Tom McGreevey had two very different high-profile Cincinnati broadcasting jobs — as one of the first voices on counter-culture WEBN-FM and as “Mr. Patches” on WCPO-TV’s children’s Uncle Al Show — before spending a decade appearing in TV shows and movies in Hollywood.
McGreevey, who died May 20 at age 91, “was a great guy. He was a cool old hippie, a carry-over from his early WEBN days,” says Curtis Mitchell, a WKRC-TV director who worked at WCPO-TV from 1972 to 1982.
He came to Cincinnati as a writer for Gibson Greeting Cards, then was one of the early voices heard on “underground” rock station WEBN-FM after it went on-air in August 1967. After working for a Chicago FM station, he was hired by Channel 9 in 1972 for the popular local kiddie TV show in response to Federal Communications Commission demands for more educational content on children’s programming, says Rick Reeves, retired Channel 9 program director.
“Tom McGreevey, hired to provide an empathetic and relatable sidekick to a peripatetic Uncle Al on the popular morning show, was just that person in actuality,” says Reeves, who lives in The Villages retirement community in Florida.
“(Uncle) Al Lewis understood the short attention span of his target audience, and felt compelled to jump from one action filled segment to the next, each with a gimmick, a song, a forced laugh. Tom McGreevey, as Mr. Patches, provided softer, slower, segments emphasizing life’s lessons,” Reeves says.
“He navigated a tough situation with dignity and class, seeming to achieve in reality the approach to life he advocated on the program."
Born July 21, 1932 in New York, he served in the Marines during the Korean War, then graduated from the American Acting Academy in New York. He wrote funny greeting cards in the 1960s for Gibson, where he met Tom Wilson, creator of the “Ziggy” cartoons, says Tom Sandman, who worked at WEBN-FM from 1975 to 1982.
“Tom was the fourth or fifth voice heard on WEBN in 1967 or ’68,” Sandman says. McGreevey was fired by owner Frank Wood Sr. in 1969 and replaced by Denton Marr. “For several months I was known as ‘the guy who took Tom McGreevey’s job,’ but fans finally accepted me,” Marr says.
McGreevey continued his radio career at Chicago’s WDAI-FM. He was back in Cincinnati by 1972 and worked five years on the Uncle Al Show, which aired on Channel 9 from 1950 to 1985.
“Tom was very intelligent and funny with a quick and sarcastic wit,” Mitchell says. “He took great pleasure in sprinkling risqué double entendres into his on-air chats with Uncle Al. On our headsets the crew would be in stitches laughing, but the “The Unc” wouldn’t have a clue. This (upset) General Manager Bob Gordon many times.”
In a 2012 interview with former WEBN-FM colleague Michael Schultz, McGreevey talked about his penchant for clashing with his bosses.
“What did dog me through my working life, beginning probably when I worked for Gibson Cards when I first came to Cincinnati, was that I had an independent attitude that generally tended to piss off management," McGreevey said. "And while I would be doing my job well, there was something about me that sat unfavorably with management. That certainly happened with Frank Wood at ‘EBN, and then happened with Bob Gordon at ‘CPO."
The Cincinnati Post reported on May 4, 1977, that “the friendly man with the patched jacket and 10 puppet characters” had been fired by WCPO-TV. “McGreevey said he was told it was an economic cutback, and that his attitude was wrong in the educational material he presented for the children,” the Post reported.
He was let go after missing an Uncle Al Show production meeting due to speaking about children’s television to a University of Cincinnati broadcast writing class taught by his wife at the time, Jani Gardner. Gordon told the Post McGreevey was dismissed because the station was “seeking to reduce the production cost of all its programs.”
Four years after leaving Channel 9, McGreevey made his national TV debut as a reporter on the sitcom Soap in 1981.
Over the next 11 years he appeared in The Golden Girls;, L.A. Law, Dallas, Dynasty, Falcon Crest, Naked Gun 21/2: The Smell of Fear, Hill Street Blues, Hunter, An Inconvenient Woman. Shannon’s Deal, Remington Steele, Simon & Simon, Airplane II: The Sequel and commercials.
His last credit was Lady Against the Odds, a 1992 TV movie with Crystal Bernard, Rob Estes, Dan Castellaneta and Polly Bergen, according to the International Movie Database.
McGreevey retired in 1997, according to his obituary. “Tom spent the past 10 years married to his loving wife, Lynn Herazo Gebhart-McGreevey, enjoying life in Clifton,” the obituary says.
Spring Grove Funeral Homes is in charge of arrangements. No funeral or memorial service have been announced.
