Bob McCully has died

Robert McCully passed away Sunday, August 28 after a period of poor health. He was 88. McCully was best known as a writer, producer and comic entertainer who worked with many Pittsburgh and some national entertainers.

• He was a writer and played characters for “Cordic and Company” when Rege Cordic hosted the KDKA-AM morning show.

• He wrote jokes for Johnny Carson.

• He advised Fred Rogers to hire David Newell to play “Mr. McFeeley” on “Mister Rogers Neighborhood”

• He wrote for Sterling Yates’ programs on KDKA-TV.

Newell told the Post-Gazette, “The reason why I was there (The Fred Rogers Company; nee: Family Communications) at all was Bob McCully. He was responsible for a lot of people’s success, but he never talked about it.”

Joe Negri speaks highly of McCully, “He didn’t appeal to the common denominator. He was an upper-class kind of guy, always with an upscale crowd. The productions (speaking of dinner theater reviews McCully wrote) always did really good business.”

Additionally, McCully was a director of advertising for Ketchum, Inc., he owned his own company – McCully Productions, taught classes for CMU’s Academy of Lifelong Learning and up to one month ago wrote editorials for KQV-AM (1410).

He is survived by three step-children.