Happy Birthday Zacherley & the Art of the Horror Host

Not sure how I forgot this but yesterday was Zacherley's birthday, who turned 93 yesterday!! I know many are asking "Who is Zacherley" and obviously you didn't live in the Philadelphia NY area in the 50's and 60's. Zacherley was a television "horror host" who really helped start the genre. In the late 1950's Universal Studios issued a package of their early monster movies (commonly known as the "Shock Package" to local TV stations, who encouraged each station to create an on-air "personality" to introduce each film and perform skits, songs & jokes before and after each commercial break). One of the earliest and most famous "hosts" was Vampira out of Los Angeles. If you've seen the movie Ed Wood, she was the one that Ed and Bella Lugosi were watching on TV, who eventually starred in Ed's film Plan 9 from Outer Space. Zacherley is one of the more well remembered local hosts mainly in part to being featured in Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine, and hosted "Chiller Theatre" on WPIX in New York in the 60's. It seemed at one point each city had their own host they remember and some even received nationwide exposure such as Elvira and Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Here's a GREAT montage of some of the hosts from local TV stations:

Thankfully many hosts are "alive" and well today, hosting programs on the internet like Count Gore DeVol & The Bone Jangler and some are even airing nationally (Elvira  hosts her weekly horror movie on THIS! TV and Svengoolie who hosts on ME-TV). For the ULTIMATE database of TV Horror Hosts, check out E-GORE'S CHAMBER OF TV HORROR HOSTS

Here's an interview with Zacherley on The Mike Douglas Show from 1975:

Thankfully Zacherley is still very active, having hosted a special Chiller episode in 2008 and still attends horror conventions on the east coast. Happy Birthday to the "Cool Ghoul" Zacherley!