UNFORGETTABLE TV Horror Movie Hosts 👻👻👻

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In this video, we reconnect with some , unforgettable, beloved and schlocky local TV market Horror movie hosts who presented B-grade Horror and Sci-Fi films to their vast legions of fans!

The Vampira Show. The show ran on KTLA in Los Angeles from 1954-1955. The show and its host, Maila Nurmi are recognized as the first horror movie hostess, the originator, the hostess who started it all. She was a Finnish born actress who got her start in the film business in the 1940s performing in minor roles.
In 2014, a longtime rumor was confirmed that in 1956, she was the model for Maleficent, the evil witch in Disney’s Sleeping Beauty classic animated film.
The Vampira Show and Maila Nurmi’s Vampira character that she created, was the genesis of the regional TV Horror Movie Host genre. Everything that came after that derived from her original concept and innovation.
Zacherle would appear as the character ‘Ro-Land’ wearing a long black undertaker's coat and ghoulish make-up. Ro-Land lived in a crypt with his wife, simply referred to as "My Dear" who only laid in her coffin and also his lab assistant, Igor.
Zacherle was known as the ‘Cool Ghoul” and even did voice work for movies and recorded the top ten novelty rock and roll song “Dinner with Drac” in 1958.
Millions of people from all over the Midwest in the 1970’s remembered and loved Ron Sweed! No? Who was Ron Sweed? He was better known by his character that began appearing on the “The Ghoul Show” on Cleveland TV station WKBF in 1971. Sweed’s character was costumed and made up to appear like a psychedelic beatnik wearing dark tinted eyeglasses with one lens missing.
The “Ghoul Show’s heyday was throughout the 1970’s when it was syndicated. Up until about 2004, Ron Sweed as the Ghoul, appeared on and off the air in Cleveland and Detroit. He also did a Saturday night request show on Cleveland classic rock station WNCX during the same time period.
Svengoolie is a hosted horror movie show that got its start in 1970 in the Chicago area and was originally titled “Screaming Yellow Theater with host Svengoolie”. The show rand for 3 years with Jerry Bishop playing the host character, “Svengoolie”. Later, when the show was revived in 1979, it became known as “Son of Svengoolie” with Rich Koze taking over as Svengoolie and ran until 1986. As of 2011, the show has been broadcast nationally on MeTV on Saturday nights and many fans often live tweet commentary using the hashtag “Svengoolie”.
In the 1980s and 1990’s, Elvira seemed to be everywhere as the hot, sexy vampire who hosted horror films on Los Angeles’s KHJ-TV’s weekend “Movie Macabre.” Cassandra Peterson who portrays Elvira, is a multi-faceted entertainer who parlayed a local-market, weekend movie-hosting gig into achieving widespread success and stardom in TV, movies, voice-over acting, personal appearances, endorsements, commercials and merchandising.
In 2014, Hulu produced and streamed an all-new series titled “13 Nights of Elvira” with films provided by Full Moon Features.

00:00 Intro

00:11 Vampira

02:48 Zacherely

04:27 The Ghoul

06:23 Svengoolie

08:40 Elvira

11:34 Outro

[Sarah-gfed]

Vampira is my favourite. She was the original. I am absolutely fascinated with her. The most fascinating and beautiful lady who was well ahead of her time. RIP Beautiful Maila ❤️

[patrickkelley]

These are great people! I watch Svengoolie every Saturday night on MEtv. Absolutely adore Elvira - Mistress of the Dark! Oh yeah!!

[VHSMikey]

I'm so glad The Ghoul made the list. So many greats! Awesome video.

[peterpzazz]

The Ghoul show was a direct copy of Ernie Anderson’s Ghoulardi show in Cleveland. “Ova day”, “turn blue”, “purple knif” the fire cracker stuff and the Polish Parma gags were Ernie’s schticks. Ron even appeared in a Ghoulardi skit and borrowed a lot of Ghoulardi stuff. Ron took over with his own show after Ernie left for LA. Ron’s show was a lot of fun too.

[Zomboo-Official]

Great showcase of amazing and talented artists! Zomboo is a pretty Horror Host - and still on today!!

[michaelwargo]

VAMPIRA AND ELVIRA..WHOOP. AWESOMENESS 😍

[steveroberts]

I'm pleasantly surprised that you had The Ghoul on the list! Growing up in the Detroit area was awesome with The Ghoul, Sir Graves Ghastly, Count Scary, and so many late night horror shows on the weekend on darn near every channel in the area (Ch. 4's Saturday Night Dead, Ch. 7's Scream Theater, Ch. 20's Thriller Double Feature, and whatever the heck Ch. 9 had in their basement...)!

[christopherbell]

The original Svengoolie was hilarious the guy that currently plays him was a kid that used to send in jokes to the show so when Jerry Bishop retired they offered him the gig.

[marcacosta]

Thanks for including Jerry G. Bishop. He was hilarious.

[markwebb]

Back in the day our cable company near Cincinnati added WTTV channel 4 out of Indianapolis to our lineup. I was fortunate to be in that area when it came to horror hosts. Friday night it was Sammy Terry on channel 4. Saturday night it was the Cool Ghoul on channel 19 out of Cincinnati. And Sunday afternoons it was Dr. Creep on channel 22 out of Dayton. Saturday afternoon also had Superhost out of the Loraine/Cleveland area. I regret that my kids will never know the joy of staying up late on Friday or Saturday night for the express purpose of catching these wonderful shows.

[toob]

Cassandra Peterson was recently on _To Tell The Truth_ as a panel guest. All the star guessers were more excited about Elvira being onstage than the person with the "interesting" talent.

Chiller Theatre with Chilly Billy Cardille on WPXI in Pittsburgh was my horror/comedy jam.

[DragonWaveMaster]

I love The Ghoul! I met him twice and he was one of the nicest people I have ever met. He was the only one at the Motor City Comic Con who was giving away free autographed photos to his fans.

[violetjellyfish]

RIP to New Orleans’ favorite host Morgus the Magnificent. He will be missed.

[flypaper]

In 1961 the senior class of Yonkers High School had as its guest speaker at graduation Zacherle...much to the delight of us all.

[gristlevonraben]

The kount on kounting cars tv show also hosted horror movies. Cool video, Sir.

[GenXer]

The Ghoul, Sir Graves, Elvira, Dr. Shock…some of the best parts of my childhood was watching these shows! It was good clean fun and I have loved B movies ever since!

[thomasressler]

Growing up in the Pittsburgh area, we had Chilly Billy Cardille, who had a small cameo role as a TV newsman in the cult classic, Night of the Living Dead. Good times!

[idowanna]

I can't believe Dr Shock wasn't on your list!! 😲😲

[d.l.]

Certainly remember Elvira! In the Twin Cities market we had a guy in the 80's who hosted a show that was called Count Dracula Presents (if memory serves), and he was dressed as--you guessed it--Count Dracula, and he would present mostly classic horror films, book-ending commercial breaks with commentary. Made watching it a part of my weekly routine.

[williamhild]

I still watch Svengoolie every Saturday night on MeTV.