Described by Cincinnati television producer Len Goorian as "the closest thing I've ever seen to a living leprechaun," the Plymouth, Indiana-born Shreve broke into radio following a stint in the U.S. Navy as a singer on Hoosier Hop and Calling All Poets for WOWO in Fort Wayne.
He subsequently appeared on "National Barn Dance" for WLS in Chicago, and Club Matinee for ABC in New York, before accepting an offer from WLW in Cincinnati.
Thereafter, he proved himself able to provide whatever the hungry airwaves needed: an on-air announcer, a mellow singing voice, a movie host, an able vaudevillian, a soft-shoe dancer, or a cornpone comedian.
As the show went on, the comedy increased with Shreve lip-synching songs like Irving Taylor's When the Crabgrass Blooms Again and Leona Anderson's Limburger Lover and sometimes making surprise "cameo appearances" in the movies being shown.
The show became so popular that Shreve was invited to host an identical program (called The Schoenling Nite People Theater) live from the studios of WHIO-TV in Dayton, Ohio, on Friday nights/Saturday mornings, which lasted for several years.
The album eschewed his popular comedy routines to present a mellow, sentimental showcase for Shreve's warm Irish tenor voice and his affection for pop standards like "That Old Gang of Mine" and "Walkin' My Baby Back Home."
In 1975, the show moved to WKRC-TV, then Cincinnati's ABC affiliate, with the new Saturday Night Live-influenced title The Past Prime Playhouse (SNL was a new program at the time).
WKRC would give the show (nicknamed "The PPP") its longest run; it stayed on the late night airwaves for a full ten years, even though Shreve's shenanigans had been toned down since the WCPO days.
Among the celebrity visitors to the PPP set over the course of that decade were Adam West, Bill Cosby, comedian Pete Barbutti, and the buxom stripper Morganna (known at the time as "baseball's kissing bandit").