Tag Archives: Movie Hosts

November 25, 2011 · 6:05 pm

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 →

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November 2, 2011 · 10:58 pm

FIGHT POST- HALLOWEEN BLUES WITH SON OF SVENGOOLIE

 No, it’s not Zonker Harris with scare makeup on, it’s Chicago’s own Rich Koz during the original 1979- 1986 run of his B-movie show Son of Svengoolie.

To help everyone get over their post- Halloween depression (I wear an orange and black ribbon to “raise awareness” about this troubling malady) here is a Continue reading →

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September 20, 2011 · 12:04 am

MOVIE HOSTS – MAD MARVIN

 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, audiences were tuning in just as much (if not more) to watch the antics of Mad Marvin as they were to watch the movies.

Bennett’s most over-the -top stunt involved him pretending to swallow poison on the air, then describing his body’s reaction to the potent potable (for you Jeopardy fans) as he acted like he was genuinely dying. The notoriety from this morbid joke caused the ratings to skyrocket. In a way, Mad Marvin was like a forerunner of the radio Shock Jocks of later decades.

That legendary incident and many other ghoulish gags, many of which centered around  Continue reading →

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September 12, 2011 · 12:02 am

MOVIE HOSTS: GHOULARDI

 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 →

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August 26, 2011 · 10:38 pm

MOVIE HOSTS: MOONA LISA

 My fellow movie host geeks and I need to seriously scour the world to find some better photographs of this lady. 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 Continue reading →

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June 4, 2011 · 11:42 pm

WOLFMAN MAC AND ELVIRA TONIGHT

 Today instead of looking at a movie host of the past we’ll look at two who are still active. First up is the one and only Wolfman Mac, seen in the photo with his friend Boney Bob. Wolfman Mac hosts Chiller Drive-In, on which he shows the usual beloved B-movies of the past in the time-honored movie host tradition. Mac’s schtick is that a stereotypical pitchfork and torch-bearing mob once chased him into a haunted old drive-in where he met Boney Bob and began showing old, campy movies. Wolfman Mac’s show airs Saturday nights at 10pm on the cable channel called RetroTV. Tonight’s movie is Continue reading →

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May 21, 2011 · 12:30 am

MOVIE HOSTS: 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 →

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May 12, 2011 · 12:24 am

BAD MOVIES: SON OF SVENGOOLIE STRIKES AGAIN

My fondness for bad movies is no secret and what would bad movies be without America’s movie hosts, those men and women who adopted funny/spooky personas to introduce them to us and make wry, sarcastic remarks about the schlockier ones, especially those superannuated flicks that were all some local channels could afford decades ago. My favorite has always been Chicago’s Rich Koz, better known as Son of Svengoolie and later, just plain Svengoolie. This blog is loaded with references to Rich Koz, the man I consider to be the Aristophanes (just to get pretentious for a moment) of movie hosts. Here are links to some bits about a man who deserves to be known by all bad movie lovers, if only because his influence has been the most extensive and his style the most imitated. Comedy was the key to Koz’s appeal. Here are Continue reading →

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