The broken man you see before you now is doubtless the result of my older sister sneaking me into drive-in movies that I absolutely should not have seen and, more importantly, Bob Wilkins, the strangely intellectual host of Creature Features. Despite all evidence to the contrary, I still think horror films are cool. And as I do my anti-cholesterol walks through the neighborhood, sporting odd T-shirts and weather-inappropriate short pants, I know that I see reality more clearly than those around me. Because at the age of seven, I survived The Last Man on Earth on Creature Features!
It’s lucky for me that I lived in the Bay Area. Had I lived in the Northeast, I might have been stuck with John Zacherle. Brilliant as he was, he was no intellectual. With him showing the way of horror, I might be focused on art films now!
Regardless, the hosted TV horror show was important to a lot of people of my age. What Saturday Night Live was for people of the following decade, these shows were to us. But in this regard, I might be a bit out of time. I was watching this way before I should have. Most of my friends look back on SNL, not Creature Features.
Vampira and Shock Theater
The prototypical hosted TV horror show was The Vampira Show. It wasn’t the first. Murder Before Midnight on WBKB with Drana Badour the Swami was probably the first. It was successful — running three years. But it didn’t have the impact of The Vampira Show, which had the advantage of featuring a sexy woman and being in Los Angeles. People noticed both these things!
As a result of the success of the show, in 1957, Screen Gems released Shock! (normally referred to as Shock Theater). This was a syndicated collection of 52 films that were sold to regional TV stations — explicitly to be used as hosted TV shows in the vein of The Vampira Show. And the films included in the collection are pretty awesome! They included the Universal hits Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy, and The Wolf Man.
As a result of Shock Theater, local stations all over America created their own shows. Most were not exactly great. Many of the shows were simply titled “Shock Theater.” And few stations had anyone of the charisma of Maila Nurmi. But there were notable hosts:
| Actor | Character | Station | City | Years |
| John Zacherle | Zacherley | WCAU WABC WPIX | Philadelphia New York New York | 1957-1958 1958-1960 1961-1965 |
| Sidney Noel Rideau | Morgus the Magnificent | WWL WJBK | New Orleans Detroit | 1959-1964 1970-1971 |
| Ernie Anderson | Ghoulardi | WJW | Cleveland | 1963-1966 |
| Bill Cardille | Chilly Billy | WIIC | Pittsburgh | 1964-1983 |
| Lawson Deming | Sir Graves Ghastly | WJBK | Detroit | 1967-1977 |
| Larry Vincent | Sinister Seymour | KHJ KTLA | Los Angeles Los Angeles | 1969-1974 1969-1974 |
The Anti-Horror Host
Bob Wilkins had a totally different take on this theme. He hosted Creature Features in the San Francisco Bay Area for 15 years across three stations: KCRA (1966-1970), KTVU (1971-1979), KTXL (1970-1981).
The show was more of a straight copy of Vampira. But instead of her silly routine, he was kind of an academic. He made jokes. But they were dry. He smoked a cigar (a pipe would have been better for the brand). And he interviewed notable psychotronic celebrities. These included Christopher Lee, William Marshall, John Carradine, Ray Harryhausen, and John Landis. He also interviewed the primary cast of Star Wars and Star Trek.
He was more or less what I am today: someone who loves horror but takes it rather more seriously than most, at the same time that he realizes it is all kind of silly.
Son of Shock
After the 1957 Shock Theater collection, Screen Gems put out Son of Shock. It included only 20 films, but it completed the Universal horror collection with Bride of Frankenstein, House of Dracula, and more.
Clearly, the idea was to repackage these old films in a way that they would appeal to a new audience. It was just a cash grab. But it was a great one. I love these films — largely because I first saw them on Creature Features. And Columbia (which owned Screen Gems) deserves all the money it got.
Shock Theater With Jim Ross on KGUL-TV poster via IMDb under Fair Use.