31 Days of Halloween: Day 10 - 1966 Collegeville Costume Catalog

Via MAGIC CARPET BURN

DO YOU HEAR ME?!?!?!

The most psychotic frozen dinner commercial I've ever seen!

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!

THE BEST TOY COMPANY THAT NEVER EXISTED!

I LOVE this site! Gobler Toys was a (sadly fictitious) toy manufacturer in the 60's and brought kids classic toys like Senior Sandwich, Kiki the Fashion Tiki and the Wiener Works Home Hot Dog Maker (you make hot dogs at home using table scraps and the Meat Maker Mix) Shame it's all fake:-(

GOBLER TOYS WEBSITE

WIENER WORKS COMMERCIAL

THE STAR WARS TOYS THAT NEVER WERE

HALLOWEEN IS JUST AROUND THE CORNER!

My good friend Butch Patrick has a website dedicated to my ALL TIME favorite sitcom, THE MUSTERS

MUNSTERS.COM

THE HYPNOTIC EYE!

Back in the late 90's I was running a community access cable TV station in Beach Park Illinois. The channel ran a total of about 6 hours a day and one of my goals was to start running 24/7. We had plenty of local programming however I was open to accepting outside programs for playing "off hours". One show that came across my desk was a tape labeled The Hypnotic Eye out of Dallas, Texas. Most of the outside shows I received were crap but this show was AMAZING! Produced by Joe Riley the show's host was a giant eyeball puppet (stick with me on this, it gets better!) and featured classic 60's commercials, Japanese monsters, psychedelic music, B-movies, Japanese surf guitar bands, exploitation movie trailers, punk bands and bizarre cartoons. If anyone remembered Night Flight on the USA Network in the 80's, this was like the community access version of Night Flight from Hell! I was hooked and immediately gave the show a Saturday midnight timeslot (right after my own show *progrock;-) Sadly it was not meant to be, the show was soon cancelled and never aired on our channel:-( As years passed it became sort of an urban myth that such a bizarre thing even existed. Thankfully a few of the episodes are being hosted on the Archive.org site for your viewing pleasure!

T.H.E. CAT

 

I always thought one of the coolest “lost” shows of the late 60’s was T.H.E. CAT. It was the story of Thomas Hewitt Edward Cat, a former circus performer/cat burglar who started working as a “bodyguard” for hire. It starred Robert Loggia, who went on to star in Independence Day, Big, Jagged Edge and countless other movie and TV roles. I’m always a sucker for these types of shows/movies, especially heist plots from the 60’s, and this series was no exception. I also liked the fact it was a 30 minute drama (which was a little more common for the time, which you almost NEVER see these days.) so it really “cuts to the chase” in terms of action, plot and moving the story along. Another thing I found interesting is it’s rarity. Sadly, it lasted only one season on NBC and It’s never been officially released on DVD, VHS or even widely rerun on television (a local station in Canada, CKVR is the ONLY station that I know of that ever re-ran the series in the early 80’s). I’ve seen it many times under people’s “want” section of their video lists and has quite a cult following. I was shocked watching an interview with Robert Loggia on The Tonight Show when he brought up the series, impressed it has such a ”cult” following with fans exchanging episodes video tape. However the BEST thing about the series was the opening title sequence. I’ve mentioned the series to several people including SHAG, who I was CERTAIN was, at least partially influenced by it, only to be shocked that they had never seen it before! (SHAG thought it was the COOLEST after I showed it to him on the iphone;-) Recently I discovered the artist El Gato Gomez who again, has a similar style but has never seen the series before! I always thought it would be GREAT to find a painting of the opening titles (fat chance of that) however after showing the title sequence to El Gato, I’m having her do one! Anyways here is the title sequence: