TNT’s Monstervision with Joe Bob Briggs.
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The Bowman Body getting knocked out of his coffin by a basketball is one of my favorite accidental goofs in TV history.
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I am so disappointed I wasn’t around for Vampira’s brief heyday, and that so little footage survives. She was one spooky chick.
Raaawrrrr
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The local show here was Uncle Ted’s Ghoul School. WNEP Channel 16.
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I didn’t grow up with him, but Mr. Lobo is a fantastic host. I discovered him recently on his 20th anniversary marathon on Twitch. My customers love watching his show while they play their card games, and Mr. Lobo sent these as a thank you for supporting him. He has his own channel on Roku called OSI74 that has dozens of other shows to binge. If anyone else loves this type of content, I highly recommend checking the channel out or his Youtube channel.
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The first one that I watched (although not as spooky as your usual horror host) was Commander USA on the USA network. Joe Bob was big influence on me when I got old enough to find him on Monstervision.
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The Ghoul (syndicated variously on Detroit channels 20 and 50) and Sir Graves Ghastly (out of Detroit channel 2), and then when I got to college I discovered Big Chuck and Li’l John, and Superhost. Once I moved to central Ohio, it’s Fritz the Nite Owl (who used to do live shows but has since retired – really, really great guy).
We really are spoiled for hosts in Ohio… I only regret that Ghoulardi was before my time.
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Speaking of Fritz, he made a couple of appearances in a run of Shazam, and was kind enough to autograph my copy:
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In northern California in the early-mid eighties it was Elvira’s Movie Macabre (the last word of which we butchered terribly). Cassandra Peterson was hysterical, and certainly helped prepare me to appreciate MST3k a few years later.
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“Commander USA–Legion of Decency, Retired.”
I first saw Infra-Man thanks to that show.
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It’s one of Roger Ebert’s guilty pleasures (starts at 13:50).
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I grew up watching the late, great Bob Wilkins on Creature Feature on KTVU out of Oakland. I think he had a cool schtick. He was surrounded by all the skulls, coffins, spider webs etc that most horror hosts use, but he himself was just a guy. No fake fangs, capes, or any of that. It was like he was just some guy who thought lighting his cigar on a candle attached to a skull was perfectly normal. I miss him.
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I kinda remember a Ghoul character back home in Cambridge when I was a kid - Ghouli or Son of Somethingorother… What stands out the most was he did a sketch on the show called Conan the Librarian where he basically destroyed everything because the books were overdue. Love Elvira, who is a national treasure at this point, Svengoolie, and Joe Bob and Darcy. I longed (still do) to be a horror host/character myself one day.
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