“Oooh where has yoy been East Video Dood???”
Here’s the deal: I had something ordered on eBay that I felt stood a very good chance of being worthy (ha!) of being spotlighted on my silly blog. I was excited for it, it held promise, so of course the seller never sent it. Days went by without any update to the order after my lightnin’ quick payment, I (politely) opened my yap, the item was then marked as shipped – but without a tracking number – days later, then weeks went by without said item arriving, I (politely) opened my yap again, a week went by before I received a response promising it was going out ASAP, I gave the benefit of the doubt and waited some more, nothing happened again, so I finally filed a complaint and got a refund.
Any semi-reasonable buyer would have filed said complaint and gotten said refund looong before I actually did, but with a generous window of time to act, only being out 12 bucks, and really wanting what I ordered, I played extraordinarily patient but was not rewarded. Not only did I not get what I hoped to write about (and I’m not saying what it was cause I don’t need all y’all battlin’ me if another one pops up), but weeks and weeks went by without a proper update here in the interim. I’m not saying that was the only reason you didn’t get an update during that time period, but it’s the factor I’m laying all the blame on.
So, instead you get to read about pizza-related playing cards. A fair trade-off? Without knowing what I was hoping to detail instead, you’ll just never know, will you??? (Unless I can obtain said item in the future; then I’ll spill the beans.)
No, this update has nothing to do with video, broadcasting, electronics, or any of the other normative suspects on this site, but it does have to do with Northeast Ohio and advertising, so I’m saying it fits. And even if it doesn’t, it’s my blog and I’ll do what I want.
Behold! It’s The Pizza Shop of Canton, Ohio, immortalized in playing card form! Actually, nothing here specifies if it was Ohio’s Canton, and Wikipedia sez there are lots and lots of places in this world with that moniker, but since I found these in Canton, Ohio, methinks it’s a safe guess that that’s where these originally hail from. Quite a leap, huh?!
Found with a two-compartment, ridge-sided plastic holder that appears to have originally had a lid at some point (there were none to be found in the vicinity, and I looked), many of these cards were all over the place when I came across them at a thrift store several months ago. They appeared to have been part of some card collector’s collection (that’s alliteration, as well as slightly redundant); other cards of the playing variety were strewn about as well. The Domino’s Pizza cards went back because they didn’t feature The Noid, but I’m a sucker for vintage local restaurant memorabilia, especially when said restaurant apparently doesn’t exist anymore, so there was no way these weren’t coming home with me – once I gathered them all back up, anyway.
I say the place apparently doesn’t exist anymore because I can find no information on it whatsoever. Granted, typing “The Pizza Shop” and “Canton” into a search engine doesn’t exactly make for a narrow set of results, but nevertheless, I could find no info on this place at all. Is it still around? Did it evolve/merge into another place? Do you remember it? PLEASE, share any info you have in the comments! This is an interactive site, y’see!
The image you’re seeing on the left above is found across the back of each and every card in the set, presenting what I surmise were the actual logos of the restaurant proper: the name (which is sort of a must-have in cases such as these) and a little chef giving the “okay sign” and wearing a kickin’ bow tie (though aren’t most bow ties pretty kickin’ anyway?). There’s also the tagline proclaiming the place to be “Canton’s Original,” though original what isn’t specified. Was it Canton’s original pizza place, the original location of what was a local chain, or…?
(Also, if the plastic holder these are in did originally feature a lid, I wonder if any kind of graphics/info pertaining to The Pizza Shop was printed on it as well? If indeed the holder is even original to these cards in the first place, that is.)
Otherwise, and as demonstrated with the card on the right above, well, it’s just a normal set of playing cards. Brown & Bigelow playing cards to be exact, as per the company info printed right there for all to see. Brown & Bigelow of St. Paul, MN is evidently no longer around; this site says they existed from the 1920s to the 1980s. I have no hard data regarding what possible date(s) these could possibly hail from, but even if they’re from the extreme of the 1980s, that still counts as vintage so stop finding fault with my post title.
Actually, the font of “Canton’s Original” strikes me as being 1960s-ish. I have absolutely nothing to support that other than a gut-feeling, but I get that impression nevertheless. Again, if you can confirm or know otherwise, drop some knowledge in the comments!
Like I said, many of these cards were all over the place when I stumbled upon them, which meant I had to duly collect them all back up for collecting-purposes. It appears I got them all; I counted 53 cards here. That is, it’s a normal 52-card French-style deck, with one Joker. I searched pretty diligently, so if there were any more Jokers, I no not where they got to. I really do think I’ve got the whole set here.
Given my lack of success in figuring out when or how long this restaurant existed, the chances of my figuring out when and/or how exactly these cards were originally obtained seems doubtful as well. Free with a pizza, perhaps? Nevertheless, the deck is a cool little piece of Northeast Ohio eatery memorabilia, one that appears (to me) to hail from a truly bygone era. I don’t normally collect playing cards, but these were just too neat – and ostensibly obscure – to pass up.
I wasn’t kidding before; if you have any info on this place, please share in the comments!
This earliest mug sets the template for the design used for the next few years. That’s not to say this was the first to use the same general look, but it’s the earliest that I currently have.
of the era, a zebra. (Get it? It’s a WVIZebra!). Since the tagline is “THE GREATEST SHOW ON AIR,” the zebra is always airborne in some fashion; this template is used for not only this mug (duh!), but for all the mugs up through 1986; might’ve been around even longer, I dunno.
Here’s the 1984 edition. As you can see, it’s overall pretty similar-looking, and honestly would be easy for the untrained eye to overlook as a mere duplicate. But it’s not.
On the other side, with the same slogan, our zebra friend evidently no longer needs an aircraft; he’s sprouted wings with which to soar through the clouds!
Evidently the auction was always held over 8 days in May, because for 1985 it ran from May 4th through the 12th. This brings up a question: does WVIZ (or any PBS affiliate) even still do auctions? Obviously they still run pledge drives where you can get tote bags or what have you, but I personally don’t recall the auctions. Obviously they existed at one point, and it’s not like I would have been paying attention to that sort of thing by the time I was old enough to watch PBS (Sesame Street and such was more my speed at the time), but still, yeah, I don’t remember these exact events. Maybe they still do ’em, I don’t 
know. Nevertheless, the only thing coming to mind here is that one episode of Cheers where no one wants Sam Malone’s jersey.
Last of the “zebra mugs,” or at least my “zebra mugs.” You know, was the zebra their ongoing mascot in general during this era, or was he just something devised for the auction promotions? I certainly don’t remember him, but again, by the time I was old enough to pay any sort of attention to PBS, he may very well (and appears to have been) long gone.
’87 and ’88 may be missing from my collection (for now?), and the zebra apparently went MIA somewhere in the interim, but man, the 1989 edition was a home run, too! The one side merely states “WVIZ Auction ’89,” as you can plainly see here (no mention of the exact dates, but I’ll go out on a limb and say it was probably held in May again).
Last one, found at the same time as all the zebra mugs. The image is the same on both sides, and hence, only one picture is needed. (Right?) Unlike the other ones seen in this article, which are all of the ceramic-variety, this one is plastic.
Here’s the DVD itself. Well, the cover, anyway. The disc doesn’t present much in the way of extra features; no bonus kickboxing tips by Wilson, no commentaries, no trailers, no wacky behind-the-scenes bloopers. Nope, all you get is the movie – full screen and in revolutionary stereo – and scene selection. You want more than that? Well ain’t you highfalutin! I really like that tagline, at any rate.
Here’s the back of the coin, with more pertinent identification information. After all, what good is an advertising token if you don’t let the people know where they can tune in? You’ve got the station call sign, the viewing area the station served, and who the owner was. And look, color television! I love that they call specific attention to the fact it was a color station; it’s just so evocative of that era of television broadcasting.
The episode opens with a really cool intro: old footage of “Santa Ghoul” from the WKBF TV-61 days (i.e., the 1970s) being pulled by a reindeer, and then transitioning to the modern day Santa Ghoul on his set, before transitioning back to the old footage to close the intro out. Neato!
Christmas Eve (
Great source material or not, I’d imagine any filmed version of A Christmas Carol ultimately hinges on the guy in the lead role, and let me tell you, Sir Seymour Hicks makes for an excellent Scrooge. From the onset, he’s not just cranky; he’s downright unpleasant. You’re not supposed to initially like Scrooge of course, and Hick’s rendition is so filled with vitriol, so angry at anything approaching cheer, that you really don’t.
The Ghoul liked to take little digs at Big Chuck & Lil’ John, albeit digs that were always good-natured in spirit. Given the shared Northeast Ohio-history between the two shows, never mind that both aired at the same time on Friday nights back then, it was only natural. Here, because it was in the thick of the Christmas season, The Ghoul wanted to wish good will to men, all men, even Chuck & John…which was demonstrated by him holding up a Big (wood) Chuck and a Lil’ John (toilet)! This was followed by a “call” to Chuck in which The Ghoul had to remind him not only who he was (“Not Ghoulardi; The Ghoul!”), but also who Lil’ John was!
Ahh, a blow up! What would The Ghoul Show be without a little juvenile destruction? It was a tradition going all the way back to the Ghoulardi days of the 1960s, and a show never quite felt complete without one ‘splosion to set the mood.
carolers at (ostensibly) his front door, only to then be regaled with loud, out-of-tune, and mismatched Christmas carols. Eventually, he just goes back inside, only to have the carolers continue singing (and even peeking in his windows)!
In addition to the opening WKBF material, there was another nice holiday-themed surprise from the past presented on the show, this one from his WCLQ TV-61 run in the 1980s. Here, The Ghoul narrates some of the annual traditions that take place during the Christmas season, including an unlucky-in-love couple but mostly focusing on a big giant brawl (“What Christmas is complete without the traditional holiday fistucuffs?”), which The Ghoul passes through without trying to stop. (This piece appeared to be part of a larger bit that was truncated somewhat for this particular broadcast.)
then-new Ghoulardi’s Bar & Grille, a local establishment named (obviously) after the Cleveland horror host who set all this in motion so many years prior. The Ghoul promises to visit there sometime in the “very near future.”
Ah, my buddy, Jungle Bob! Yep, JB was a regular guest on The Ghoul Show at the time, for awhile there having a weekly segment.
It was the old WUAB logo here that first caught my eye, and because I have such an ongoing-affinity for the station, those markers were the ‘biggies’ for me. As you can see, one is pink and one is white, but otherwise they’re identical with the black “half-moon” 43 logo. (“Half-moon” is how *I* refer to this particular iteration of the station I.D., but as far as I know, I’m the only one to do so. Maybe that is the ‘official’ term for it though, I dunno.)
The WAKR markers are less logos and more mere station identifications. Unlike the two WUAB markers, they’re both completely identical to each other. Besides WAKR, WAEZ is also featured; I can only guess that this refers to what later became WONE 97.5 FM, which was WAEZ prior and WAKR-FM before that. There was some kind of connection there, is what I’m sayin’.
Hey, know what I discovered when it came time for a picture-taking session of these earlier today? Golf ball markers aren’t the easiest things in the world to photograph! Not these ones, anyway. Because they’re rounded, they tend to roll ll over when I don’t want them to. Indeed, I had to poke them through a disposable styrofoam plate for the main shots, and to your left here is the best I could come up with as far as a side-view goes. See, they done got lil’ pegs, perfect for plunkin’ down into the ground! These aren’t especially big markers, they’re all the same size, which is roughly that of a regular shirt button (a bit bigger actually, but not by much). They seem to be bright enough to show up on the ground during a golf outing, but I’d have thought they’d be a bit bigger for easier visibility. But then, I’m not a golfer; far be it for me to go tellin’ ’em their business.