Elena M. Watson - Television Horror Movie Hosts

by

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Adir. The Great Clowns of American Television

Anderson. Science Fiction Films of the Seventies

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Benson. Vintage Science Fiction Films, 18961949

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Kinnard. Horror in Silent Films Langman & Gold. Comedy Quotes from the Movies

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Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

Watson, Elena M., 1958
Television horror movie hosts: 68 vampires, mad scientists and other denizens of the late-night airwaves examined and interviewed / by Elena M. Watson.
p. cm.
Filmography/discography: p. 227
Includes bibliographical references (p. 231) and index.
ISBN 0-7864-0940-1
1. Television broadcasting of filmsUnited States 2. Television personalitiesUnited StatesBiography. 3. Horror filmsHistory and criticism. 4. Horror television programsHistory. I. Title. PN1992.8.F5W37 2000 791.45'616dc20 91-52642

British Library cataloguing data are available

Cover images: Zacherley, the host of New York television's Shock Theater (courtesy Photofest).

1991 Elena M. Watson. All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Box 611, Jefferson, North Carolina 28640
www.mcfarlandpub.com

To John and Jason,
who always believed

Writing a book has made me feel a bit like Blanche DuBoisdependent on the kindness of strangers. While the following people may not all be strange, they most certainly are kind. This book would have been impossible without their help and encouragement, and to them I give my most sincere gratitude: Jim Knusch, Dennis Fischer, Jerry Harrell, Kerry Gammill, Dick Dyszel, Karen Scioli, Bill Bowman, Roberta Soloman, Jerry Sandford, Bill Camfield, Greg Bransom, Ken Bramming, Chuck Schodowski, Rich Koz, Russ McCown, Don Melvoin, Ted Raub, Dock Bennick, Tom Ryan, Robert Kokai, Bill Ruehlman, Don Glut, Judy Martin, Jack Hawkins, Kim Holston, Michael Pitts, Leonard Stone, Mark Pierson, Michael Weldon, Jim Thompson, Jeff Thompson, Conrad Widener, Susan Ellison McGee, Terry Thompson, Dawn Anderson, Wendy Juren, David Pickel, Johanna Brown, John Pickel, for everything; countless librarians; and "Biff," who said, "Get writing!"

This book is intended as a tribute to one unheralded staple of television, the horror-movie host. He is generally pictured as the guy who introduces grade-Z flicks on your local independent TV station late at night. Often he performs these duties while dressed as some sort of zany ghoul or mad-scientist character. And in some ways he is an anachronistic hangover from the days when local TV programming was more common.

Movie-hosting, once popular on television, seems to have derived from the days of radio. Back then, it was common for a host to introduce dramatic plays, particularly if it was a story of the macabre or supernatural. Shows like The Inner Sanctum used this approach. And early television anthology series borrowed this technique. The Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock Presents are two famous examples of hosted television shows.

So it does not seem unusual that when theatrical movies were first shown on television, they too were hosted. A local host was thought to increase the ratings, which is exactly what happened during the Shock Theater fad of the late fifties. The Shock package was the first time a large percentage of pre-1948 Universal films were released to television. Screen Gems, which held the syndication rights, hoped to lure large numbers of viewers. They did so by emphasizing Universal's major product, horror movies, and hyping them shamelessly. Part of the campaign was to encourage the local stations showing the films to add their own macabre hosts. Most stations did, and the results were astounding. The horror hosts became stars. Their popularity may have waxed and waned, but they remain.

But before we visit these horrible hosts of horror, I must describe my inclusion criteria and define some terms. I should also state that I have included only shows broadcast from the continental United States from 1950 through 1989. Most shows were aired on a regular weekly basis. None were major network shows, and with the exception of two, each host began as a local personality. Some later moved on to syndication or cable TV, or sometimes both. The two exceptions began as hosts on cable stations.