From January of 1963 to December of 1966 Ernie Anderson, AKA Ghoulardi, ruled the Friday night airwaves in Cleveland with his b-movie show. To give you an idea of how popular his show was, Ghoulardi did what some of the top entertainers of their day consistently failed to do – HE BEAT JOHNNY CARSON’S TONIGHT SHOW IN THE RATINGS! Carson may have owned the rest of the country, but on Friday nights in Cleveland and vicinity Ghoulardi was the REAL king.
Ghoulardi, along with Vampira and Zacherley, is part of the Holy Trinity (or Trimurti if you prefer) of the early b-movie show hosts who proved so popular they ensured that the American folk art of hosting Grade Z films would not be just a passing fad. Those three pioneers (if you’re from Chicago you can add Mad Marvin) became pop culture icons and helped demonstrate how much fun bad movie culture can be.
In Ghoulardi’s case his catch-phrases like “Stay sick” and “Ova dey!” were the “Hikeeba!” of their day. Anderson’s look was iconic, too, and his green lab coat predated Doctor Madblood’s and Trace Continue reading
BOP GIRL GOES CALYPSO (1957) – Category: Bad, youth-oriented 1950s movie that is incredibly campy. In the late 1950s there was a brief flurry of films implying that Rock and Roll was a dying fad. Some producers of those films were backing a musical style they felt would become “the next hot trend” in popular music, in this movie’s case, Calypso. My favorite line: “Rock and Roll is yesterday! Calypso is where the money’s at now!”
IF FOOTMEN TIRE YOU, WHAT WILL HORSES DO? (1971) – Category: A neglected bad movie classic that deserves a Plan 9-sized cult following No, it’s not about Quentin Tarantino and pre-Castro Havana nightclubs (Thank you, I’m here all week!) it’s really a Cold War-era warning about what would happen if Communists took over the United States. It’s from 
