Showcase Showdown

Al Alberts, inventor of undue attention on scandalously dressed kids, has died at the age of 87. Alberts was the last member of the Four Aces, best known for Three Coins in the Fountain and Love is a Many Splendored Thing, to leave the stage, and popularized the Philadelphia-area hit On the Way to Cape May. In the Philadelphia area, he’s better known for ruining Saturday morning cartoon time as the creepily grinning, tuxedoed host of Al Albert’s Showcase, a weekly parade of sniveling, weeping, terrified children, all dressed in poorly fitting little suits and strange gowns, putting Philadelphia ahead of the pageant mom pack by decades. Among the talent discovered on the Showcase – Andrea McArdle, Sister Sledge, The Kinleys and Teddy Pendergrass.