While Vampira & Zacherley are often thought of as the “mother and father” of all horror hosts, many prominent Midwestern hosts can credit their true lineage to Cleveland’s Ghoulardi. Never taking himself nor his film presentations seriously, radio announcer/disc jockey Ernie Anderson would create an irreverent template of wit and sarcasm many hosts still use today.
With the Christmas holiday less than a week away, we Daves thought it was time to highlight one of the season’s guiltiest film pleasures. This Friday, our weekly Horror Host report will, no doubt, feature a few hosts airing it as well. I am referring, of course, to SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS. Just as the name implies, it is an absurd, camp extravaganza featuring some of the most hilariously bad scenes in film history along with a theme song (“Hooray for Santy Claus”) that will have you wanting to club yourself with a Yule Log!
Here are some fun facts surrounding this unlikely classic….
National Horror Host, Svengoolie, made his annual holiday appearance at the “Comic Collector” in North Riverside, Illinois this past Friday and marked the occasion with an ALL-NEW Sventa Claus suit! The Comic Collector has been a popular location for many Chicagoans to get their comic book fix for over a quarter of a century and its owners, Rich and Regina Lukes, have been Svengoolie fans for just as long!
Last year at Thanksgiving we decided to feature a post dedicated to showing our appreciation to those who helped us out in ways that went above and beyond the call of duty (as seen HERE). This past year has been even more amazing as we saw our young blog break 100,000 hits with over 20,000 last month alone. That’s not too bad for a private blog that scarcely advertises outside of Facebook. It’s been a humbling experience for two guys who, after spending most of our lives standing in the shadows, finally found our own voices. The feedback and growing readership has been incredible and, above all, we thank YOU the readers. There are a LOT of blogs and websites out there and for you to not only take time out of your busy lives to visit, but come back and see us again is appreciated more than mere words can convey. Some of the folks from our last list will be back on this one, but we are really happy to feature the ones we just met this past year and who generously showed their support! So, without further adieu…
Photo courtesy of Jim Roche
I had just seen Svengoolie the night before at Chicago’s Brookfield Zoo (see story HERE) but couldn’t pass up another chance to do so the next day at a local grocery store called Ultra Foods. My reasoning was simple; this past month I’d put in a lot of mileage to see the national host at various locations throughout the Chicagoland (and beyond) area. How could I NOT see him when he was appearing ten minutes from where I live? So, despite the fact that my Facebook friends are starting to accuse me of stalking the poor fellow, off I went!
ROCK N SHOCK 2011 brought together various cast members from the 80’s slasher franchise A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET. The most noteworthy of these was Robert Englund who has appeared many times in my native Chicago at the FLASHBACK WEEKEND conventions. Despite this fact, I had never formally met him. I’m not exactly sure why that was, but I suppose it might have been that I was never a huge fan of those films. I know this is probably coming across as horror blasphemy right now but, “back in the day,” I preferred my horror deadly serious and didn’t care for the clever puns and humorous turn the series would end up taking.
Terror from Beyond the Dave 