Back in this post, I talked about working for New Jersey Public Broadcasting as an engineer. I was also a would-be performer and when the job of weatherman at the station opened up, I seized the opportunity to audition. Not as myself, though.

My longtime friend, Ralph Kalatucka, and I had just seen “The Muppets on Puppets” and we were inspired to build our own character. You see the results above. We named him David Simpson. He had that surname long before the yellow cartoon family. In fact, I got it from a guy I went to college with, Rob Simpson. I just liked the sound of it. After his first TV appearance, we changed his name to the less formal, Davey Simpson.

Working at a TV station, we practiced in front of the monitors whenever the studio was free. I worked Davey’s head and left hand and provided his voice. Ralph worked the right hand and took care of the props. Not only did we have to coordinate each other’s moves, but it’s very different working to a monitor than a mirror. The TV camera sees you the way other people do. Camera right is your left and vice-versa. It takes some getting used to. When we felt we were ready, we scheduled the audition. We made some funny props and did our bit right on the weather set. For some reason, they decided they wanted a real meteorologist. Sheesh! News people have no sense of humor.

But another producer, Bill Reed, saw the audition and asked us to be on his show, a goings-on-around-the-state community affairs program called, “The Wireless Anything Goes Notebook”. One of the spots on the show was highlighting upcoming events around the state of New Jersey. This became Davey’s spot, reading the “notebook”. I wrote little sketches to lead in and out of the events. The lady in the picture is Hela Yungst, a former Miss New Jersey, who hosted the show. She became Davey’s straightwoman. She was a very nice girl, but she really didn’t have any acting experience.

Davey went on to make guest appearances on other local shows, including Philadelphia’s WPVI-TV live children’s show, “Captain Noah” and “The Easter Seals Telethon”. Thanks to my tenth grade English teacher, Mr. Kraft, Davey became the host of Neil Armstong Middle School’s morning announcements, a gig that lasted for many years!

Davey is semi-retired now, but I’m sure he’d come out of retirement if he got the chance.

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