WE, THE GUARDIANS OF THE GENRE, DO VOW TO ABSTAIN FROM ALL THAT IS MUNDANE AND REVEL IN AND GLORIFY ALL OF THE MANY WONDERS THAT COME WITH THE
ACCEPTANCE OF THE GREAT AND GOOD GENRES!
SCIENCE FICTION! FANTASY! HORROR!
In a post from last June, FREAKY FRIDAY! 100 YEARS OF MONSTER MOVIES!, I wrote bout a wicked cool web site that is streaming horror movies every Friday night. For details go to: http://guardiansofthegenre.blogspot.com/2010/06/freaky-friday-100-years-of-monster.html. On August 27th, in less than two weeks, one of my new favorite horror hosts will be featured on a double bill with Fury of the Wolfman and Werewolf In A Girls’ Dormitory! Your furry host will be none other than Wolfman Mac! Arrrrooooowwwww! I wrote about Wolfman Mac's Chiller drive in January of this year: http://guardiansofthegenre.blogspot.com/2010/01/wolfman-macs-chiller-drive-in.html. Don't forget to go to http://www.100ymm.com/ on Friday night at 8pm EST on August 27th and have yourself a howling good time!
Zacherley is one of the earliest horror hosts to appear on television and therefor this freak never had the opportunity to see him "live". However, I have watched some of his classic shows on video tape I bought about ten years ago called The Zacherley Archives, which features nearly two-hours of his sketches on TV in the 50's transferred from old kinescopes. Zacherley's dark humor was revolutionary for its time and watching these tapes you can understand why kids loved him and parents hated him. Zacherley's history is fascinating and quite convoluted. I have taken some excepts from his "official" biography, but you can read the full story at: http://www.zacherley.com/bio/bio.htm
John Zacherle was born on September 27, 1918 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His childhood was normal and seemingly uneventful. One interesting fact about Zach's youthful years was that his parents were strict and refused to allow him to see the horror films that were all the rage among young theater goers in the 1930's. Returning home to Philadelphia at the conclusion of the war, and in the army reserves. Zacherle took his time finding the right job. Someone mentioned acting and this lead to Zach's audition with a local repertory group called the Stagecrafters, who were based in Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania.
Gradually, Zacherle made his way to television where his first notable appearance was in a fateful role in a daily live serial-styled western, Action in the Afternoon. At one point, it was decided to hire an actor to portray the town undertaker, a onetime role that could be used to dispose of the recent victims of gunfights and hangings. Somehow, it was decided to award the part to Zacherle. The budget conscious costume department decided to dress the town's new undertake in a long black frock coat and this item of apparel would become one of Zacherle's most important visual props, one which remains with him to this day.
Not long after the undertaker role, Zach received a phone call from Philadelphia TV station WCAU and was asked to host Shock Theatre. Zach adds, "Someone remembered me from the western. I never even tried out. I whipped out the old black coat I wore as the undertaker on the cowboy show." Zach parted his hair in the middle and applied the famous ghoul-like makeup and the rest was history.
Shock Theatre debuted in September of 1957 with Zach appearing as Roland, a crazy character who lived in a crypt. Charlie Vanda, the president of WCAU came up with the name and as Zach is quick to point out, the accent was on the second syllable -- Ro-LAND. Roland had an assistant named Igor, and his wife lived in a coffin. The wife was referred to as "my dear" and occasionally Roland would make her day with a well-placed thrust of a wooden stake. Originally, the program was aired in the 11:15 late night movie slot on Monday and Tuesday. However, the show was popular not only among adults but among children as well. Therefore, the program was moved to Friday and Saturday and Roland's popularity increased in leaps and bounds. It was at WCAU that Zach, in the guise of Roland, stumbled upon his most unique and creative bit of satire. This was known as the "break-in" or "jump-in", whereby, Zach would insert himself into the actual film, usually, to great comedic effect. The first time this occurred was during a broadcast of The Black Cat with Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi. Writer/Producer, Ed White, originally got the idea. In this instance, Karloff was presiding over a devil worship ceremony and at one point the camera panned to close-ups of the various participants. The WCAU cameraman shot to Zach making a face and then back to the film.
[Reasons for Zarcherley's] move to New York, have never been 100% clear, but it appears that a great deal of unpleasantness on both sides regarding salary, ownership of the character, and other details may have precipitated the change. Zach had made some contacts in New York City as a result of the success of "Dinner with Drac" and was able to negotiate a deal for himself at the WABC affiliate, Channel 7, just at the time his one year contract with WCAU was ending. The Manhattan station had been airing the Shock Theatre package since 1957, around the same time that WCAU started to run them. As the premiere of Zach's WABC show came closer, TV Guide and the local papers were utilized for a promotional campaign. Coming September 22, 1958, Master Ghoul Zacherley will host Shock Theater Monday and Friday". The letter "Y" was added to Zach's name to make pronunciation easier.
Zach made his New York debut on September 22, 1958, at 11:15 pm, hosting The Mystery of Edwin Drood. As the weeks passed he hosted many of Universal's second line productions,including The Mad Daughter of Market Street and The Mystery of Marie Roget. Many tuned in strictly to see Zach and laugh at the "break-ins". Some of Zach's bits from this time included "Zach's discussion of the nervous system", "Zach's attempt to cure Isabel of insomnia", and "Gasport's medical check-up."During this period of time, Zach also appeared in a pictorial in issue #4 of Famous Monsters of Filmland, which was released in the spring of 1959. Also, during March of 1959, WABC sent out a press release that announced that "Ghoul Zacherley will be given his own show of creep films to host Friday and Saturday night called Zacherley At Large." It was also announced that the name Shock Theatre would be retired. Unfortunately, Zacherle's tenure at WABC was coming to an end. During the June 20, 1959, show, Zach appeared during the last commercial interruption without makeup and announced that this was his last show for the year and when he returned in the fall it would be on WOR - Channel 9.
Although Zach's Channel 9 show didn't debut until October 30, he was far from dormant during this time. Beginning May, Zach embarked a series of personal appearances in large theaters, such as the Astoria (Long Island), the Fabian (Paterson), the Branford in Newark, the Jefferson in New York City, and the Stanley in Jersey City.
Zach's first WOR show saw him hosting Zombies On Broadway. As the show opened Zach was thrown forcibly into his new crypt. Zach yelled, "Let me out of here," a few times then settled down to eat a banana and host the film. Unlike WCAU and WABC, Channel 9 spent very little on the Zacherley show set. A canvas mail cart was used for Isobel's "box" and no attempt was made to give the set a crypt-like appearance. While repeats of Zach's Channel 9 programs aired occasionally very late at night, no new programs were taped and Zach's contract expired.
During 1964, WPIX made a number of programming changes in an effort to improve ratings. Zacherley was made the host of Chiller Theatre, thereby allowing him to do what he does best - host films. Unfortunately, Zach's deal with WPIX ended during 1964.
[Well into his in his 80's , Zacherley continued] music recording, television, and live appearances, Zach appeared on radio station WXRK where he occupied the Saturday morning slot with a nostalgic 1960's revival program. The station, K-Rock, is noted for being one of the highest rated in the New York area and includes among its on-air personalities several very popular disc jockeys.
Zach's still got it! Zacherley with Elvira!
Zacherley is a true original and well deserving of being in my horror host hall of fame! Goodnight, Zacherley... whatever you are.
I was intrigued by the concept of the film Inception, but not enough to spend two-and-a-half hours in a dark theater trying to figure it out. However, it seems my “friend” Phileas had other ideas. I was taking some much needed time off from my work in the lab, to spend some quality time with my buddy Bill E. Bones. We were in a deep discussion about who was the hottest horror hostess of all time. Bill said it was Vampira and I remained steadfast in my admiration of Elvira. When I pointed out to Bones that Vampira was dead, he said, “My point, exactly”. Before I could lay waste with another verbal assault, I found myself instantaneously transported to the local cinema, where the film Inception was just beginning to unreel. I turned to my right and sure enough, Professor Phileas Photon was sitting beside me with a guilty grin on his bearded puss. “Phineas”, I yelled under my breath, “I thought I told you never to space-time-port me again, just to watch another of your damn ‘artsy-farsty’ movies”? Phineas pulled out his trump card and simply said, “Then don’t ask me to time-transport you to Memorial Day in 1977 again.” I tried again to convince him that the premier of Star Wars was a significant historical event, but as usual he wasn’t buying it.
Fast forward to two-hours, thirty minutes later….
I’m not a huge fan of director Christopher Nolan. I still haven’t seen Memento and have no wish to (don’t get any ideas, Phileas). I liked Batman Begins well enough, but The Dark Knight was too dark and overrated. The Prestige, his underrated dark and fantastic study of two competitive magicians was my favorite film of his, but still I found it too dreary for my tastes. Inception also deals with dark and deadly ideas and themes, but, for Christopher Nolan, it had a surprisingly upbeat ending. I’m not wasting our brief time here telling you what Inception is about – that’s what Google is for people – so, I just want to let you know that if you are waiting to watch Inception on DVD/Blu-ray, because you think you’ll get bored with Inception’s “mind-bleep” plot (as I read one critic call it), think again. If you are a film fan, and more importantly, a fan of science-fiction/fantasy, you owe it to yourself to give Inception a try at the theater, where you will be forced to sit through it’s entirely without any breaks or interruptions (which almost always happens when viewing movies at home). Yes, because Inception takes place almost entirely in the dreams of other people, the time and place of events in the film can get confusing. However, don’t let anyone convince you that you need a degree from MIT or Harvard to understand the plot or themes of Inception, because Nolan has done an admirable job of using the medium of film and the structure of story to make the plot understandable and the themes of Inception perfectly clear to any film fan.
Phineas kept looking at me expectantly as we exited the lobby of the theater, and I reluctantly admitted to him that I liked Inception. After promising me that he wouldn’t abduct me for further film viewings, Phileas “popped” back out of our space-time, leaving me to hitchhike home. Hey, I don’t carry my wallet in my lab coat!
It's been a hot humid summer here in New England and what better way to get out of the heat (especially when the AC in the lab is on the fritz), than to head to the local cinema and indulge in a horror/sci-fi flick! I met my time trippin' pal Phileas at the local cine-plex lobby and you should have seen the look on the local mundane's faces when the prof just popped out of nowhere in the middle of the lobby! Despite this being the second week of Predators' theatrical run, it was still being shown in a good sized theater. Unfortunately, that made the eight people waiting to see the movie look even more pathetic. Undaunted, the prof and I patiently waited for Predators to begin and once it did... well, we were underwhelmed.
Predators begins with our anti-hero Royce (Adrien Brody), in free-fall plummeting to his possible death. After coming out of unconsciousness, he quickly assimilates to his situation and pulls the ripcord on his chute, landing hard, but without major injury on the jungle surface. Royce soon sees others falling as well, and gradually a group of nine people - all but one of them men - are trudging through the jungle attempting to understand the who, what and where of their situation. The more interesting of the characters are Isabelle, a CIA black ops assassin (Alice Braga), Cuchillo, a Mexican Drug Cartel enforcer (Danny Trejo), Stans, a mass-murderer just two days from execution (Walton Groggins) and Hanzo, a Yukaza cartel enforcer (Louis Ozawa Changchien). They form a wary alliance, with Royce, the mysterious mercenary, leading them to "high ground" in an attempt to get a fix on their location. At the periphery of the jungle, they see a skyline full of unfamiliar stars and planets, which affirms their suspicion that they have been taken to another planet.
All the preceding set up does eventually pay off, as we get to see our "heroes" first confront dog-like alien creatures and eventually the Predators themselves. There is an interesting twist to this Predator film, that I won't give away here, because it is important to the film's climax. I liked this fifth instalment of the Predators franchise (third, if you discount the two Alien vs Predator films), but I was somewhat disappointed by the lack of imagination of this film. Predators takes place entirely on an alien planet (it actually looks to be an atmosphere-bearing satellite) and all we see of it is a jungle landscape that could be seen anywhere on Earth. We know the Predators came to the planetiod by spaceship, but we only see it in the distance as it flies away in one scene. Although I appreciate that the writers (Alex Litvak and Michael Finch) took the time to develop the characters at the beginning of the film, it would have been better if they had spent a little more time developing and exploring the alien environment as well. I also would have liked to have seen more of the Predators in the film and experience more from their perspective (as was done in AvP: Requiem). Still, Predators does deliver some exciting human vs Predator action and contributes some nice additions to the Predator mythos overall. Predators is a cool summer sci-fi actioneer, which is perfect when your lab's AC is kaput. Unfortunately, I still have to repair the damned unit and of course Phileas popped back to when-knows-where before I could ask for his help. Freak (sweating it) out!
FREAKY FRIDAY! MONSTER NETWORK TV - PUPPET MONSTERS POP!
It was a slow Friday night. Most of my zombie homeboys were safely hiding in their graves, because it was that rare time of the year when Zombzany - my Necromancer neighbor and zombie slaver, for those who haven't been paying attention - released his ghouls from their magical chains to allow them to run free and.... feed. I was in lock down mode in my lab and was cruising the Internet looking for some wicked good monster fun. I stumbled on the website http://www.monstertvnetwork.com. Every week, the monsters of Monster TV Network broadcast a new show on their website dedicated to all things we horror, and monster fans in particular, love. Their very first broadcast on March 22, 2010 featured news on the newly released Aurora Monster models DVD and Maskfest 2010 last March read by Uncle Henry at the news desk. The next feature was hosted by the bats Fritz (cool name) and Frak talking about the 12 inch Night of the Living Dead figures released by ExecutiveReplicas.com. The next feature took place in The Witch's Dungeon and Zenobia the witch looked into her crystal ball for an interview with horror special makeup effects wizard Tom Savini. Other characters on the show in charge of "production" are Boris, Mummy, Claw and Igor. All this is produced by Bill Diamond with great video production and effects work. Monsters Network is like the old Muppets Show; only with monsters and horror themed guests. Try it some lonely Friday night when you're hiding out from hungry flesh eating ghouls... or maybe when you're just hanging out and looking for a few monstrous laughs.
