Brooks Entertainment is Pittsburgh's singing telegram source offering costumes and personalized songs.

About Us
Brooks Entertainment is Pittsburgh's best Singing Telegram service and ALWAYS in good taste!
Brooks Entertainment specializes in personalized songs, colorful costumed characters, entertainment and more. We deliver throughout the Pittsburgh area, including all of the surrounding counties, and into West Virginia and Ohio. Click here to see our Delivery Area. Plus, owner Ron Brooks, who entertained professionally for the first time at age 11, puts his 35 years of entertainment experience into every delivery personally. He doesn’t just write the songs, he performs all of the songs too!
His attention to detail and quality continues to bring rave reviews from our customers and many return to use us over and over. But don’t take our word for it, see our Testimonial Page.
Ron truly enjoys every opportunity to perform for people, whether it's performing singing telegrams, singing with his a cappella quartets or meeting thousands of kids throughout the years as Santa. Every moment of performing is pure joy.

Brooks Entertainment is featured in the media

Selected as a GREAT DEAL on KDKA TV

Profiled in The Pittsburgh Business Times

On the KDKA Radio "Small Business Report"

Featured in the Valley News Dispatch

Featured in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review (read it here)

Joe Negri backs up Ron on electric guitar Ron and Al Yeganeh, the Seinfeld Soup Nazi

Owner/Performer Ron Brooks brings more than

35 years of performing and singing experience

Performed with legendary jazz musician, Joe Negri

Performed with "The Soup Nazi" Al Yeganeh from the TV show Seinfeld

Performed in Fiddler on The Roof in the CLO at Heinz Hall

Performed in The Music Man at the Byham Theater

Performed on Mr. Rogers Neighborhood on WQED TV

Sang the national anthem for the Pittsburgh Pirates numerous times

Performed at the Carnegie Music Hall and Heinz Hall

Performed on 3WS, 92.9 FM and KDKA Radio

Performed on KDKA TV's Pittsburgh Today Live with his mixed quartet and as Santa

His quartets Hourglass & Wired For Sound performed at Kennywood Park

An award winning member of the Barbershop Harmony Society for over 30 years

Directed a tri-state award-winning barbershop chorus

Sang in an award-winning barbershop quartet who performed throughout the tri-state area

Sang in a top mixed-voice doo wop a cappella quartet which opened up for Johnny Angel & The Halos

His barbershop quartet "Hourglass" was featured on the Discovery Channel

Hourglass also entertained for the Major League Baseball All Star Game in Pittsburgh

Written and performed thousands of Singing Telegrams!

In the News! Brooks Entertainment featured in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review!

Telegram singer portrays a wide range of characters, including an IRS agent
Craig Smith
PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Monday, June 1, 2009

Ron Brooks wheeled the van that serves as his traveling office into a parking space and started to change into his chicken suit. Shopkeepers in Sewickley were giving him the eye as he pulled on his red socks and oversized chicken feet.

For Brooks, who delivers singing telegrams, it was just another day at the office. He routinely dons a gorilla suit or a pink tutu, or dresses like the Grim Reaper, to sing funny songs to unsuspecting strangers. The songs he sings are written especially for his customers' birthdays, anniversaries, graduations and retirements, in addition to the occasional "I'm sorry-gram."

"God granted me a gift to write songs," said Brooks, 45, of Saxonburg.

On an 80-degree day in Sewickley, he surprised Tony Vinski of Mars on his 30th birthday with a song and the funky chicken dance. A mask that was hot and hard to see through made the message more difficult to deliver. "I'm dying here," Brooks said as he got Vinski to join him in the dance at a local restaurant.

"I got a cowboy on my 21st birthday. ... I'm getting kind of used to it," Vinski said.

The singing telegram got its start on July 28, 1933, when a fan sent Hollywood singing star Rudy Vallee a birthday greeting by telegram. Until then, telegrams were the signal of bad news. But when George P. Oslin, public relations director of Western Union, asked an operator to sing the greeting to Vallee, it paved the way for the doom-and-gloom telegram to become a modern-day art form.

On another day, Brooks delivered a special prom season request from Matthew Goldstein, 18, of Point Breeze to Nancy Jones, 17, of Fox Chapel, both students at Shady Side Academy. After marching into Spanish class with roses and singing "Danke Schoen," he asked Jones if she'd attend the prom with Goldstein.

"Yes, definitely," she said as classmates broke into applause.

That kind of reaction makes his job all the better, said Brooks, whose cast of characters includes a doctor, lawyer, police officer and IRS agent. "I enjoy my job. I've cleaned septic tanks; I've worked at McDonald's," said Brooks, who travels 40,000 to 45,000 miles a year. Brooks always wanted to be in show business. He joined the Civic Light Opera when he was 11, before he began singing with a barbershop group.

A basic singing telegram, such as Goldstein's, costs $70. A double whammy, which sends Brooks to the same location twice, is $130. A triple play is $190.

Brooks went into business for himself in 1997 after his then-employer asked him to deliver a telegram with a risque bent. We only deliver things in good taste! Brooks said.

Being his own boss allows him to help around the house and be more involved in the lives of his wife, Lynda and son, David, 11. But business has suffered during the recession. "The first thing corporations cut is entertainment," he said. In a normal year, his Santa and Easter Bunny characters are in big demand.

When he isn't making deliveries, he's working on his Web site, brooksentertainment.com, and developing characters.

Brooks has done a lot of wedding proposals. "They all said yes," he said. The worst part of his job? The "I'm sorry-grams." "I sometimes have to remind them that I'm only the messenger," he said.

About The Owner / Performer - Ron Brooks

Ron started entertaining early in his life. In 1975, at the tender age of 11 Ron was selected to be in the Civic Light Opera's production of "Fiddler on The Roof" at Heinz Hall and signed his first professional contract. At the same time he also started singing with the Greater Pittsburgh Chapter of the Barbershop Harmony Society and was appointed their musical director when he was a senior in high school. During his high school years he was always entertaining everyone and was featured numerous times on talent shows and concerts. He was chosen as the recipient of the National School Choral Award and represented his high school in district and regional choral festivals for fours years in a row.

At the age of 19 Ron was selected as Barbershopper of the Year for the Greater Pittsburgh Chapter and inducted into the chapter Hall of Fame five years later. In the fall of 1990, he became the musical director of the Butler, PA Chapter.

Legendary jazz musician, Joe Negri, accompanies Ron

During Ron's tenure there, the Notables went from being a struggling chapter a model chapter -- winning four Johnny Appleseed District Small Chorus Championships. He was again chosen Barbershopper of the Year for the Butler chapter in 1992. Ron's been involved with a quite a few quartets too, including the Pittsburgh Music Revue, the Harmony Partners, Hourglass, the award winning Wired for Sound quartet, and InCahootz, an a cappella mixed quartet. Ron's quartet Wired for Sound was featured in the professional production of The Music Man at the Byham Theater in Pittsburgh.
Fresh out of high school, Ron worked for a Pittsburgh balloon delivery company and realized he had an incredible ability to write songs about people, so he was soon doing singing telegrams for the company. Since that time, he has worked for several companies doing singing telegrams. Being somewhat embarrassed and disappointed in what he was being asked to do at times, Ron decided to create his own company where he could control the quality of what was being presented, and be sure it was always in good taste.
Ron's involvement outside of his company includes coaching choruses and quartets within the Barbershop Harmony Society, Sweet Adelines International, and Harmony Incorporated. (Above Ron is seen singing with Joe Negri "Handyman Negri" from Mr. Rogers Neighborhood during a Christmas party at the Omni William Penn Hotel in Pittsburgh). Ron's uncanny ability to write personalized original songs for singing telegrams has even lead to writing several original pieces which he has had copyrighted.
Ron, his wife Lynda and their eleven-year-old son, David, live in Saxonburg, PA just north of Pittsburgh. Somehow, Ron manages to be a stay-home dad, coach David's sports teams AND run Brooks Entertainment.
Ron's love and enthusiasm for music, and his desire to share his God given talent and what he has learned through his many years of experience shows every time he performs.

Here's a drawing of our Hairy Fairy Godmother by my son David. (age 9 - 2008)

Brooks Entertainment is proud to say that we have an
"A+" rating with the BBB
Please see our report here.