It’s October which means Halloween. Halloween is my favorite time of the year.
So here is a few of my favorite Halloween stuff.
A haunted house story I heard when I was a kid by Brother Dave Gardner
Bobby (Boris) Pickett
Ghoultown with Elvira, The Mistress of the Dark
Zombie Ghost Train
Rob Zombie a true Halloween master.
And what would Halloween be without Alice Cooper.
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
3 comments:
I remember as a kid that we used have a local show "Shock Theater" In Kansas City which played the finest in grade-B monster and horror flicks every Saturday night. It was hosted by "Gregory Grave" who employed every shtick and schlocky special effects and gag possible during the commercial breaks. It was as much fun watching him as it was the movie. His sidekick was a talking skeleton that would pop up out of a coffin. Being live, he periodically botched his lines or the gags about the movie didn't work, or the special effects wouldn't work on cue forcing Gregory (Harvey Brunswick) to ad lib. You would often hear the whole stage crew cracking up with laughter in the background.
I think every TV station in the country had its "hosts" for their horror movies. After Shock was off the air, we had "Penny Dreadful" (She was a babe and I wrote a letter to her and she sent me an autographed picture) and Marilyn the Witch (played by Nora Denney, who went on to play "Mrs. Teavee" in Gene Wilder's version of "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" and the department store worker in "Splash" with Daryl Hannah.
No one does this kind of shtick anymore and unfortunately, recordings of any of these shows are practically nonexistent.
Growing up in the 70’s we had Dr. Shock in Philly who was a Mad Scientist/Ghoul. Funny guy who did little magic tricks during commercial breaks. He had quite the cult following. Then it was Stella ("The man-eater from Manayunk" or “Daughter of Desire”) in the 80’s she came on at 1am due to blue collar humor. She was kind of a truck stop version of Elvira if you can imagine that. I still hear she appearances at classic horror movie showings in the Philly area. Both these shows were basically innocent silly fun. Each week the stars of the shows along with their follow cast characters had to write and ad lib much of their shows. Plus they usually had very small budgets. Sometimes not great but then they would come up with something funny that kept us coming back. Their jobs weren’t easy but they loved it. By the 90’s shows like those were pretty much going extinct. Sad.
But hey! Kids today are more interested in shows that showcase the talents of drunken young people and following their sexual exploits at the beach.
On another note before cable all we had was the big three network broadcast and then there was local broadcast. Local broadcast had their own individual shows with local characters, especially children shows. We had a Capt. Noah who had a magical ark with puppets. We also had a childern show called “Chief Halftown” who believe it or not, was a full blood Seneca and who’s real name was Traynor Halftown. His show lasted in Philly from 1950 to 1999 and after his show ended he continue to live the area. I meet him in my adulthood and he was a very nice man. Overtime I knew others who knew him and no one ever had a bad word about him. He passed away some years ago not to many years after his show ended.
I think it was these local shows and personalities that defined us locally and gave us pride in our regions and States, which I think kids don’t have today.
I am not fond of all American imports to our culture. For example, I think Valentine's Day (which enjoys very limited success here anyway) is a shameless moneysucking attempt, but Halloween appeals to the ghoulish streak most children possess and they enjoy it hugely and why not?
Post a Comment