B-MOVIE HOST DR. SCAR (1962-1980)

Halloween Month continues with this look at another horror host of the past.

DR. SCAR – This Movie Host was played by Jack Jacobson and hosted TWO shows at once on KGUN-TV Channel 9 in Tucson, Arizona. He hosted Big 9 Chiller on Saturday nights at 10:30 pm from 1962-1977 and Science Fiction Theater on Sunday nights at 9 or 10pm from 1965-1980.

Jack Jacobson was an 8-year-old supporting cast member on radio’s Uncle Bob Pierce & Company in 1929. At age 18 he started doing comedy at nightclubs in New York City and in 1942 enlisted in the Army Air Corps. As World War Two went on, Jack and fellow servicemen formed the entertainer troupe called The Sky Blazers.

After the war, Jacobson worked at various radio and television stations in the U.S. In 1962 he was hired as Program and Promotions Manager by Tucson’s KGUN-TV. Joining the Movie Host bandwagon that other tv stations across America had been running for several years, he personally played the mad scientist “kindly and loveable” Dr. Scar on KGUN’s Big 9 Chiller on Saturday nights.

Big 9 Chiller debuted September 22nd, 1962 with From Hell It Came (1957), the famous Golden Turkey about atomic bomb tests and black magic spawning a walking tree monster on an island in the Pacific. Nearly 800 shows later, the program ended on July 29th, 1977 with an airing of The Missing Guest (1938), about spending the night in a house where a murder was committed 20 years earlier.     

Dr. Scar’s version of Science Fiction Theater kicked off on September 5th, 1965 with The Angry Red Planet (1959), the schlocker about a Mars expedition, weird red tinting and monsters like the giant rat-bat-spider creature. Over 600 shows followed, ending on January 6th, 1980 with Attack of the Mushroom People (1963), the Japanese bomb about mushrooms on a desert island which mutate those who eat them into squat, ugly mushroom people.

In between, those two programs presented the usual Movie Host staples like Frankenstein 1970, Attack of the 50-Foot Woman, House on Haunted Hill, The Giant Behemoth and many, many more.

Dr. Scar’s shows would open up with a model of his mansion high on a mountaintop while a thunderstorm roared and lightning flashed. Jacobson’s trademark laugh followed as he welcomed viewers.

Some of this mad scientist’s schtick included Ernie Kovaks style camera trickery, like Dr. Scar holding a duplicate of his own living head in one hand while he exchanged repartee with it. On another occasion the talons of the ridiculous gigantic buzzard in The Giant Claw tried to grab Doc through the doors and windows of his mansion.

Jack Jacobson’s character was such a hit that KGUN had no problem selling advertising space during his two shows.   

Astonishingly, for such long-running programs very little footage has survived of Big 9 Chiller and Science Fiction Theater. That’s a shame because given Jacobson’s decades of experience I’m betting he churned out a lot of quality humor as Dr. Scar while hosting So Bad They’re Good movies.

Like Omaha’s Dr. San Guinary on Creature Feature, Jacobson’s mad scientist character became the local station’s host for cutaways from the main Jerry Lewis Muscular Dystrophy Telethon every Labor Day.

For years after both shows were gone, Jacobson had fans approaching him in public showering him with plaudits for all the laughs that Dr. Scar had brought them.

John Jacobson passed away on March 23rd, 2009 and was inducted into the Horror Host Hall of Fame in 2024.  

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