TV’s DRACULA aka Jake Esau, hosted his Bad Movie shows in the old-school “vampire with a campy Bela Lugo as Dracula accent” manner. His schtick involved the well-worn plays on words to emphasize anything that came close to “scary” or “bloody” during his Host Segments or his in-character gigs doing television commercials.
All of Esau’s Movie Hosting shows aired in the Minneapolis/ St. Paul area. Those shows:
COUNT DRACULA PRESENTS (May 12th, 1984- ?, 1986) – Aired at 10:30pm on Saturdays on KITN-TV. Was a Double Feature for part of its run.
COUNT DRACULA PRESENTS (Sept 19th, 1987- Dec 26th, 1989) – Aired weekly on Saturdays on CCO Cable (also called KXLI-TV) AND syndicated on KPOL in Tucson, AZ.
COUNT DRACULA PRESENTS (?, 1996- ?, 1998) – Aired weekly on an undetermined day and time on KMWB.
HORROR INCORPORATED (2000-2002) – Aired on Saturday nights at Midnight on KSTC.
Surprisingly for such recent shows, exact times and sometimes even days are not yet nailed down for all of TV’s Dracula’s appearances.
During the May Sweeps ratings battle in 1985, Esau recalled beating rival station KMSP’s Blockbuster Movie in the 10:30pm – 12:30 slot by three to one! New station owners the following year cut TV’s Dracula’s budget and moved him to 12:30 on Saturday nights, leading to the 1986 demise of that first incarnation of Count Dracula Presents.
Like dozens of other 1980s Movie Hosts, Jake Esau’s Dracula got a brief acknowledgement on TV’s Bloopers and Practical Jokes in the segments hosted by Elvira. During his run on CCO Cable, Jake would do in-character commercials for car dealerships with werewolf and Frankenstein’s Monster sidekicks in non-speaking roles.
During that same period, he did ads for the records and tapes of the Heavy Metal/ Goth-tinged band called Morticia.
Beyond that, no surviving footage of this Movie Host or his shows exists. Luckily, researchers have found broadcast dates for many of the movies that Jake hosted on his various shows.
During TV’s Dracula’s 2000-2002 run on Horror Incorporated, he did recurring sketches about “taking over” Minnesota and later had a sexy blonde sidekick called Lucretia for his final few shows. On his final Horror Incorporated episode, Jake played Dr. Van Helsing driving a stake through the heart of TV’s Dracula, ending his time as a Movie Host.
Mr. Esau even performed as Dracula on the stage. He also portrayed Sherlock Holmes on stage in Minnesota and the state of Washington. His one-man shows included portrayals of Edgar Allan Poe, Mark Twain, Henry David Thoreau, Charles Dickens and Hans Christian Anderson.
Jake Esau (real name Gerald Edelstein) passed away on June 3rd, 2018 at age 71.
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