Inspired by this thread and MST3K’s backgrounding in “creature feature” shows, I want to ask if you had or have a local horror movie host.
In my home region of Tidewater the host was (and still is) the delightful Doctor Madblood. Great show with a huge cast of secondary characters and, yes, puppets!
What horror host did you grow up with and/or are still watching?
We had Elvira and Tales from the Crypt.
In central Indiana, we had Nightmare Theater hosted by Sammy Terry, who identified as a ghoul. Every Friday night, Sammy would rise from his coffin in his mountain castle and host a double feature. During commercial breaks he would drink a Type O cocktail and chat with George the Spider.
Sammy was on for years - starting out in the early '60s - and I watched from the time I was a tyke in the mid-'70s and into my college years in the late '80s. It was where I first saw black and white classics like Frankenstein, Dracula, and The Creature From The Black Lagoon. I also remember seeing The Horror Of Party Beach 
In Philadelphia we had the grand daddy of all horror hosts, Roland, later known as Zacherley.
But when I was growing up, we had Saturday Night Dead, with your host, Stella, the maneater of Manyunk. 
Born and bred Indy; Sammy was a mainstay. I met him (Bob Carter) several times and he was such a gem!
My dad also perfected the art of tossing a rubber spider at me during the George segments. And to think, I came out of childhood completely normal! 
Pleasant Nightmares!!
When I lived in Bemidji as a kid, Red River TV out of Fargo Had Madd Frank. (They kickstarted a documentary about him that I found out about a year after it ended!)
It was as cheesy as you could ever hope for.
Hah! Having looked up Madd Frank now that he was on the brain, apparently a Moorhead public access channel is re-running archived episodes on Saturdays at 9PM central US time.
Anyone who may be curious can stream at this link: Public Access Channel - Moorhead Access Tv
I grew up on The Ghoul, who ran on channels 50 and 20 out of Detroit – I only much later learned he was actually out of Cleveland.
And on Saturday afternoons, there was Sir Graves Ghastly on channel 2 out of Detroit.
Once I moved to Columbus, I discovered (and later met) Fritz the Nite Owl, who is just zarking wonderful and a really great guy (and autographed for me one of the issues of Shazam! he appeared in!).
And of course almost every host in Ohio is in the shadow of the great Ghoulardi (my avatar image) – watching Big Chuck and Little John Saturdays while I was in college was very much A Thing.
And if not BC&LJ, there was also Superhost!
I tells ya, we were spoiled for hosts in Ohio. Or, it was a side effect from drinking water from Lake Erie…
Btw- this is actually where my handle comes from… “The World’s Most Interesting Werewolf” was supposed to be the host of a Philadelphia based horror host show called the “Full Moon Manor”.
Unfortunately, never got lift off into production, but a lot of fun memories of pre-production and development.
At least I can still use the name, haha.
Wow, did that bring back some memories. Loved Stella.
Joe Bob Briggs did a fantastic tribute to Zacherle on “The Last Drive In”.
Predating him, of course, was Vampira.
Then we had Sinister Seymour in the '70s, who hosted some of the first movies I ever watched on TV. (Little Shop of Horrors stands out.) But he died young, sadly. Then, of course, we got Elvira, and the rest is history.
I grew up with Count Scary on Detroit’s Channel 50. Later on we had Dr. Shock in Toledo, and Fritz the Nite Owl in Columbus.
(LOTS of overlap here with @trdsf – and I completely agree that we’re blessed with Great Lakes horror hosts!)
I regret to say, I do not remember Count Scary or Dr Shock… looks like the Count came along after Buckeye Cable dropped 50, and I have no excuse for missing Dr Shock. I did find this… The Ghoul vs Count Scary!
Channel 50 occupies a warm fuzzy spot in my heart for the late, great Bill Kennedy. Not a horror movie host, but one of the great movie hosts of all time, and capable of great snark when the movie he was showing was not a particularly great one.
You could have challenged Quentin Collins for the title.
HAHA- love where your heads at. Slightly different vibes, but not too far off. Quentin would have been a first cousin. 
Here’s one of the preproduction make-up test pics.
I love it!
I admit that I didn’t remember Bill Kennedy’s name, but I just did a quick search, and I absolutely remember watching him on Channel 50. I remember that my biggest takeaway was that he wore a hat like the Skipper, so that says something about my sophisticated viewing habits.
My most vivid memory of Channel 50 was the opening to the Saturday afternoon Creature Feature…
Wow! That’s an amazing costume design!
I don’t remember ever being old enough to watch public access television or spooky movies when they were around, but I thought it would be worth mentioning that SCTV has a great reoccurring bit called Monster Chiller Horror Theater hosted by “Count Floyd”. I’d definitely recommend looking it up on youtube, it’s very silly.
He wasn’t a horror movie host, but anyone who grew up in the early 1970s through the mid-1980s in Southwestern Ohio knows of Bob Shreve. He hosted an all-night movie show on a couple of different Cincinnati television channels and for a time on Channel 7 in Dayton, Ohio.
The show featured Bob with a variety of puppets (and usually the sponsor of a local brewery, which led to the shows getting more “relaxed” as the night went on) doing bits inbetween segments of the movies. Many fans watched just of Bob. The cast of puppets weren’t really much in the way of puppets actually (besides a second-hand Grover Muppet that appeared often and could have easily led to some cease-and-desist action). The Kid was a small kewpie doll that constantly got her head knocked off, while Gororo was a scary mask on a manequin head that was so popular he had his own horror-hosted movie show for a time (imagine Cambot having her own show, to give you an idea of how bizarre that concept was).
Because it was done live for 4-5 hours every Saturday night back in the 1970s, there isn’t much footage available, but some clips by fans with early access to recording equipment has turned up over time. Here’s an ad with Bob and The Kid for one offering.
Ultimately it was a show that if you know it, you understand, and if you never lived through it, you probably can never understand the magic of the show.
Thank you- very much appreciated! That was a really fun photoshoot and there’s a ton of great pictures that came out of it.
