Fred Mulligan's got a 'Really Big Show'

Looking for a night full of nostalgia and elderly humor?

"The Fred Mulligan Show," showcasing the Queen City Chordsmen and Sound Celebration, fit the bill on Saturday evening during the 61st annual Barbershop Serenade at the historic Riviera Theatre in North Tonawanda.

Comprised of musical acts and chock full of corny jokes, "The Fred Mulligan Show" is the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barber Shop Quartet Singing in America's take on "The Ed Sullivan Show." Ranging in age from 15 to 80, many of the members of the Buffalo Chapter of the Barbershop Harmony Society make up the 31-person Queen City Chordsmen. The bill also had smaller groups of members from the Chapter such as the Fred Mulligan Singers, the Lunch Bunch, the Four Counts, United Sound and Happy Times.

The majority of the crowd consisted of senior citizens, so naturally the musical repertoire included such classics as "Under the Boardwalk," "It Had to be You," "Walkin' My Baby Back Home," "Darkness on the Delta," "Zip A Dee Do Dah," and Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World."

The Chordsmen have a talent for barbershop singing, especially in the way they blend harmonies. The lack of musical accompaniment in the genre forces the ensemble to have every element of their sound perfected, a challenge answered handily.

Host Fred Mulligan (played by Bob Angelino), was one of the only sub-par aspects of the production. His humor barely evoked a single laugh the entire time. Perhaps the members of the audience hadn't turned up their hearing aids.

Other acts on "The Fred Mulligan Show" were Larry Brennan, a ventriloquist and fellow barbershop singer; Sound Celebration, a mixed quartet; and Jack and Dee Fritsch, a couple with an amazing ability to laugh at themselves. The ventriloquism act was able to lighten the crowd up a bit after disappointing material from the host, but Brennan's mouth movement was visible from the balcony.

Sound Celebration, a co-ed company made up of musical directors and singers from various parts of Western New York, took on a more congenial flavor. They casually spoke to the audience (which the Chordsmen, unfortunately, failed to do) and kept the seniors alert at 10 p.m. with their renditions of "Home on the Range" and "Casey at the Bat," among others.

Jack and Dee Fritsch sat onstage in a pair of rocking chairs professing the joys of old age. They cracked up the crowd with lyrics like, "He was a romantic and witty and smart/ How'd he get to be such a cranky old fart?" in the song "Are You Lonesome Tonight?"

All of the groups gathered on stage for the finale and enlisted the audience's assistance in singing "God Bless America," a number that pleased the aging crowd and wrapped up the night in sincere senior citizen fashion.