The Shadow Cabaret

It was the fall of 1957, and in America there was fear and wonder in the air. For those who kept up with current events, what made the blood run cold was the faintly glowing progress of Sputnik beyond the clouds, and the indecipherable beeps which that orbiting ball sent back to short-wave radios around the world. For those too young to be swept up in Cold War paranoia, it was a signal of a different kind, beamed directly to the rabbit ears of their families’ black and white Philcos, a new national craze called Shock Theater that brought the chills directly into their living rooms.

Shock Theater was the name of a package of 52 classic Universal horror movies from the ‘30s and ‘40s, many released to TV for the first time, and their appearance on the home screen kicked off a monster mania that’s never completely died out since. Perhaps even more important than its introduction to all those shambling monsters and Gothic laboratories from an earlier day, Shock brought with it the horror hosts whose dopey gags and bizarre appearances would remain fond memories for its young viewers for decades to come.

American Scary, a labor of love by filmmakers John E. Hudgens and Sandy Clark, is a direct-to-DVD documentary celebration of that long parade of vampires, mad scientists and assorted geeks. Combining vintage clips with reminiscences by surviving hosts and their fans (a number of whom have gone on to become horror hosts themselves – rarely have so many talking heads come equipped with fangs, fur and scars), it relates the rise of performers with unlikely names like Vampira, Zacherley, Ghoulardi and Elvira from their modest beginnings to the status of cult celebrities and, eventually, broadcasting legends.

The film devotes a fair amount of time to pre-Shock host Maila Nurmi, whose exotic Vampira created the basic template on Los Angeles TV in 1954. In a wry latter-day interview conducted a few years before her death in 2008, Nurmi describes how she cobbled together her performance from equal parts Morticia Addams, Norma Desmond and fetish imagery, and relates how the concept for her show evolved from a proto-“Addams Family” sitcom to the solo hosting duties that briefly made her a national phenomenon. Her segment is accompanied by astonishingly high-quality clips that demonstrate what a hypnotic presence she projected over the air.

The same can’t be said for the clips representing Zacherley, surely the most famous of the Shock-era hosts. But even viewed through the filter of blown-out kinescopes, the manic energy and infectious sense of humor that made him a sensation on the East Coast is evident. A member of Philadelphia station WCAU’s stock company, actor John Zacherle became an instant sensation when he shrugged into his dusty frock coat and ghoulish makeup and first took to the airwaves as “Roland.”

Addressing the home audience with a baritone bark punctuated by one of the heartiest phony laughs in the business, Zacherle appeared to keep the show afloat on a bubble of sheer nerve. If he appeared to be making it up as he went along, he largely was; unlike the scripted Vampira show, Zacherle’s Shock episodes were improvised on a premise and a prayer. When his fame brought him to New York’s WABC the following year, he changed his character’s name but otherwise kept the act the same. As Zacherley, he rode the added exposure in the Big Apple to national fame. Kids who lived far outside the WABC viewing area knew him as “the Cool Ghoul,” and bought piles of Zacherley masks, records, books and a popular full-length poster perfect for hanging on young viewers’ bedroom doors.

Zacherley (and Roland) invented much of the schtick that became standard for the horror hosts that followed. In his weekly attempts to “add a lot of fun to it all, and take the curse out of the commercials,” he and his crew pioneered the concept of the host inserting himself into the featured films for comic effect. Working with a restrictive budget, he nevertheless managed to give himself other characters to react to by turning inanimate objects and offscreen voices into permanent sidekicks. In the process he created a characterization so distinctive that he’s revived it numerous times over the last 50 years.

Many of the early horror hosts doubled as local kiddie show stars, spending weekday afternoons chatting with puppets and introducing cartoons, and late-night weekends trading quips with skeletons and introducing hoary monster flicks. One of the most versatile of the early Shock-era hosts was Terry Bennett, whose demented beatnik character Marvin is still fondly remembered by Chicago viewers. Though he and his wife Joy (whose face was never revealed until the final broadcast) were wildly popular, there’s apparently little of their show that survives. Marvin is represented in American Scary by a pitiful few seconds of silent footage that gives scant indication of his distinctive brilliance.

At least Marvin is given some attention. Too many of the early hosts receive no mention at all. The Shock Theater package created a nation-wide phenomenon by inventing itself one city at a time, but the documentary never quite succeeds in suggesting the scope and spontaneous grassroots appeal of those pioneering programs.

Miami’s M.T. Graves, Wichita’s The Host, Tulsa’s Igor and Indianapolis’ Selwin were major regional players in their day, but they don’t receive so much as a mention. Oklahoma City’s Count Gregore and New Orleans’ Dr. Morgus are equally ignored, though both of them rival Zacherley in longevity. Running time considerations were undoubtedly part of the reason for some omissions, and it’s likely that footage of some of those pioneers no longer exists…but one can’t help wondering if more of the time devoted to talking head interviews would have been better spent on clips of the performers who brought the Shock craze to life.

One host who gets plenty of screen time is Ernie Anderson, whose trash-talking Cleveland hipster Ghoulardi kicked off a second wave of horror hosts in 1963. Though he was on the air for only three years, Anderson’s character remains the gold standard among Midwestern hosts. Eschewing the horror persona altogether, Ghoulardi spent his time dissing the dreadful movies he was saddled with, making fun of local culture and getting away with murder on the air. Bristling with off-the-wall catch phrases rendered in a bizarre patois, Anderson’s edgy act was sui generis (Tulsa’s Mazeppa was perhaps the only later host to approach that level of attitude and invention), and the seemingly countless Cleveland hosts who came after him – as popular and impressively long-lived as some of them have proven to be – opted for a safer slapstick approach.

But that’s only the tip of the iceberg. The documentary offers looks at many of the hosts who arose in the ‘60s, ‘70s and beyond, their venues gradually shrinking as networks took over increasing amounts of late-night weekend time, and the easy profits from airing infomercials made it easy for stations to abandon local programming.

Even so, there are entertaining segments devoted to such genuinely funny and creative folk as Chicago’s original Svengoolie, Philadelphia’s Stella, and the plainclothes appeal of hosts like Chilly Billy (Pittsburgh), Big Chuck and Little John (Cleveland) and the endearingly straight-arrow Bob Wilkins (Sacramento).

Hudgens and Clark follow the evolution of the form from those frequently improvised, always under-rehearsed, live local broadcasts of the early days into the scripted and (relatively) polished productions on nationwide cable stations such as Elvira, Joe Bob Briggs’ MonsterVision, and Joel Hodgson’s Mystery Science Theater 3000. And while current practitioners find their broadcast options restricted increasingly to public access stations, it’s no shock to learn that a new wave has begun carving out a niche for itself on the internet.

The uninitiated may find themselves overcome by a sense of too much information, while aficionados will at times mutter about the important hosts who were left out. (Where’s Seymour? Dr. Madblood? Jeepers Creepers? Graves Ghastly or Sammy Terry?) But it’s an entertaining package nonetheless, with surprising appearances by comic Tim Conway (Ernie Anderson’s former comedy partner from the Cleveland days) and fantasy writer Neil Gaiman, who describes his one-shot experience as a cable horror host in a segment that perhaps takes up a disproportionate amount of screen time, but is too charming and articulate to have been left out.

Overall, it’s an amusing and often fascinating look at a piece of Americana that not only endures in the memories of the last three generations, but has proven to be remarkably durable to this day. More than a simple history lesson, American Scary is an unabashed love letter to the great American freak show that once ran wild on late-night TV.

DVD extras: Trailers, the original pitch reel, bonus extended interviews, a look at other regional hosts and footage of a bona fide horror host wedding.