Celebrating a Jack Etzel tradition

You might remember when, or maybe you didn’t know about Jack Etzel’s creation – National Look-Alike Day.

Jack Etzel was a reporter at WIIC/WPXI Channel 11. In his later years with the station he was the host of “Etzel at Large” – the fun and often silly reports at the end of the newscast that could be described as “Human Interest features”. (He also hosted weekend “Handy Man” segments which eventually turned into a radio program. I digress.

The day was created in the 1980s when Etzel, who died in June 2025, and his videographer Rick Minutello, were out working on a feature one day. The story goes that Minutello looked up and saw a man who resembled Humphrey Bogart right down to the cigarette. Naturally, Etzel took to it and approached the man asking him if anyone ever told him he looked like anyone in particular. Thus started the annual tradition celebrated on April 20. Jack would file a new ‘look alike” feature every year if memory serves. (Of course the date being “4/20”, some people will celebrate with a certain substance of which if they use enough they might think they look like someone they look nothing like!)

So, in unusual PBRTV fashion, let us celebrate Jack Etzel this year on what is the first National Look Alike Day after his death. Tell us who YOU think you look like or who people have told you they think you look like!

I will also talk about this on Smooth, Relaxing and Easy this week in my segment known as “Holidays of the Day you didnt know you needed to celebrate but should because someone went through the trouble to create them,” or words to that effect. Catch the program Fridays at 1 pm, Saturdays at 3 pm and Tuesdays at 8 am on Tube City Online Radio  and Saturdays at 3pm on 88.3 WRCT and wrct.org.