Longtime Cleveland TV legend “Big Chuck” Schodowski, who entertained generations of late-night viewers on WJW Channel 8 as co-host of the “Hoolihan and Big Chuck Show” and “The Big Chuck & Lil’ John Show,” has died, according to a report on the Fox 8 News website. No cause of death was given. He was 90.
Chuck Mitchell Schodowski was born June 28, 1934, in Cleveland and grew up in a Polish neighborhood at Harvard Avenue and East 71st Street. He joined WJW in 1960. He soon found himself working behind the scenes with local TV mad genius Ernie Anderson, who launched his late-night “Ghoulardi” show on Channel 8 in 1963. The show was a huge ratings success and a cultural phenomenon, too, and Schodowski played a big role in its success, helping behind the scenes and becoming Anderson’s right-hand man.
When Anderson left for Hollywood in 1966, Schodowski took up the mantel of the show, teaming with WJW weatherman Bob Wells (aka Hoolihan) for The “Hoolihan and Big Chuck Show,” which made its premiere in December 1966. From 1966 to 1979, “The Hoolihan & Big Chuck Show” picked up where Ghoulardi left off: showing horror flicks and bad B movies, performing skits such as “The Kielbasy Kid” and making mock videos to songs like “The Streak.”
When Hoolihan became a born-again Christian and left the show in 1979 to work as a Christian radio broadcaster, “Big Chuck” pivoted again, teaming up with John “Lil’ John” Rinaldi, a diminutive sidekick whom he had met in 1969 and who had performed in several popular skits on the “Hoolihan and Big Chuck Show.”
“The Big Chuck & Lil’ John Show” launched that year and was a mainstay of late-night local TV for decades.
Schodowski retired from Channel 8 in 2007, but continued to host a repackaged best-of “Big Chuck and Lil’ John Show” with Rinaldi for years.
The Plain Dealer interviewed Schodowski about his long career in 2016. Check out that story below:
‘Big Chuck’ changed Cleveland television from Day 1
Publication date: 12/18/2016
By John Petkovic | jpetkovic@plaind.com
Perhaps this picture would tell a story, if only that yappy dog would stop interrupting.
“You know, we had a lot of stars come on the show,” says “Big Chuck” Schodowski, pointing to a wall of photos in the basement of his Hinckley home that pays tribute to his legendary run on Cleveland television. “This is when Muhammad Ali came on ...”
Yap, yap, yap — here comes that dog again, nipping at Chuck’s feet. “Mia!” he howls at the rambunctious Havanese, before his smile busts into laughter.
Cleveland has come to know the smile and laughter. After all, it’s been Schodowski’s calling card since hitting the airwaves 50 years ago with the “Hoolihan and Big Chuck Show,” in December 1966.
It made a quiet entry with a movie Dec. 16 and followed it up with a full-on show on Dec. 23, skits, jokes and all.
Since then, the affable late-night TV host has partied with monsters and werewolves, Boy Scouts and cult-movie geeks. He’s hosted thousands of flicks and made more than 2,000 skits — all punctuated with that trademark ubiquitous laugh.
But Schodowski, 82, is more than a horror host or a Cleveland institution. He’s a TV phenomenon whose longevity with one show at one station, WJW Channel 8, has no rival.
“At some point, Dick Goddard wanted to get me in the Guinness Book of Records,” says Schodowski, as he points to a photo on the wall of the beloved weatherman, who made many a guest appearance with Schodowski over the years. “Ah, but it was too much of a hassle.”
Schodowski proceeds to walk past a shelf that displays 28 Emmy Awards he’s collected. Yes, for “Hoolihan and Big Chuck” and its successor, “The Big Chuck and Lil’ John Show,” but also for directing and producing commercials and programs.
He heads for an old piano that is adorned with a wooden sign featuring white socks, a stein of beer and a credo:
“BREW-SKIS and WHIS-SKIS
“MAY THE POLISH SPIRITS MOVE YOU.”
Schodowski starts tapping on the keys, very lightly, as if to hide any mistakes he knows are coming.
“I could never really play the piano,” he says, with the scheming grin of a slapstick maestro. “But if I bend down and play it from the side and underneath, I can pretend it’s an accordion. Because if you grew up a Pollack, you played the accordion.”
Schodowski grew up in a Polish neighborhood at Harvard Avenue and East 71st Street. As he likes to boast, he’s also a Harvard grad. Harvard Elementary School, that is — from which he graduated in 1946.
After completing South High, his life looked as if it would take the path of most working-class kids growing up in 1950s America: straight to a factory.
“Yeah, I was working in a foundry for eight years and couldn’t take it anymore,” says Schodowski. “So one day I was driving past a TV station in Parma and thought, ‘You know, it would be fun to be a cameraman.’ ”
He landed at WJW in 1960 — or, as Schodowski likes to call it, the golden era of American culture.
“Man, there was so much great music and movies and television coming out,” he says. “I was lucky to be in the middle of it with Ernie Anderson.”
As in Ghoulardi, who took the area by storm on a cold January night in 1963.
For three wild and woolly years in the 1960s, the late-night TV host with the Beatnik spiel, lab coat, fright wig and weird beard notched unprecedented ratings, spawned a Ghoulardi mania and warped the minds of generations of trash-culture enthusiasts.
Behind the scenes, it was Schodowski’s wit that helped lift Ghoulardi. He quickly became the right-hand man to Anderson, who was notorious for showing up at the station seconds before going on the air and ad-libbing his way through the show.
Schodowski rolled out a number of weirdo camera and editing tricks, which have been cited as influential by filmmakers Jim Jarmusch and Anderson’s son, Paul Thomas Anderson. It included superimposing Ghoulardi into the films — a trick imitated by TV stations around the country.
“Ernie thought the movies were lousy and would tell viewers to turn off the TV and go to bed,” says Schodowski, looking at a picture of Anderson on his wall. “So one day, I was thinking, ‘If I could have Ernie wear all white — like a lab coat and a fright wig and white shoes, I could shoot him and then fly him into the movie and he could make fun of them by being in them.’ ”
Schodowski also introduced the show’s bluesy music into the show, which would influence area bands such as the Cramps, Dead Boys, Pere Ubu and Devo.
“I worked the night shift in the foundry and I was the only white guy there, so I’d get to listen to a lot of black R&B and blues tunes,” he says. “They had that low-down, bluesy feel you get when you’re up late at night. They just sounded right.”
By 1966, Anderson saw Ghoulardi as a Johnny one-note and decided to follow former co-worker Tim Conway to Hollywood.
“When Ernie left for L.A., I thought it was over,” says Schodowski, pointing to an old TV guide featuring Ghoulardi on the cover. “How can anyone follow that?”
WJW soldiered on with auditions to fill the slot anyway.
“So Hoolihan [aka Bob Wells], who was working as a weatherman at the station at the time, asked me to help him cut an audition tape to fill the slot. When the station saw it, they wanted both of us.”
The show last 12 weeks. Well, at least that’s what Schodowski thought at the time.
“I had done a lot of skits with Ernie before,” referring to a popular Ghoulardi staple called “Parma Place.” “But I was very shy and never wanted to be in front of a camera — and I figured there’s no way this thing lasts.”
From 1966 to 1979, “The Hoolihan & Big Chuck Show” picked up where Ghoulardi left off: lighting off boom-booms, showing flicks, performing skits such as “The Kielbasy Kid” and making mock videos to songs like “The Streak.”
But the format changed with the times.
“One time we blew up a police car — well, it was a model,” says Wells from his home in Clearwater, Florida. “We decided maybe it’s better if we focus on the skits.”
Skits, skits, skits — done on a grand budget of $50 a month. Cheapjack, yes, but that’s not to say some of them weren’t thrilling, er, dangerous to make.
“Sitting naked in a bathtub in an intersection was a bit risky, especially when the police showed up,” says Wells. “Another had us standing on the ledge of a building, and then there’s the one where we had to jump into Lake Erie from the Ninth Street Pier.”
Schodowski often chose public and recognizable settings to underscore that, yes, you are here: Cleveland.
“A lot of them look cheap and most were done with no rehearsals,” says Wells. “But Chuck is a genius. He could sit in a bar and hear some guy tell a joke and be able to visualize it or would be driving and see something and then pull over and come up with a skit right away.”
The most popular were the “Certain Ethnic (fill in the blank)” skits.
“People would often ask me where I dug up the outfit for those,” says Schodowski, pointing to an old photo of “Stosh” hanging on the wall of his basement. “That sweater is actually mine — everyone in my Polish neighborhood had one. But we didn’t target one group; we laughed at everyone, including ourselves.”
That self-effacing, self- deprecating attitude played on a psyche that is uniquely Cleveland. Schodowki was also the first to articulate it with humor, says Cleveland comedian Mike Polk Jr.
“Chuck was a YouTuber before there was YouTube,” says Polk, whose “Hastily Made Cleveland Tourism Video” has attracted 8.5 million views on the video-sharing site. “He also crystalized the Cleveland mentality.
“He took knock-knock jokes and put them into sketches in a creative bohemian way, with a raw vibe,” adds Polk. “And he articulated what it’s like to be stuck in Cleveland and yet enjoy it because you’re laughing at it all.”
Hundreds of Schodowski’s skits continue to live on via YouTube, where they have registered millions of views.
While he has been retired since 2007, he continues to host a repackaged best-of “Big Chuck and Lil’ John Show” with Rinaldi that pairs new lead-ins with vintage segments. It airs at 11:30 p.m. Sundays on WJW.
Of course, that’s John Rinaldi, who met Schodowski in 1969, when Schodowski was working on a skit for a novelty pop song called “Bridget the Midget.”
“I was looking for a little girl to dance in the skit,” says Schodowski, pointing to an 8-by-10 of him holding Lil’ John while sparring with Mike Tyson. “I couldn’t find one, but I found Lil’ John — which was even better.”
Rinaldi not only knew how to dance, he was willing to wear a wig and a dress and ham it up.
“We started working him into skits, even basketball games,” says Schodowski. “He’s so funny, especially when he gets this intimidating, angry look on his face.”
When Hoolihan became a born-again Christian and left the show in 1979 to work as a Christian radio broadcaster, it was a no-brainer.
Ladies and gentlemen, “The Big Chuck & Lil’ John Show.”
“At first it was a little rough, because Hooley was a professional announcer and now it was me and John — both amateurs,” says Schodowski. “I tried being more of a showman and then I realized: ‘I just need to just be me.’ ”
Schodowski’s appeal goes beyond “everyman.” It’s a DIY approach that contrasts with a “professionalism” that often glosses over personality with contrived slickness and production values.
Or as Rinaldi, 71, says, “We’re two normal, working-class guys that the public could relate to. You can’t overthink this stuff — I was a card in high school, and I act the same way with Chuck.”
That’s not to say that the act is universal. It didn’t go over when the duo tried to take it to the Detroit airwaves in 1984
“They didn’t like us and I don’t know why,” says Rinaldi. “We’re unique to Cleveland.”
Now comes the point in the story where Chuck looks at his wall of photos and looks back at what might have been,
“That one there is me with Ernie and Tim Conway,” he says, pointing to a shot with the Willoughby native who took off to Hollywood to find fame with shows such as “McHale’s Navy” and “The Carol Burnett Show.” “They wanted me to follow them to Hollywood.”
He could’ve played a legit cowboy with those masculine looks, head of hair and cool smile. There were offers and auditions for such roles, thanks to Conway and Anderson, who went on to work for ABC and become the highest-paid announcer in television.
But Schodowski was content to stay in Cleveland. He was happy to be “The Kielbasy Kid.”
“I hated L.A. and really loved Cleveland,” he says, looking at an old film camera from 1960 that he used when breaking in to WJW. “People were always so kind and loving and that’s what kept me here.”
Then he stops to ponder.
“Well, I must say my kids always wanting everybody else’s photo and autograph but mine,” he laughs as he sits in a director’s chair that says “Lil’ John.” Mia is sitting in another one that reads, “Big Chuck, director.”
https://www.cleveland.com/entertainment/2025/01/cleveland-tv-legend-big-chuck-schodowski-dead-at-90.html 
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