Tag Archives: Movie Hosts

March 27, 2026 · 6:14 pm

DR. SAN GUINARY (1971-1981) – BAD MOVIE HOST

DR. SAN GUINARY – From 1971 to 1981, director John F. Jones at KMTV in Omaha, Nebraska hosted the channel’s version of Creature Feature as mad scientist Dr. San Guinary. The program originally aired late Saturday nights after the 10:00pm local news, then was moved to Midnight when KMTV started airing SNL in 1975.

Omaha’s Creature Feature opened with the sound of whooshing winds, thunder and a few screams as the camera grew closer to what was obviously a scale model of a spooky old house where Doc maintained his lab. The joke was that the audience could clearly tell the house was just a model, like so many fake-looking models of buildings in so many bad movies. (Same with the Gizmonic Institute models.)  

In his light green skin makeup and lightly blood-spattered white lab coat, San’s schtick was the by-then well-established airing of old and often bad movies like Day of the Triffids or The Giant Behemoth alongside various supporting characters like his lab assistant Igor and occasional pretty nurses.

The doctor, whose voice always had a certain Wolfman Jack sound to it, also did comedy inserts and sketches, of course. The circulating DVDs of Horror Host footage from decades ago featured plenty of Dr. San Guinary’s comedy bits, including his Mystery Door segments (above right).

Doc never knew what would lie behind that door, like maybe a train racing toward him, or himself playing on a rock piano and singing Catfish Boogie, or other oddities and sight gags. Sort of a forerunner of the Hexfield Viewscreen gags on Mystery Science Theater 3000 during its original run. Continue reading →

2 Comments

Filed under Forgotten Television, Movie Hosts

Tagged as , , , , ,

March 10, 2026 · 8:52 am

SIR GRAVES GHASTLY (1967-1982) BAD MOVIE HOST

SIR GRAVES GHASTLY – Lawson J. Deming portrayed this vampire character whose eponymous movie show ran from January 1967 to November 1982 in Detroit – a longer run than most other classic Movie Hosts. His Saturday afternoon at 1:00pm program was even syndicated in Cleveland and Washington, DC for a year or two during the 1970s.

(NOTE: Some sources claim that Lawson Deming hosted the syndicated shows as Count Alu Card.)

The backstory that Deming created for his tongue-in-cheek vampire was that he was over 400 years old and was originally Gravarious Ghastliano from Italy. After moving to England he met William Shakespeare and acted in his plays. One of Demings’ most frequent lines held that Queen Elizabeth had Sir Graves Ghastly hanged “but like a bad vaccination, it didn’t take.”

At the start of each episode Sir Graves would emerge from a coffin and make with his signature laugh – “”Nyeeea-aaaa-haa-haaaaa.” At show’s end he would climb back into the coffin and pull down the lid.

In between came old horror and sci-fi movies from classic Universal hits to So-Bad-They’re-Good bombs like Robot Monster, Revenge of the Creature, The Crawling Hand and others. Deming also portrayed a variety of supporting characters on Sir Graves Ghastly. Continue reading →

14 Comments

Filed under Bad and weird movies, Movie Hosts

Tagged as , , , , ,

February 23, 2026 · 3:33 pm

BAD MOVIE HOSTESS: MOONA LISA (1963-1975)


 My fellow movie host geeks and I are grateful to John L. for his better photographs of this lady as seen above. Moona Lisa (Lisa Clark in real life) was an active movie host for twelve years beginning in 1963.

Though Moona Lisa is most often associated with San Diego’s Science Fiction Theater, her longest-lasting show, she also hosted Moona’s Midnight Madness in St Louis for over a year and for eighteen months had even stepped in to replace one of the legends of the Movie Host world – Seymour AKA Sinister Seymour AKA Larry Vincent – as the host of Los Angeles’ iconic b-movie show Fright Night.

The slinky Moona Lisa hosted her programs from her personal Moon Base, often with the Earth seen in the lunar sky through a window, as in the above photo. When the Apollo astronauts landed on the moon in 1969 Lisa Clark employed a gimmick pioneered by the legendary movie host Zacherley the Cool Ghoul and inserted her Moona Lisa character into the footage, presenting her greeting the arriving astronauts.   Continue reading →

8 Comments

Filed under Bad and weird movies, Movie Hosts

Tagged as , , , , ,

February 18, 2026 · 5:53 pm

BAD MOVIE HOSTS: CHRISTOPHER COFFIN (1961-1967)

 Christopher Coffin, AKA Reed Pasternak AKA Reed Farrell, deserves to be mentioned with the biggest names in the history of B- Movie Hosts.

As you can see in the photo at left Coffin hosted his movies from a wheelchair and when you combine that with his wry, erudite sense of humor and his aristocratic manner I think the best way to describe him would be as a combination of Sheridan Whitehead in The Man Who Came to Dinner and Ghoulardi.  Or maybe I should make that  a pre- Ghoulardi version of Ghoulardi, depending on what year you accept for CC’s premier.

I want to address the ongoing debate over exactly what year his program debuted. The advocates of a Continue reading →

14 Comments

Filed under Bad and weird movies, Movie Hosts

Tagged as , , , , ,

February 5, 2026 · 5:17 pm

GHOULARDI: BAD MOVIE HOST (1963-1966)

 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 catchphrases 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 →

22 Comments

Filed under Bad and weird movies, Movie Hosts

Tagged as , , , , ,

October 26, 2025 · 8:38 pm

MOVIE HOSTESS STELLA FROM SATURDAY NIGHT DEAD (1984-1990)

This beautiful redhead is Stella, aka the Maneater from Manayunk (a section of Philadelphia), as portrayed by the talented Karen Scioli. There are plenty of color photos of Stella out there, but I think this b&w pic best captures her spirit. Karen Scioli wrote most of her material herself, in the style of Rich Koz and was a stand-up comic before becoming a movie hostess.

People who like my bad movie reviews tend to like practicioners of the American folk-art of movie hosting and Karen Scioli was one of the best. And with all due respect to Elvira, as a lifelong breast man I believe Stella was the REAL “hostess with the mostest”. Continue reading →

8 Comments

Filed under Halloween Season, Movie Hosts

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

October 18, 2025 · 7:47 pm

HORROR HOST: MAD MARVIN (1957-1959)

Halloween Month continues with this look at a Movie Host from the 1950s – Mad Marvin. For several more Movie Hosts from the 1950s to the 1980s click HERE. You’ll find Moona Lisa, Svengoolie and Son of Svengoolie, Stella from Saturday Night Dead and, of course, The Texas 27 Film Vault.

Chicago’s own Mad Marvin (Terry Bennett) was part of the First Wave of B-Movie Hosts and Hostesses of the 1950s. From 1957 to 1959 Terry (joined by his wife Joy soon after the show launched) entertained the Windy City late on Saturday nights with that metropolis’ version of Shock Theater.

Described as a “Mad Beatnik” and a “Mad Hipster”, Bennett’s Mad Marvin character had a macabre sense of humor that has made him a legend with Movie Host fans. In fact, television station management in Chicago and from around the country soon realized that, as with the likes of Vampira and Zacherley the Cool Ghoul, audiences were tuning in just as much (if not more) to watch the antics of Mad Marvin as they were to watch the movies. Continue reading →

10 Comments

Filed under Halloween Season, Movie Hosts

Tagged as , , , , , ,

July 26, 2025 · 9:30 pm

THE SECRET OF DORIAN GRAY (1970) ON THE TEXAS 27 FILM VAULT

Before MST3K there was … The Texas 27 Film Vault, which debuted on February 9th, 1985. 

Balladeer’s Blog continues its celebration of this program’s FORTIETH anniversary year.

EPISODE ORIGINALLY BROADCAST: Per fellow fan Silivant the date was Saturday January 24th, 1987 from 10:30pm to 1:00am. Broadcast throughout Texas and Oklahoma.

SERIAL: None this week. The movie, commercials and Film Vault Corps comedy sketches took up the entire running time.

Randy (right) and Richard way down on Level 31 hosting The Texas 27 Film Vault

HOST SEGMENTS/ COMEDY SKETCHES: There is some disagreement among Texas 27 Film Vault fans. One faction argues that this was the episode in which Randy Clower – interested in preserving his youth like the main character in the night’s movie – took the nonexistent chemical Multiquixiphiline (see my exclusive interview with Randy Clower).

That chemical made him much younger, overdoing it to the point of restoring him to childhood. Randy’s real-life son Jaron played the young version of himself in the series of sketches. Once again Tex (Ken Miller) saved the day and Randy was restored to his normal age. Randy himself did not remember if this really was the movie with that storyline in the Host Segments.  

Dorian and his suspiciously Warhol-esque portrait

THE MOVIE: THE SECRET OF DORIAN GRAY (1970) – A terrific idea was blown in this hilariously flawed attempt to adapt Oscar Wilde’s Picture of Dorian Gray to swinging 60s London. Helmut Berger, who was sort of a Nordic Michael York back when this movie was made, stars as our title hero whose portrait begins to reflect all the physical and spiritual wear and tear of Dorian’s hedonistic lifestyle, thus preserving his young, beautiful physical form. Continue reading →

20 Comments

Filed under Bad and weird movies, Movie Hosts

Tagged as , , , , ,

July 19, 2025 · 9:55 pm

GHOULIES (1984) ON THE TEXAS 27 FILM VAULT

Ghoulies

In the middle 1980s, way down on Level 31, we had The Texas 27 Film Vault. Before Joel and Mike, we had Randy and Richard. (I make a point of opening my T27FV posts with similar reminders because it cuts down on furious reactions from people who don’t pay attention to the broadcast dates and accuse Randy and Richard of ripping off MST3K even though their show came first.) 

In honor of the FORTIETH anniversary of this forgotten 1985-1987 cult show Balladeer’s Blog has been posting about parts of the program’s history. This time I’ll examine the final movie presented and mocked by the machine-gun toting Randy and Richard and their colleagues in the Film Vault Corps – “the few, the proud, the sarcastic”.  

Randy Clower and Richard Malmos of The Texas 27 Film Vault (both lower right) featured in a Movie Host article with Stella from Saturday Night Dead and Elvira.

FILM VAULT LORE: A T27FV fan calling herself Georgia remarked at Egor’s site: “I still lived (in Dallas) when they did their last show. They knew they were going off the air because they talked about it and seemed pretty sad about it. I was sad, too. It was the best thing on tv.” 

The show was still hot in the ratings but Randy, Richard, Ken “Tex” Miller and Joe “The Hypnotic Eye” Riley got hot job offers they couldn’t turn down. Combine that with the collapse of the Film Vault Guys’ most recent attempt to get a syndication deal (what might have been) and the gang disbanded after roughly 2 and 1/2 years of bad movie fun.

Ghoulies poster

THE MOVIE: This was a product from Charles Band, so lovers of bad 1980s horror films know what they’re in for. Jack Nance from Eraserhead and Mariska Hargitay from Law and Order: SVU can both point to this flick as their most embarrassing moment on camera!  

A Satanist played by rock singer Michael Des Barres leaves his mansion – which was the site of his Black Masses and human sacrifices – to a young couple played by Lisa Pelikan and Peter Liapis. They move into the creepy old place and the man starts to become possessed by the dark forces that linger in the mansion. Eventually his dabbling in Satanic rituals causes his zombified father Malcolm (Des Barres) to climb out of his grave,which is conveniently located in the mansion’s backyard. Continue reading →

12 Comments

Filed under Bad and weird movies, Movie Hosts

Tagged as , , , ,

July 12, 2025 · 5:28 pm

FRONTIER MARSHAL (1939) ON THE TEXAS 27 FILM VAULT

For some laughs this Frontierado Season, here’s the worst and weirdest version of Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday and the Gunfight at the OK Corral.

A movie guaranteed to contain absolutely NO accurate information.

Before MST3K we had The Texas 27 Film Vault! Before Joel and Mike we had Randy and Richard! Before Pearl and Kinga we had Laurie Savino! 

Welcome to a special Frontierado Edition of Balladeer’s Blog’s look at this neglected cult show which ran from 1985-1987, making this its FORTIETH anniversary year. 

ORIGINAL BROADCAST DATE: Saturday, October 25th, 1986 from 10:30pm to 1:00 am. Broadcast throughout Texas and Oklahoma. 

OPENING SERIAL: An episode of Mysterious Doctor Satan (1940).

THE MOVIE: Frontier Marshal, directed by Allan Dwan, has a well-deserved reputation as the worst and weirdest cinematic depiction of the events leading up to the Gunfight at the OK Corral. Randolph Scott turns in his usual bland performance as Wyatt Earp with Cesar Romero as a very unlikely Doc Holliday.

Wyatt and Doc trying to cut the rear projection screen off at the pass.

As usual Doc steals the show from the hopelessly dull and straight-arrow Wyatt. Ward Bond shows up as a cowardly lawman, Lon Chaney, Jr plays one of Curly Bill Brocius’ thugs and Balladeer’s Blog’s old friend John Carradine is the movie’s main villain … Carter. No, not Clanton or even McLaurey but “Carter”.

Here’s just some of the hilariously distorted bits from this Parallel Universe version of the events in Tombstsone, Arizona: Continue reading →

6 Comments

Filed under Bad and weird movies, FRONTIERADO, Movie Hosts

Tagged as , , , , , ,