SIR GRAVES GHASTLY – Lawson J. Deming portrayed this vampire character whose eponymous movie show ran from January 1967 to November 1982 in Detroit – a longer run than most other classic Movie Hosts. His Saturday afternoon at 1:00pm program was even syndicated in Cleveland and Washington, DC for a year or two during the 1970s.
(NOTE: Some sources claim that Lawson Deming hosted the syndicated shows as Count Alu Card.)
The backstory that Deming created for his tongue-in-cheek vampire was that he was over 400 years old and was originally Gravarious Ghastliano from Italy. After moving to England he met William Shakespeare and acted in his plays. One of Demings’ most frequent lines held that Queen Elizabeth had Sir Graves Ghastly hanged “but like a bad vaccination, it didn’t take.”
At the start of each episode Sir Graves would emerge from a coffin and make with his signature laugh – “”Nyeeea-aaaa-haa-haaaaa.” At show’s end he would climb back into the coffin and pull down the lid.
In between came old horror and sci-fi movies from classic Universal hits to So-Bad-They’re-Good bombs like Robot Monster, Revenge of the Creature, The Crawling Hand and others. Deming also portrayed a variety of supporting characters on Sir Graves Ghastly.
Baruba the Monk, Baron Boogaloff, the Glob (Deming’s face in the moon), Voice of Doom, Ivan Awfulitch, and Tilly Trollhouse the Singing Maid were all brought to life by the talented Mr. Deming – in Tilly’s case while in drag. Lawson also played Reel McCoy (below left), the gravedigger who dug up each movie to be shown by Sir Graves.
Over the years, Sir Graves Ghastly aired Friday nights at 11:30pm in addition to Saturday afternoons. Those Saturday shows were sometimes double and triple features since the program was the top-rated production in its market.
Like so many other Movie Hosts, Sir Graves sang parody songs, in his case ditties like I Want to Bite Your Hand to the tune of the Beatles song I Want to Hold Your Hand.
Lawson Deming was born in 1913 and was one of the few Movie Hosts to have performed in Vaudeville. Sadly, he passed away in April of 2007, the day after his 94th birthday.
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Logged, thank you sir!
A foreign‑policy civil war inside the American right
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That’s an interesting take.
Good actor. Only 6 years needed to do century. Sad 😔
I agree, it was sad.
Yes
😀
🙄🙄🙄🤓🤓
Clever lineup!
Wonderful as always. I have never heard of the bad movie host Lawson Deming before.
Thanks! I’m happy to spread the word!
Yay, I loved Sir Graves, he was a real hoot! Thank you, thank you.
Thank YOU! I was happy to do it!