Wee Willie Webber RIP

Photo courtesy Jerry Klein/Broadcast Pioneers

Sunday, May 23, 2010
"Wee Willie" Webber has passed away

Bill Webber (via WHAT) Bill "Wee Willie" Webber, who at 6-foot-5 was one of the giants of broadcasting in the Philly area, died this morning of an apparent heart attack at age 80.

He had heart trouble of late, according to Gerry Wilkinson of the Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia.

Philadelphians of a certain age grew up with the mellifluous Mr. Webber, whose rich career included Channel 6 (the morning kiddie show called Breakfast Time) and its "Famous 56" AM radio station before joining WIP as a middle-of-the-road DJ.

His was the voice that introduced American Bandstand in its Philadelphia incarnation. While at Channel 3 and at KYW, he spun the last record on KYW before it went all-news. Mr. Webber was let go from KYW TV to make way for Mike Douglas.

A Broadcast Pioneers bio notes that in 1965, just after his layoff, he became the first face on Channel 17. For 10 years, he hosted the "Wee Willie Webber Colorful Cartoon Club," and then moved to Channel 48.

From 1989 to 2005, he was on WPEN before its flip to sports talk. He'd been doing a late-morning show, Second Cup of Coffee, on WHAT (1340 AM).

Mr. Webber was chairman of the Broadcast Pioneers board. He is survived by his wife, Constance, and children Bill Jr. and Wendy.

BT comment: I regret that I am a week late in paying tribute to one of my childhood icons. Wee Willie Webber passed away last week at the ripe old age of 80. Hard to believe he was just a bit younger than I am now when I was watching him on television.

I can remember when we got the UHF converter box(the what?! man do I feel old) that sat atop our one dial, black and white TV. That little electronic wonder opened up a whole new world to me. The world of week day, afternoon cartoons. The local ringmaster of this new sensation was Wee Willie. On his show I was introduced to "Tobor the Eighth Man"(Tobor is robot spelled backwards as you guys already know), "Astro Boy" and then finally "Speed Racer". The trifecta of Japanese animation in the sixties. Then of course there was Wee Willie's Peanut Gallery where local kids could actually appear on his show. Looking back I remember one time when I did see someone that I knew in the Peanut Gallery. Then there was the time when I actually saw Wee Willie in person at a local synagogue with all of my childhood friends on my block where I grew up. As he entered the hall where we were all sitting I could see that Bill Webber was anything but "Wee". He stood 6'5" and had to duck under the doorway as he made his entrance. Now that would seem tall to me even now. But as a little kid, he was a giant. But not scary and ever the affable cartoon show host. There were contests(a group of kids were assembled to consume 10 Saltine crackers and the first one to whistle won)and prizes(not sure, but maybe some type of candy bar). Seeing him is one of my most vivid memories of my early youth.

Of course to adults he was better known as Bill Webber on the local AM radio station, 610WIP. Hearing him on the radio seemed incongruent to my own fondness for him and his kids TV show. Even now I cannot refer to him as Bill Webber. He was and always will be Wee Willie(I don't even have to finish with the last name Webber).

I guess every big city has or had it's icons on local TV. Maybe not so much now with the advent of cable television(goodbye UHF converter box). So with you, my peers, who came of age in the sixties and seventies in Philadelphia, I bid farwell to the man who seemed to understand us as kids. Who at 6'5" seemed a kid himself, and in entertaining us daily, gave us memories for a lifetime.