SHOCK ARMSTRONG, THE ALL-AMERICAN GHOUL bore a name that was a play on the old radio series Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy. Even in 1964 that was an obscure reference, so it’s possible that many fans of this Bad Movie Host were oblivious to the connection. At any rate, from 1964 to 1968 Shock Armstrong hosted Double-Features on Shock Theatre Friday nights at 11:30pm on WTVT out of Tampa Bay and St. Petersburg, Florida.
Broadcasting veteran Paul Reynolds portrayed Shock Armstrong. Paul had worked at WTVT Channel 13 for years in various jobs like announcer, sports reporter, host of rock and roll shows like Teen Party, Open House and Record Room as well as serving as the station’s Bozo the Clown. In September of 1964 Paul’s boss abruptly told him that WTVT was joining the nationwide tradition of airing old and bad horror flicks hosted by a tongue-in-cheek ghoulish character.
Reynolds donned a quasi-Frankenstein Monster mask worked up by the station’s art department and an old University of Tampa Spartans football jersey sporting the number 13. Paul was already in his 30s by 1964 and remembered the old Jack Armstrong radio show, so that inspired his character’s name.
For his character’s schtick, Reynolds drew from his experience around teens during his DJ and rock show host years. He played Shock Armstrong, the All-American Ghoul as a teenage monster whose show originated from his attic bedroom which was always a mess. Shock’s never-seen mother communicated in nothing but shrill screams which our Movie Host always understood, just like the Peanuts Gang always understood the unintelligible noises made by the adults in their early cartoons.
Shock’s mother frequently yelled at her son to rid up his room or turn down his rock music like so many moms with so many teenagers. He in turn would gripe and complain about that as well as all the other “unreasonable” demands made by adults, who included his cranky neighbor Mr. Wilson. (Nice touch.)
For the first couple episodes of Shock Theatre, Paul Reynolds played his Teenage Monster mute and his Host Segments featured the character in slapstick Silent Movie/ Ernie Kovacs comedy situations. In the third episode Reynolds made Shock Armstrong a speaking character, complete with now-moving lips and with his youth experience lending a certain authenticity to the figure’s slang and attitudes. Soon Shock was a hit with teens, pre-teens and twenty-somethings throughout Tampa and St. Petersburg.
Adding to the appeal of Shock Amstrong’s show was the fact that by this point in the 1960s many of the classically bad Big Bug and Alien Monster flicks from the 1950s were becoming available to television stations. Shock got to host Psychotronic staples like The Giant Claw, The Gamma People, Zombies of Mora Tau, X the Unknown, Earth vs the Flying Saucers, Battle in Space and many more.
Not only that, but horror flicks like Curse of the Demon, Black Sunday, Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow and Hammer’s Revenge of Frankenstein were aired on Shock Theatre.
During 1966 WTVT switched to color broadcasting instead of black & white, but Shock Theatre‘s opening remained the same. From a mist-filled graveyard the scene would switch to an imposing old mansion on a hill. Soon viewers were inside Shock Armstrong’s shambles of an attic bedroom, where our Movie Host was asleep in an open coffin but with wires running from Shock’s electrodes to his nearby alarm clock.
The alarm would go off, sending mock bolts of electricity into the slumbering monster’s body, prompting him to rise from the coffin like Frankenstein’s Monster rising from a lab table. Shock would give a kiss to his incongruous werewolf teddy bear named Lamby-Pie, then launch into his Movie Host role.
Fans of Shock Theatre recalled various comedy bits brought to life (as it were) by Shock during his four-year run. He often broke furniture due to not fully appreciating his own strength. Once he sliced an entire table in half while trying to cut a banana since trying to peel it left him puzzled. On another occasion he broke his television set while trying to change channels.
NOTE: Bear in mind that Reynolds could not have been merely imitating Herman Munster’s schtick because The Munsters debuted the same week as Shock Theatre.
Other comedy sketches revolved around Shock’s frequent clashes with nosey, cranky next-door neighbor Mr. Wilson, played by the show’s director Ted Wiezycki. The Generation Gap between the two was more like the Grand Canyon and they just never got along.
On another occasion, Shock’s mother relentlessly nagged him to come downstairs and wash the dishes. Through some missteps that not even Lucille Ball’s Lucy Ricardo could have managed, the teen monster wound up with nuclear dishwater. Shock tried to get it out of the house but his attempts resulted in him spraying some on passersby, dumping some on his screaming mother and finally flushing the rest down into the city’s sewer system, unleashing even more havoc.
Perhaps due to whatever insecurities he felt over having a werewolf teddy-bear at his age, Shock sometimes toted around a machine gun, even cradling it to his chest.
Director Ted Wiezycki’s son Larry recalled a post-Christmas episode in which the Host Segments featured Shock Armstrong getting it into his head to go around the neighborhood taking all the dying Christmas Trees set out for the garbage men and stashing them in his attic bedroom. In the end, Shock accidentally set them all on fire, causing his and his mother’s home to burn down.
Like on so many tv shows now and back then, reality re-set itself and by next Friday night at 11:30 the house was as good as new.
On June 17th, 1966 the Singularity was achieved as one of that night’s movies hosted by our teenage Frankenstein was I Was a Teenage Frankenstein. Teenagers from Outer Space aired a week later.
Come April of 1967, WTVT management tried cancelling Shock Theatre because they began airing Joey Bishop’s brand-new talk show which ran opposite Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show at 11:30pm Monday through Friday. They should have just moved Shock Armstrong’s show to Saturday nights at 11:30 but in any event, the suits at the station soon learned the error of their ways.
Fan anger over losing Shock, his sketches and his Golden Turkeys like Teenage Caveman, The Bain Eaters and The Giant Gila Monster resulted in WTVT being flooded with calls and letters of complaint as well as protesters carrying picket signs outside the Channel 13 studios. Weeks later, Shock Theatre was back on the air.
Unfortunately, in 1968 Paul Reynolds moved to Atlanta for an ombudsman job at another television station. Fan protests couldn’t undo this development, but during Paul and his family’s back and forth trips during their move north to Georgia somebody broke into their Florida home and stole Paul’s Shock Amstrong costume plus assorted props and paraphernalia.
Shock himself may have been gone but WTVT kept showing unhosted Friday night Double Features under the Shock Theatre title. As a salute to the Paul Reynolds Movie Host character a Don Post Frankenstein Monster mask made to resemble Shock’s old mask was used in the Shock Theatre logo until it went off the air entirely in 1974. Paul Reynolds passed away in 1996.
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