SATEENA, THE DEVIL’S DAUGHTER hosted horror and sci-fi movies on Shock Show, which aired on Atlanta’s WSB-TV from January 2nd to December 18th, 1958. This devilishly mischievous hostess was played by Joanne Good aka Joanne Goode aka Joanne Gould. Unlike the usual Movie Hostesses whose characters were vampires or witches, Sateena was the impish daughter of Satan himself.
Joanne Good had started out at WSB in the promotions department in 1957, then created her Sateena character for Shock Show. Joanne co-wrote the character’s Host Segments with the program’s producer Gy Waldron, who later moved on to movies before creating the mammoth hit television show The Dukes of Hazzard in 1979.
In addition to her acerbic wit, Sateena wielded a regular arsenal of props like large spiders, bubbling substances in chemical beakers, oversized “Brimstone Cocktails” spewing smoke from dry ice, and her omnipresent syringe filled with God or the Devil knows what. Another gag centered around shrinking heads with a Voodoo-it-Yourself Kit. Continue reading
MACABRA – This hostess of Omaha’s Theatre of the Macabre (1982-1985) has accomplished the seemingly impossible – she has managed to keep her real name a secret all these decades! She was an Omaha businesswoman who beat out over 150 other applicants for the position of WOWT’s Movie Hostess for their new Friday night at 10:30pm Bad Movie show. 
On top of that, Macabra rejected the over-the-top humor that characterized Elvira and her cash-in imitators in favor of a wry, understated approach that put me in mind of a combination of Movie Host legends like Moona Lisa and Fritz the Nite Owl. For an airing of Attack of the Mushroom People (1963) this hostess munched on mushrooms completely deadpan rather than hit the viewers over the head with the joke. 
DR. LUCIFER (1957-1959) – The actor playing this Movie Host was named Richard Dix, but to be clear he’s NOT the same Richard Dix who starred in old westerns and was jokingly mentioned in Blazing Saddles. This Richard Dix was a legend in Baltimore, MD for his stage and television work with a few movies thrown in. 
THE FACE OF MARBLE (1946) – John “He’s probably even in the Zapruder Film if you look hard enough” Carradine stars as a mad scientist who is trying to use electrical and chemical treatments to revive the recently deceased. Human and animal test subjects come back to life able to walk through solid objects and are controlled by John’s voodoo-practicing maid. William “One-Shot” Beaudine directed and Willie Best was on hand as the butler. 
DR. DEATH (1953?-1955) – Ted Knight, famous for his roles on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Too Close for Comfort is among the surprising names who worked in the American folk art of Movie Hosting. Yes, just as Tim Conway played Ghoulardi’s sidekick and Gary Busey was Mazeppa’s sidekick; just as Pat Sajak wrote for Nashville’s Phantom of the Opry, Bill O’Reilly for Uncle Ted and Tom Snyder for Bob Hersh’s Movie Host the Advisor, Ted Knight is in the mix as well. 
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. 
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. 
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. 
Edwin L. Raub (1921-1998) served as a paratrooper in World War Two and fought on D-Day & during Operation Market Garden. He was written about by name in Cornelius Ryan’s non-fiction book (later a movie) A Bridge Too Far about the latter action. 
Graduating to the hour-long Uncle Ted’s Children’s Party, Edwin Raub cemented his position as a local television icon. In 1974, Scranton’s WNEP-TV hired him to use his Uncle Ted persona to host their Friday nights at midnight Bad Movie show Uncle Ted’s Ghoul School, elevating his kiddy-show schtick to the more wry and sarcastic approach of hosting old and bad movies. 
TARANTULA GHOUL – Actress Suzanne Waldron’s performance on stage in Macbeth captured the attention of the bosses at Portland, Oregon’s KPTV. They hired her to host House of Horror, their late-night B-Movie show, in a similar style to Vampira down in Los Angeles. 
Most of the classic Bad Movie shows aired on Friday or Saturday nights, which were ideal for audiences to stay up late watching the movie and the host’s antics. Trapped in the mire of a late-night middle of the week timeslot, the brilliant Tarantula Ghoul’s show sadly lasted from just October 9th, 1957 to November 26th, 1958. 
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.
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). 
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