WOLFMAN MAC'S CHILLER DRIVE-IN

BY FRITZ "DOC" FREAKENSTEIN

I was hanging out at the lab late one Saturday night, and I decided to check out the listings of my local TV stations to see if there was anything on. Yes, Saturday night is the graveyard of TV programming, but when I saw the title Wolfman Mac’s Chiller Drive-In listed, I flipped to that channel faster than you can say wicked cool! I couldn’t believe my eyes! It was an actual Horror Host on broadcast TV! I’ve been a humongous fan of horror hosts since I was first exposed to The Ghoul way back in 1973 and have had to get my fix of him and other horror hosts through video tapes (and now DVDs) and streaming shows on the Internet for way too long. Wolfman Mac’s Chiller Drive-In began broadcasting in July of 2007 on public access in Detroit, but WMYD TV knew a howling good thing when they saw it and soon beamed it into homes all across Michigan and parts of Ohio! Now My Retro TV is broadcasting Wolfman Mac’s Chiller Drive-In all over the country [http://www.myretrotv.com/affiliates.html], including my local affiliate WMFP-DT Lawrence at 10 pm every Saturday night! Wolfman Mac, the host of this frantically paced 90-minute program, introduces the weekly B-movie at the beginning of each show, but is inevitably interrupted by one of the many other denizens of the Chiller Drive-In. Boney Bob, Mac’s business partner and a vertically challenged skeleton, is usually behind some money making scheme that requires Mac’s assistance. He’s a wicked cool character, who tawks wit a Brooklyn accent and has eyes that seem to pop out of his skull. Other regulars on the show include: Scarlett LeFever, a part-were-wolf and Mac’s current squeeze; Professor M. Balmer, a mad scientist who helps Mac out of, and sometimes into, many jams; TORG, a Martian robot and the Professors assistant; and too may others to list here. Most of the movies that are shown on the Chiller Drive-In are too horrible to be classified as “B” pictures, but Wolfman Mac spices them up with dubbed-in sound effects, inserted Boney Bob cameos and other assorted gags. To give you an idea of the “quality” of the films shown, here is a list of the films broadcast this month: Evil Brain from Outer Space, The Horrors of Spider Island, Werewolf in a Girl’s Dormitory and The She Beast. Thankfully, Wolfman Mac’s Chiller Drive-In 90-minute running time forces the projectionist to trim the films down a bit. To give you and idea of some of the howling good fun to be had, check out the video page of Wolfman Mac’s web site http://www.nightmaresinema.com/pages_/drivein.html or watch this opening clip from Wolfman Mac’s Chiller Drive-In presentation of The Screaming Skull!. Awoooooooooooo!