Bob "Hoolihan" Wells

Bob "Hoolihan" Wells died on the morning of Wednesday, October 21, 2026, at his home in Clearwater, Florida, at the age of 93. A family friend said his daughter Teri was with him. No cause of death has been made public.

WJW FOX 8, the station where he became famous, reported his death that afternoon under the headline "Bob 'Hoolihan' Wells, Cleveland TV icon, dies at 93," and viewers shared memories of Friday nights with Hoolihan and Big Chuck. His death came 21 months after that of Chuck Schodowski, who died in Cleveland on January 19, 2025. Funeral and memorial arrangements had not been announced at the time this page was written.

Robert D. Wells was born on September 27, 1933, in West Point, Nebraska. He was the younger of two boys; his older brother later settled in Omaha and raised sixteen children, thirteen of them adopted. Wells grew up in Nebraska and graduated from high school in Lincoln in 1951.

That summer he took his first broadcasting job, at KWBE radio in Beatrice, Nebraska, the start of a career in front of the microphone that would last more than three decades.

In the fall of 1951 Wells enrolled at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln to study radio and television. He paid his way partly by working as a disc jockey at Lincoln stations KLMS and KLIN, and he was in the ROTC program. He took time away from his studies to train as a military jet pilot and served with the Nebraska Air National Guard. He graduated in 1957. Later in life he earned his securities license, which allowed him to open his own financial planning practice in Florida.

Oklahoma and Kansas City (1957 to 1965). Three weeks before graduation, Wells was invited to audition at KWTV in Oklahoma City and flew a jet there for the audition. He joined as an announcer and stayed two years. In 1959 he moved to WDAF radio, the NBC affiliate in Kansas City, then to WDAF-TV as a weekend weatherman and staff announcer until 1965. In the same period he flew C-124 cargo planes for the Air Force Reserve, including a year of active duty during the 1961 Berlin Crisis.

Hoolihan the Weatherman (1965). WJW-TV in Cleveland wanted a weatherman who could be funny. Wells auditioned in a grass skirt and was hired to replace Howard Hoffman on the 6 and 11 p.m. weather. The station named him Hoolihan the Weatherman, and his comic forecasts, closing with "Sunshine to you, no matter what the weather," reached number one in the local ratings. When Dick Goddard joined WJW about a year later, Wells moved to noon and weekend weather.

The Hoolihan and Big Chuck Show (1966 to 1979). Wells had been a sketch player on Ernie Anderson's Ghoulardi show. After Anderson left in late 1966, Wells asked engineer Chuck Schodowski to help with his audition, and the station made them co hosts. The show premiered on December 23, 1966, and ran late on Friday nights for 13 years, pairing B movies with local and ethnic comedy skits. It became Cleveland's top Friday night program, beating The Tonight Show, and earned several local Emmy awards. Wells left the WJW staff in 1971 to freelance as an announcer in other cities but kept doing weekend weather and the show until August 1979.

Christian broadcasting and Florida (1976 onward). Wells managed Christian radio station WSUM in Parma for two years, then moved to Florida in 1979 as program director of WCLF-TV in Largo, co-hosting Horizons 22 with his wife. After that show was cancelled he worked at WFLA-TV (local host of The Baxters in 1981), WTOG and Group W Cable, then ran a financial planning company for more than 30 years while continuing commercials, voice work and regional theater, including the Show Palace Dinner Theater in Hudson, Florida.

Screen roles. Wells appeared in the 1970 Cleveland-made film Ghetto Freaks, the 1980 TV film OHMS, Carl Reiner's Summer Rental (1985) as attorney Stan Greene, and the 1990 Superboy episode "Abandon Earth" as a news anchor.

Wells met Barbara Leigh in Lincoln, Nebraska. A friend first tried to introduce them at a radio station, but he had only five minutes to pull records for his show. Two years later they met again at the Hayloft Summer Theater, where she was co-producing The Caine Mutiny Court Martial and he had a role. They married in 1956. Barbara later became one of the first female disc jockeys in Cleveland, on WJW radio, and the couple acted together in Brecksville little theater and later in Florida commercials and dinner theater; she had two small parts in Summer Rental.

They had three children: Teri, Rob and Tricia. Barbara died of cancer on August 28, 2007, after 51 years of marriage, with Wells as her caregiver. In Clearwater he stayed busy with voice work and theater, read to third grade classes through the SAG BookPALS program, tutored a child from his church, First United Methodist in Tarpon Springs, and remained a devoted Cleveland Browns fan as a member of the Browns Backers of Pinellas.

Wells described a spiritual commitment he made in 1976, after his wife had made the same commitment the previous fall, as the turning point that saved their marriage at a time when his workload had them barely communicating. Faith shaped the rest of his career: he announced for Rex Humbard's ministry, managed a Christian radio station and moved to Florida to co-host Christian television. He later said he was grateful he and Barbara had left WCLF before the scandal involving one of its board members became public. He spoke of Chuck Schodowski as someone who shared his core values, including respect for others and for family life.

Wells helped turn the Friday late movie in Cleveland into a local institution. The format he and Schodowski built after Ghoulardi, movies broken up by short homemade comedy films, ran on WJW for 40 years in total, continuing as The Big Chuck and Lil' John Show until 2007. His upbeat sign off and the show's sketches stayed in viewers' memories decades after he left the city, drawing long autograph lines at Ghoulardifest events, and he and his former castmates reunited on screen in 2019 for Space Ship One. FOX 8 called him a Cleveland TV icon in announcing his death.

Several local Emmy awards as part of The Hoolihan and Big Chuck Show (1966 to 1979). Radio/Television Broadcasters Hall of Fame of Ohio, inducted October 7, 2007, in Fairlawn, Ohio, introduced by Big Chuck and Lil' John. Cleveland Association of Broadcasters Legend Award (2010).

Wells is remembered on YouTube through many surviving Hoolihan and Big Chuck sketches and openings, and through a four part 2012 interview recorded by David Binkley for The Weirdness Really Bad Movie. He is discussed at length in Chuck Schodowski's memoir Big Chuck! My Favorite Stories from 47 Years on Cleveland TV (2008) and in Tom Feran and Rich Heldenfels' Ghoulardi: Inside Cleveland TV's Wildest Ride (1999). The weather forecaster Dick Goddard also wrote about him in Six Inches of Partly Cloudy (2011).