In the Mid-South, it was Fantastic Features. It ran from 1967 to 1972 with Monster of Ceremony, vampire Savid. (Played by Winston Davis. Savid is Davis backward.) I remember watching this on Saturdays at 6 p.m. and being scared to go to bed afterwards. I loved all the classics but for some reason, when I think about those times, I mostly remember The Killer Shrews. I don’t know why that one made such an impression on me. I should find it and watch again.
This was the opening. Man, we were easily impressed. The early days of TV.
Before the Ghoul, there was Ghoulardi, who hosted a show from 1963 to 1966. He was played by Ernie Anderson. Ernie Anderson’s son is the director Paul Thomas Anderson, who is the boyfriend of Maya Rudolph, who is the daughter of Minnie Ripperton. I lived about 120 miles from Cleveland, so it was hard to get the television signal very clearly from the Cleveland station. We had only broadcast television, not cable of course in those days.
Also in Cleveland, but somewhat later, my late night Fridays were taken up by Big Chuck and Lil’ John serving up the horror movie of the week and their hilarious (in my 10 year old mind) skits.
I’m not old enough to have watched Vampira, and Zacherle wasn’t broadcast on the West Coast, though I saw numerous photos of him in monster magazines. The first TV horror host I do remember watching is Seymour - Larry Vincent - Wikipedia - who would sometimes appear in the movie (via blue screen) and seem to interact with the characters in a funny and non-obnoxious way. I don’t recall any other horror hosts doing that.
I also remember Grimsley (1976-79), who was pretty intolerable, though he used to turn psychedelic colors before going to a commercial break.
It turns out there is a direct line from Seymour (with a 1972-73 detour through Moona Lisa, an “Elvira prototype”) to Grimsley to Elvira - Fright Night (TV series) - Wikipedia, the last arguably the best known and least funny horror host.
Australian TV in the 60s-70s had Deadly Earnest’s Aweful Movies. Each of the major cities [Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide] had their own actor doing the pancake makeup on Friday nights and showing whatever horror was on the menu. I remember being fairly terrified by a few of them.
The Sydney version of the show opened with a montage of Deadly Earnest’s ghoulish assistants carrying a coffin through the back areas and lighting grid of a TV studio and eventually plonking it on the set, and DE would emerge and start presenting. Great stuff!
I watched it as well. I also had the dubious honor of broadcasting it when I worked for a television station. It’s in public domain so was free to fill time on the air
In the early 1960s, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Friday nights at 11:30 on WHP-TV Channel 21, we watched “Leroy” on “Tales from the Tomb.” That’s where we first saw the classic Universal horror flicks from the 1930s and 40s. He began the show by singing this little ditty, to the tune of “The Sheik of Araby”…
I’m the ghoul from WHP, Your blood belongs to me. At night on your TV, Inside your homes I’ll be. The bats that fly on high Will get you by and by. You’ll die like Drac and me, I’m the ghoul from WHP – Harrisburg, Transylvania…
He did virtually the same show on Saturday afternoons on WSBA-TV Channel 43 in York, Pennsylvania. The stations were only about 25 miles apart but being UHF and rather low powered, their signals didn’t much overlap.
He also was a weekend disc jockey on WNOW in York, a Top 40 station in those days.
There’s a great web site (egorschamber) that talks about Leroy and the horror hosts who delighted us all over the country. Check it out!
