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Terry McNulty

That is indeed very sad news. Maybe he'll be buried on Goose Island. Radio has lost a true pro and a very nice guy.
 
The only people who can go to his funeral are those who know where Goose Island is.

Any guesses? It's a real place.
 
Got it. Covell Street and vicinity. Created by some creeks that isolated it (so to speak) where geese used to hang out, may still.
 
Kind of unfair advantage here, I had the privilege of working with Terry for years. Below, and I apologize for the cross-post, is something I posted on another thread yesterday about Terry, completely unaware of the fact that he had died...

"The Big Fella" was, for a lot of us jocks across NE PA at the time, what you could call a disc jockey's disc jockey. He pretty much epitomized what many of us thought a radio personality should be. The Big Fella's Pineapple Feature alone was priceless. Weird, very weird, but weird can be good, funny, and extremely entertaining. I would't even attempt to describe The Pineapple Feature, I could never do it justice. When he was doing early mid-day on WARM, he'd open his show with an intstrumental version of "You Alway Hurt The One You Love..." and would sing along for, oh, maybe 2-3 seconds. It never failed to crack me up - it made no apparent sense, it was totally incongruous, and maybe that's what made it so funny.

Terry was clever, entertaining, funny, had a commanding on-air presence, and a knack for seeing the humor in situations that eluded so many of us "up and comers" at the time. IMO, The Big Fella was most assuredly major market material, but my guess is that he had no interest in that at all. Now, does anyone know just how he came up with that Big Fella nickname?
 
There was a very wierd vibe about him going around yesterday. I got stuck at Geisinger South from 11am Friday morning to 1am this morning getting more blood transfusions for something we still can't determine. Anyway, my wife was with me and hospitals being hospitals, everything was hurry up and wait. Before I sent her home at 7pm (which was when I finally got hooked up with the blood) we had extensive discussions about radio and the top 25 thread we have going on this board. We must have talked about Terry for a good half hour, his court battle with Citadel where I was called as a witness, the party he had after the case was over, the time she won a WARM shopping spree and spent the whole day with Terry (where he confided to her that his real name was Anthony and that the name Pushy Bosko came from one of his relatives when he was growing up, he said they referred to loud, demanding, bossy people as "pushy bosko's" thus the name, this was around 1990 and we still have one of the lamps from the Lamp Factory outlet) the time she got her picture taken with him holding whatelse, a pineapple, the representation of him in "A RADIO STORY" as Tommy McMurtry as well as the times he deejayed at the St. John's dances in Pittston, the times we saw him at the Stadium and my recent Taurus Club membership where old WARM guys are reputed to dine. I mean we had a discussion about him. Then last night, bored out of my mind and still at Mercy, I called two buddies and we began to talk about the old WARM guys, Terry being one of them figuring in the conversation. And this morning, when I turned on Joe Thomas and Rob Nyehard, there they were talking with George Gilbert about Terry's death. When I told my wife he had died, and showed her the obit, she said that Terry most likely wrote the obit himself because it was devoid of ego and pomposity, that she felt he never had a mean or malicious bone in his body and that as we were talking about him and master g was posting about him, he was just passing through saying "see ya".
did you ever notice he never said goodbye at the end of the show? just moved on. he'll be missed.
yonkstur
p.s. there are more stories i know of that i'll post.
 
There was a very wierd vibe about him going around yesterday. I got stuck at Geisinger South from 11am Friday morning to 1am this morning getting more blood transfusions for something we still can't determine.

For openers, Yonk, I am sorry to hear of your problems, and wish you nothing but good things. I think you're right, Terry was indeed around yesterday saying good-bye in different ways. Anyone who feels like telling me I'm totally nuts for saying so, go ahead, let's get it out of the way. Hey, they didn't come more Irish than Terry. My background is 99% Celt, Welsh-Irish(same tribe)and the Celts have certain beliefs about the dead, especially shortly after they actually give up the ghost.

Admittedly, I hadn't seen Terry in years. If my head is any good, I bumped into him in a supermarket in Clarks Summit. He and the lovely Mary(and she was and is lovely)were going to the movies, and Terry was cruising the snack aisles looking for some "healthy" snacks to carry into the theatre, rather than eat whatever unhealthy stuff they had to offer. At that point, likely more than ten years ago, Terry still looked much, much younger than he was. He always looked younger, and for those who knew him, Terry was a handsome man. I hope there'll be tons of stories here about him, he should be remembered widely, well, and fondly. By way of a small and inadequate bio, Terry was born and raised in the Keyser Valley section of Scranton, or as Scrantonians always refer to that part of town, "Back the Valley." His family owned a grocery store on , I believe, Jackson Street. And I also believe the name Terry came from his Uncle Terry, who was very well-known and beloved streetcar operator, and later bus driver, in the city.
Terry and I often joked about his given name being Anthony, because I was born on St. Anthony's Day, yet avoided being named Anthony, despite the protestations of family elders. And there he was, actually named Anthony, and no one ever referred to him as such.
 
When I was in college, I interned for a time at WARM in both the sales and news departments. One Saturday I was in the newsroom and Terry happened to be working. The teletype bell starts to ring once and he tears the sheet off. It was a science piece about possible life on Mars. Terry looks at it and says, "this is big, big, get outa my way, I gotta get in the newsroom". And he puts in the bulletin sounder and away he goes saying "Scientists say there is a possibility of life on Mars". Then he reads the story and walks back in the newsroom and says nothing the rest of the afternoon to me or the jock. (The jock might've been Michael Quinn, the overnight guy at the time). It never made the nightly news that night and God knows what prompted him to do it or what was going through his head at the time.
Yonkstur
 
I worked with Terry in the Mid 80's. I was not a close friend but I admired his personality and spontaneity. He was certainly, what I thought, a true personality should be. You could never tell where his stories were going, but you were glad to go along for the ride. One afternoon, I walked into the studio to put back some copy and Terry addressed me on air and asked me a question about my car... I tried to answer and gestured to him to give me some kind of clue as to what he wanted me to say so I could help him with his bit he was doing. I was totally clueless as a bevy of questions ensued that seemed totally off the wall and pointless. The fact is, my "clueless ness" was exactly what Terry wanted... unscripted, unexpected, and only he knew where it was going...
I loved his stumbling dance routine, he always fell, his on air secretary "Angel" and the "BINGO!" shout that he played whenever it seemed appropriate...Let's not forget DR Diagnosto... I'm truly saddened by this news.. Can everyone share a memory of this true personality...
 
How could I forget about Dr. Diagnosto! It was one of my favorite bits, and a lot of credit should go to Melanie Apple, who really helped make it work.
 
I barely remember that. (Dr. Diagnasto) Can anyone refresh our memories on that one?
Yonkstur
 
yonkstur said:
I barely remember that. (Dr. Diagnasto) Can anyone refresh our memories on that one?
Yonkstur

Man, you got me on that one. I can only guess that the character came late in Terry's career with WARM. Melanie Apple, now there's a name.

Terry was always "up against it" when it came to being ready for a news cast. The last five minutes before a cast, he'd often be wide-eyed and telling anyone who got in his way, "I'm up against it here, really up against it." He'd generally come roaring into the studio with seconds to spare, slamming carts into machines at the last second, and turning his phones up so load that you could've used them for a sound system in your car. As the news sounder rolled, Terry would often glance over at me and roll his eyes, clearly making fun of himself for usually being last minute. But he never missed a beat, no one listening would've ever thought he was anything but prepared long in advance and totally relaxed, fully in charge of that news cast. Terry loved his job, whether it be news or jocking, and it showed on-air and in-person. He lived for radio, thought it was the greatest job in the world. Maintaining that enthusiasm is somethat that many of will never, ever know.
 
This is truly a huge loss for NEPA radio. I too grew up listening to Terry and the Pineapple Feature on WARM (and somewhere is a tape where I got to "be" in the studio). His comedy lines, while sometimes over the top, still founded funny even if you didn't get the joke. And when you did it was not the stuff found in a joke book.

God Bless Terry. And thanks for many great years of radio!
 
I got to know Terry a little bit when he worked for WNAK. Always admired his work from WARM and was hoping the WNAK time was sort of his victory lap after the long and distinguished career. One time when they were talking about the WNAK Prom on the air, the woman that won the tickets was telling how this would be the first prom she ever got to go to since she didn't attend her actual prom. Terry was so moved by her story that he actually broke down on the air. And he was not in the least bit embarrassed that that had happened. That's the kind of guy he was.
 
If my wife's theory is true, and Terry did indeed have a hand in that very sterile
obit in the Scranton Times, well the guy didn't get away with a quiet and unnoticed escape from this earth. He was the lead story with film on Newswatch 16 at 6 on Saturday, Fox News at 10 on Saturday, a short story on WBRE as well as newspaper coverage. In a premier tribute, other radio stations noted his passing. The WVIA FM Morning News did a minute long story as well as WILK Radio which played a cut of the Pineapple feature. And how's this for deja vu, the cut they played was of Terry offering the pineapple to Rich Connor, Publisher of the Times Leader. Apparently this satire from twenty years ago holds up very well. (And it proves the theory that what's old is new again!) Anyway, George Gilbert had noted on Rob Nyehard's and Joe Thomas's sports show that the obit did little justice to his career and life. The various tributes that followed did. As they should have.
Yonkstur
 
If you go to the article in the Scranton Times, you will find the name of the funeral home. If you go to their site, you can leave an e-mail message for the family.
 
Strange how we we just speaking about Terry the other day- he was one of the guys who inspired me to go into Radio. Hope he didn't suffer.

Farewell my friend- we lost you way too soon :'(


warm590
 
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