Cleveland TV Tales : More Stories from the Golden Age of Local Television

More behind-the-screen stories from the golden age of local Cleveland television!

Let’s warm up the old family TV set, step through the screen, and see what was going on behind the scenes with some of our favorite Cleveland television personalities of the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s, including …

• The rise of glamorous news anchors (including more than one Miss America contestant) with perfect smiles, perky noses, and really big hair
• Late-night horror-movie hosts battling to take over the legacy of the legendary Ghoulardi
• The strange, sad saga of the former daytime host who shot himself after a bizarre sex scandal
• A weatherman who was a lightning rod for coworkers’ endless practical jokes
• The investigative reporters whose sting operations caught wrongdoers with their pants down―sometimes literally!
• The gutsy reporter who interviewed Danny Greene hours before the mobster was blown up in his car
• The Cleveland mayor who co-hosted a children’s show with a ventriloquist’s dummy
• and many other true tales.

Mike Olszewski is a veteran Cleveland radio and television personality and the curator and archivist for the Ohio Broadcast Archive and Museum. He also teaches media and communications classes at Kent State University, The University of Akron, and Notre Dame College.