Growing up in St. Pete in the '70s and '80s, Dr. Paul Bearer was our local fixture for Saturday afternoon monster flicks. Being in a time before the internet, I had no idea that the concept of the local horror host was such a nationwide thing, or that our guy was one of the most renowned of all time.
Who was your guy or girl or creature or whatever?
In Kansas City, Gregory Grave, Shock Theatre on channel 5 at 11 pm Saturdays!
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10280184/?ref_=tt_mv_close
Here in Boston, we had the WLVI TV56 Creature Double Feature!
(Yes, I have that on a shirt!)
I was really, really young when these were on. They aired on Saturday afternoons right after the cartoons. Some of my earliest memories were watching this; it went off the air sometime in 1983 when I was only a year old. That said, I usually hid behind the couch when this came on trembling in fear, but for my dad and older sister, it was appointment viewing. I ended up getting used to the weird music and content of the shows, and was introduced to Godzilla, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, and many more classic horror monsters through this show. It was hosted by some guy named "Uncle Dale" which was less a host and more of a voice-over letting you know what was going to be on.
A few years later when I first played the classic video game Castlevania on the NES, I immediately recognized all the monsters in the game, and thought it was based on the Creature Double Feature show!
We had two in Detroit. The "fancy" one on the NBC affiliate was Count Scary:
But by far the funnier, more low-rent one was on syndicated and shared with Cleveland, showing truly awful old horror movies late on Friday and Saturday nights. He was Ron Sweed, aka "The Ghoul":
Isn't that how Elvira, Mistress of the Night got her start?
Duke
MegaDork
5/2/24 4:24 p.m.
Doctor Shock on Philadelphia WPHL-TV, UHF channel 17. Affectionately known as "Shocky Doc" around our house. Taught me to love C-movie horror and had a profound influence on me growing up.
"Bubbles" was his frequent sidekick, starting at age 9 months.
In all but the nicest weather, my ideal Saturday afternoon was a bag of pretzels, a Coke, and an endless stream of weird horror movies. A few standouts:
There are a million others. I love this stuff.
Bob Wilkins Creature Feature on KTVU Channel 2 in Oakland, California. Every Saturday night at 11 pm. He was a strange guy.
In Toledo we had to make due with The Ghoul (Swede) on channel 50 out of Detroit. We did have our own local Saturday morning kids show called "Patches and Pockets" though.
My older neighbor gave me a Ghoul t-shirt when I was about 7 or 8
"Stay sick, turn blue!"
Also in Detroit we had Sir Graves Ghastly before the two Tom mentioned above
J.A. Ackley said:
Svengoolie!
Not a soul who's seen the show can ever say Berwyn like a normal person again.
Before the Ghoul Cleveland had Ernie Anderson. "Ghoulardi"
The local show in Minneapolis-St. Paul was Horror Incorporated. Over the years it had various hosts (Dr. Paul Bearer, Graves, or sometimes no host at all.) A person took on the task of documenting all the movies that were shown on which dates over the entire series run - his website has neat lobby cards for each movie. https://horrorincorporatedproject.wordpress.com
It should be noted that Mystery Science Theater 3000 began as a low budget show on an independent TV station in Minneapolis, I used to watch it late nights after coming home from the bars.
Orlando had GraveMaster, but MST3000 was very much more my thing. I still have a tendency to voice my own narrative for bad movies, which usually entertains me far more than it does the family members who don't understand why I won't stop talking. Here's GraveMaster:
Margie
11GTCS
SuperDork
5/3/24 8:03 a.m.
In reply to Tony Sestito :
Probably Dale Dorman. He was a DJ on WRKO when AM top 40 was a thing in the late 60's into the 1970's.
Jerry
PowerDork
5/3/24 8:32 a.m.
Growing up in Cincinnati in the 70s, I remember The Cool Ghoul. Wikipedia
ShawnG
MegaDork
5/3/24 9:34 a.m.
Canadian children got reruns of The Hilarious House of Frightenstein.
Indeed, Elvira started locally.
Don't forget we recently lost Count Floyd from Monster Chiller Horror Theater.
In reply to stuart in mn :
Wait! Is that John Candy on the left?