JOE BEV & UNCLE FLOYD TO MEET AFTER 26-YEAR FEUD!

June 26, 2007, Napanoch, NY — Veteran, award-winning actor, comedian, author, and NPR contributor Joe Bevilacqua will appear with comedian-pianist Uncle Floyd Vivino this Saturday night, June 30th at 6:30. The evening will benefit Ellenville arts programs. For tickets, call Barbara at 845-647-4886. Also visit: www.joebev.com. E-mail your comments to: joebev@joebev.com.

Joe Bevilacqua has also been the host for four years of “The Comedy-O-Rama Hour” for XM Satellite Radio Sonic Theater Channel 163, Sundays 8am & 8pm, now in reruns.

"Uncle Floyd and I have crossed paths many times in my 35 years in show business," admits Bevilacqua. "Like Floyd, I started out as a child performer. I got my braces off the day before I first appeared on “The Joe Franklin Show'' on New York's WOR-TV in 1976."

Bevilacqua, aka Joe Bev, was seventeen and performed Abbott & Costello's ''Who's On First?'' with a friend. They shared the bill with a guy with a song that hit number three on the charts in Philadelphia, and a foul-mouthed ventriloquist and his dummy, Otto Peterson and George.

Joe Bev's career almost ended in the Summer of 1964, while performing at a family picnic when he was three years old. He opened with a rousing rendition of ''I Want Some Red Roses for a Blue Lady'' wearing a striped jacket and straw hat. He switched to a derby and imitated both Laurel AND Hardy. Last, he put on a fake rubber nose and crushed his hat onto his head. Bevilacqua was about to do his big finale, as Jimmy Durante, when his Uncle Joe pulled him aside and whispered a suggested minor change in the joke I was about to tell:

''I was walking down the street and a man came up to me and said: 'take that banana out of your mouth!' I said, 'That's not a banana! That's my nose! Ah-cha-cha-cha!!'''

“You always say it that way,” Uncle Joe offered. “You want a big laugh? Say it this way:

''I was walking down the street and a man came up to me and said: 'take that banana out of your mouth!' I said, 'That's not a banana! My pants fell down! Ah-cha-cha-cha!!'''

The three-year old child didn't understand the joke his uncle was making, but turned to his family and, in his best Jimmy Durante, said:

''I was walking down the street and a man came up to me and said: 'take that banana out of your mouth!' I said, 'That's not a banana! That's my wee-wee! Ah-cha-cha-cha!!'''

It got a big laugh but it was the last time Bevilacqua was asked to perform at a family picnic.

Luckily, in 1972, Bevilacqua's father's gift of a tape recorder led him into a career not just in comedy and theater but also broadcasting. Two years later, ''The Uncle Floyd Show'' premiered on New Jersey UHF television.

"I hated the show at first," admits Bevilacqua. "Somehow, a TV show made a few miles from my home couldn't be any good," he thought.

Then, he saw Floyd Vivino perform live before a highly appreciative audience at the now defunct Bottom Line in New York City. There was no audience on the TV show, just a few giggling cameramen.

"Uncle Floyd is a brilliant performer," admits a repentant Joe Bev, "both as a comedian and musician, but the best way to enjoy him is to see him live and local. I'm not just buttering up the guy because I will be on the same stage with him this Saturday, or because he and I once had a feud that played out in the media."

It started, in 1981, with a little innocent comment Joe Bev made on the air during his weekly four-hour Sunday morning jazz and comedy radio show he did with Garret Gega for WKNJ-FM in Union New Jersey. Something to the effect of ''Uncle Floyd stinks!'' WKNJ's board lit up! The Uncle Floyd fans descended upon him. To be fair, he did also say Floyd was a great piano player.

Soon, there was an ''I Hate Joe Bev Fan Club.'' Floyd and his cohorts would frequently rib Bevilacqua on the TV show, who reciprocated on the radio. Bevilacqua and Vivino performed at many of the same clubs, such Club Bené, but never together. Bevilacqua often went on Floyd rival, Looney Skip Rooney's New Jersey cable TV show, and attacked from another enemy's camp, until Rooney defected and joined the cast of Floyd's show. A picture of Frankenstein hung on the wall of the ''Uncle Floyd'' set with the name ''JOE BEV'' scrawled under it. Floyd threw darts at it regularly, while a guy in a gorilla suit (Rooney?) interrupted shouting, ''Me Joe Bev! Me Joe Bev! Ooo! Ooo! Ooo!'' while throwing banana peals.

"Hopefully that won't happen Saturday night at the White Wolf," says Bevilacqua, who lives less than 4-miles from the venue, "but if it does, at least I'll know what it feels like to bomb locally."

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