flashback as the weeks go on.
Boliska also had a TV show on CHCH, although it's not clear if any of those episodes survive. This ad is from 1969:
Sadly, I have no real memory of Boliska on the radio - he was just a bit before my time. But those who do say his show was one of the funniest and most creative they ever heard. Sad that almost nothing exists of it now. Many here are aware he famously exited CHUM to go to then-arch-rival CKEY. But I wonder how many know what happened to him after 590 abandoned rock and roll? You may not believe where he wound up in 1965:
Boliska certainly blazed a big trail in the city while he was here, but it didn't last long. He passed away much too soon at the age of just 39.
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I had no idea he died so young. Wow!
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Just for fun, I looked up the name Al Boliska on Amazon.ca. To my surprise, he's actually there, with several entries.
His joke book. (Price: $19.96)
His album: (Price $49.99)
And bizarrely, a wooden plaque with one of his jokes carved into it. (Price: $32.99)
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And Al was also the first host of the classic CHCH game show Party Game. He was only on one season and was replaced by Bill Walker, who was host until 1981 for the remaining ten seasons.
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Wow. I had no idea he'd done Party Game. There's not much video of it that still exists. But leave it to Retrontario to find a short snippet.
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I wonder if this was the pilot for the show, since it was used for the fall preview. Notice that a young Bill Brady is on the guest team? There are only four complete shows of the Party Game that are known of. At it's peak the show was syndicated to 31 stations, so unless there are some dusty old videotapes laying around in a few station video libraries, four is all we have. TV writer Bill Brioux has been trying to track down more complete shows of the Party Game.
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By the early 1960's, Al Boliska was the host of a weekly half hour CBC TV show on CBLT Toronto called "On The Scene". He had the CHUMmingbirds on that show. Boliska also wrote quite a few joke books. I have 4 in my personal archives. RA is correct in that there is very little of Al Boliska's morning show airchecks out there. In the CHUM Archives we have a few World's Worst Jokes and one hour of his noon to 1 program (which he hated doing), some promos and commercials, but that's it.
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When Al Boliska did noon to 1PM he was playing a countdown of the Top 10 songs on the CHUM chart. However, he talked so much that sometimes he never made it to #1.
Interesting, when Jay Nelson arrived the noon hour segment was scrapped and the morning show was extended by an hour going from 6 to 10 AM and John Sprague's show changed to 10AM to 1PM..
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Here's that noon-hour portion of the Al Boliska show (scoped), from May 15, 1958. Notice that he doesn't do any funny stuff. From the Kal Raudoja Collection.
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RadioActive wrote:
Wow. I had no idea he'd done Party Game. There's not much video of it that still exists. But leave it to Retrontario to find a short snippet.
Voice over by the late great Sandy Hoyt!