Bob McAllister

Bob McAllister (June 2, 1935 – July 21, 1998) was an American television personality, magician and children's entertainer and a host of Wonderama.

Born in Philadelphia, Bob first made his name as a ventriloquist on NBC on the Today Show in the 1950s, while still in his teens. He appeared in 1953 on CBS on Ted Mack's Original Amateur Hour and was able to get his first regular television job hosting his own program on WTAR in Norfolk, Virginia. The "Bob and Chauncey Show" paired McAllister with a wise-cracking dummy ("Chauncey").

This led to his being hired on at WJZ-TV Channel 13 in Baltimore, Maryland in 1963 on The Bob McAllister Show, a half-hour program of comedy character and puppet sketches, magic acts, pantomime, cartoons and sight gags intended to revive the absurd visual surrealism of Ernie Kovacs' television work.

The Bob McAllister Show was a big success and led to an offer from WNEW-TV Channel 5 in New York to host his own program there, where it premiered on September 9, 1968. The New York version of the show was not as successful as the Baltimore broadcast, and time constraints and budget restrictions led to its cancellation on Friday, September 5, 1969, after which it went into reruns.

McAllister was concurrently brought in as host of the syndicated popular show Wonderama, produced by WNEW-TV, to replace the departing Sonny Fox. McAllister's version of the show premiered Sunday, August 13, 1967, and became Metromedia TV's most popular children's series. It included material similar to that on The Bob McAllister Show with the added attractions of game shows that he selected children in the audience to participate in. These included twisting the tops off cans to see whether snakes or a bouquet of artificial flowers sprung out; the child who opened the sole can with the bouquet won the grand prize. Bob gave each snake-receiver a consolation prize — usually a toy or a board game — for answering a trivia question correctly.

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