SCARTICIA – From 1971 to 1975 Annette Stutzman starred as the witch Scarticia, hostess of Horrible Movie late Saturday nights on WAPT-TV in Jackson, MS. Stutzman also worked as the personal secretary of the station manager.
Scarticia, the Mistress of the Night, would welcome her viewers every week with the words “Greetings, animals” and close each show by saying “Pleasant nightmares.” The witch’s main sidekick to abuse was her gravedigger Scoop Gravely, played by famous local DJ Ed Hobgood (lower right).
Filling in for Scoop from time to time was Dr. Choke Throttle, a vampire mad scientist played by Marvin Gardens, who also worked on the show’s set, did Scarticia’s makeup and served as cameraman. As usual, the can’t-miss format of Bad Movies presented by a sarcastic host or hostess and their sidekicks became a hit.
Soon, Jackson, MS teens and 20-somethings began holding Horrible Movie viewing parties on Saturday nights. Inevitably, hundreds of fan letters began pouring in every week.
Part of what made Scarticia and company stand out was the way they made many of their Host Segments as parodies of the iconic program Dark Shadows. What comedies like Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman and Soap were to traditional soap operas, those Horrible Movie sketches were to the Gothic horror soap with Barnabas Collins, etc. Continue reading
OHARA (1987-1988) – In this 1-hour detective show’s case “Ohara” is NOT O’Hara and is instead a Japanese-American cop played by the venerable Pat Morita, who also co-created the program. During its run Ohara went through THREE changes of format, starting out with a very innovative approach before poor ratings prompted desperate network scrambling for tired old approaches. 
Having obtained the Golden Fleece, Jason, Orpheus and the rest of the Argonauts fled Colchis immediately on board the Argo. King Aeetes’ daughter Medea fled with them because she fell in love with Jason and defied her father to enable the theft of the Golden Fleece. 
King Aeetes had to break off pursuit so he and his crew could fish up the various fragments of his son’s corpse for proper funeral rites. 
NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP GAME – The defending champs – the NORTHWEST INDIAN COLLEGE EAGLES – squared off against the STONE CHILD COLLEGE BEAR PAWS. NWIC may be establishing a dynasty. The Eagles dominated thoroughly on both sides of the ball from start to finish and when the dust finally settled, they had defeated the Bear Paws 90-64.
FIRST SEMIFINAL – The COLLEGE OF SOUTHERN IDAHO GOLDEN EAGLES played the GULF COAST STATE COMMODORES in this game. The Golden Eagles clung to a 38-36 edge come Halftime. After the break, CSI outscored the Commodores 44-34 to win out 82-70. Jalen Lyn led Southern Idaho with 24 points. 
SHOWCASE Vol 1 #6 (Feb 1957) 
America’s 250th birthday is coming up in July, so over the next few months Balladeer’s Blog will take a look at the anniversary years 1826, 1876, 1926 and 1976.
U.S. President: John Quincy Adams Vice President: John C. Calhoun Speaker of the House: John W. Taylor Chief Justice: John Marshall 
THE CITY OF SPIDERS (1926) – Short story by H. Warner Munn. This quasi-Creature Feature type tale featured biologist Jabez Pentreat. 
NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP GAME – Fighting it out for the crown were the PARKLAND COLLEGE COBRAS and the ELLSWORTH COLLEGE PANTHERS. The Cobras had mustered a 35-28 advantage going into the locker room. After the break, Parkland College eked out a bit more separation from the favored Panthers as they won the game 76-68. Jaiden Martin’s THIRTY-FOUR points led the Cobras. 
ELITE EIGHT: FIRST BERTH – The GULF COAST STATE COMMODORES played the INDIAN HILLS COLLEGE WARRIORS in this game. The Commodores put Indian Hills College on Upset Alert at Halftime with their 41-35 lead. From there, the Warriors rallied but fell just short as Gulf Coast State prevailed 72-70. The Commodores were led by Devontes Cobbs with 17 points. 
MAZEPPA – No relation to Tchaikovsky’s opera Mazeppa, this blog post refers to comedian, artist and actor Gailard Sartain, who got his start playing the wizard Mazeppa (center left) while hosting Tulsa, Oklahoma’s late Saturday night Bad Movie show called The Uncanny Film Festival and Camp Meeting. 
In between films came old educational shorts, black & white sci-fi shows, weird cartoons, you name it. It was like a countrified forerunner of Night Flight from later decades. 
And let’s quickly address the nice coincidence of Mazeppa and Busey’s character Teddy Jack Eddy hosting campy rock and roll movies like Don’t Knock the Rock, Untamed Youth or Shake, Rattle and Rock only for Busey to go on to play Buddy Holly and Sartain to play the Big Bopper in The Buddy Holly Story. 
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