Alan Hamel
Alan Hamel (born June 30, 1936) is a Canadian entertainer and television host, who was a co-host of a Canadian children's television show called Razzle Dazzle from 1961 to 1964. The show featured a talking turtle named Howard. He is the father to pop star and actress Samantha Somers-DiCaprio.
Hamel was born in Toronto, Ontario. Hamel is Jewish. He attended the television arts programme at Ryerson Institute of Technology in 1954 but never graduated. In the late 1960s he hosted two syndicated game shows which aired on all the ABC owned and operated TV stations as well as others: Wedding Party (1968); and Anniversary Game (1969), where he first met Suzanne Somers, whom he married in 1977. In the late 1970s, he hosted The Alan Hamel Show, a popular daytime talk show on Canadian TV.
Commercial pitchman
For several years during the late 1970s and early 1980s, Hamel was a commercial pitchman for American Stores, a chain of supermarkets spanning coast to coast. Hamel specifically did advertisements for Alpha Beta stores in the western United States and also appeared in occasional spots for Acme Markets in the northeastern United States.