The Many Faces of Maila "Vampira" Nurmi

A Groovy Afternoon with Ghoul-a-Go-Go!

Earlier this month, I had the opportunity, thanks to my good pal Kevin Maher (of Kevin Geeks Out fame), to take my progeny out to the ass-end of Long Island and experience the unique, retro, monster-kid style public access cable show known as Ghoul-a-Go-Go. It was a one-0f-a-kind day--I had a blast, the kids got to dance up a storm, and it took place amidst an aura of kitschy horror hipness that was impossible not to enjoy.

A favorite of the B-52s Fred Schneider and even the late, great Lux Interior of the Cramps, Ghoul-a-Go-Go is something that you have to experience to fully understand. It's like a journey back to the glorious heyday of monster mania on the boob tube, those halcyon days of the late 1950s and early 1960s. Your hosts on this journey are the sinister Vlad and the hideous yet lovable Creighton. There are live performances galore from bands like the 5,6,7,8s (the group behind "Woo-Hoo", that song from Kill Bill and those cell phone commercials), and tons of dancing.


But in the grand tradition of the old school horror host TV shows that Ghoul-a-Go-Go works to replicate, the dancers are all kids. And that's that one extra detail that pushes Ghoul-a-Go-Go over the edge from interesting artifact to bona fide pop culture gem. Watching a bunch of little kids and a gargantuan hunchback dance on stage using such classic moves as the twist, the monkey, and even the vaunted Bat-oosi, is something that cannot really be done justice in mere words.

Since Ghoul-a-Go-Go needed some kids to come out and dance, and my buddy Kevin had the hookup, I was more than thrilled to bring out little Zombelina and Wee-Sol to take part in the Cold War-era shenanigans. And boy, were they ever excited to step on to the stage and ham it up with the Ghoul-a-Go-Go gang, strutting their stuff to some vintage horror-themed rockabilly tunes (where did you guys dig up some of that stuff??) Think Romper Room, crossed with Tales from the Crypt, and you have the general idea of what Ghoul-a-Go-Go is all about.


I was very proud of my little ones for letting their inhibitions go, and not showing any fear at all in the face of the afternoon's gruesome hosts. Of course, they are my children, which means they've been exposed to enough that it would take quite a bit to spook them out. Anyway, the name of the game was fun, and there was much of it to be had by all before everything was said and done.

I have to applaud Vlad, Creighton and the rest of the crew for putting together a top-notch show, and if you're not privileged enough to reside in Suffolk county, that's OK, because you can see what Ghoul-a-Go-Go is all about on the show's YouTube page, and official website. If you're anything like me, and enjoy your horror with a healthy dose of tongue-in-cheek fun, then you should really seek it out. The buzz has been growing in recent years, and I was honored to finally cross paths with these guys, whom I had heard so much about for so long.

The Tuesday Top 10: Horror TV Hosts

Ah, for the days of those groovy ghouls who welcomed us each week to their cheaply decorated and garishly lit studio sets, introducing classic horror films while cramming as many hackneyed puns as possible into every sentence... The TV "horror host" phenomenon was once a big part of local television, particularly in the 1960s, '70s and '80s--before the days of infomercials, when many networks and syndicated channels populated their program lineup with old movies and such.

Alas, although a handful do still operate, the horror host is largely a thing of the past. It seems, in these days when "content" is so compartmentalized on TV into a myriad of specialized channels, and movies are readily available on home video or computers, that those folks who traipsed around in Halloween-store garb while doing Boris Karloff impressions with varying degrees of success, have become moot. Yet for many of us, and many more who came before, these were the people who sparked our interest in horror, introducing us to movies we might never have otherwise seen.

And so, this week, I give you a look at some of the most memorable of the TV horror hosts...

10. Rhonda Shear
Ms. Shear was the host of "Up All Night" on the USA Network in the 1990s, and even though some of the films she hosted were not horror, the late-night program she hosted was very much a basic cable version of the old-school, late-night movie showcases. And the voluptuous Shear, although less goth than many of her female predecessors, nevertheless embodied much of the same vampy aesthetic.

9. Count Gore de Vol
A true renaissance man amongst horror hosts, the Count is best known for his Washington D.C.-area show from the 1970s and 1980s. But in 1998, he truly broke new ground and crossed over into a brand new medium by becoming the first classic horror host to kick off a weekly Internet show. He is also the man behind the Horror Host Underground, whose official website is this year nominated for a Rondo Award.

8. Dr. Morgus
One of the most widely syndicated of the classic horror hosts, Morgus' programming was most prominent in the New Orleans and Detroit areas during the 1960s and '70s. In the 1980s he became exposed to a wide array of markets across the nation, including New York, where I remember seeing him as a kid. For the past five years, Morgus has been back on the air with a cable show in New Orleans.

7. Ghoulardi
One of the most high-profile and beloved of the "golden age" horror hosts, Ron "Ghoulardi" Anderson was an icon for monster kids growing up in the Midwest in the 1960s. His character was more of a groovy hipster than the typical "mad scientist" type, and remains a camp favorite to this day. He left his home base of Ohio in the late '60s and went on to become the major ABC voice-over man of the 1970s. His son is film director Paul Thomas Anderson.

6. Svengoolie
A Chicago institution, the original Svengoolie, Jerry Bishop, hosted a very popular show during the 1970s. His protege, Rich Koz, started carrying on the tradition in the 1980s, and continues to do so to this day--first as "Son of Svengoolie", and now simply as the new Svengoolie. Ironically, he has played the character for much longer than his mentor.

5. Joe Bob Briggs
One of the most recent individuals to keep the horror host format alive, Briggs--a.k.a. John Bloom--is a bit more down-to-earth than his funkier and creepier predecessors. He gathered a rabid fan following as a genre aficionado thanks to his shows on The Movie Channel and TNT in the 1990s, and today works mainly as a straight-up critic, with many books on genre cinema under his belt.

4. Elvira
The Mistress of the Dark, and quite possibly the most famous of all horror hosts. Cassandra "Elvira" Peterson most certainly was the one who became the most mainstream, even getting a motion picture dedicated to her on-screen character. She also had her very own line of VHS horror releases, that predated and prefigured the MST3K phenomenon. She loses a point or two for originality, since her entire persona was largely cribbed from an earlier female horror host soon to be mentioned...

3. Chilly Billy
Chilly Billy Cardille was a Pittsburgh fixture for a couple of reasons. Not only was he the immensely popular host of the Steel City's version of Chiller Theater from the 1960s to the 1980s, but he was also one of the premiere TV announcers in the 1960s and '70s for the WWWF (now known as WWE). He can be seen in Night of the Living Dead as the on-the-spot TV reporter, and his daughter is Day of the Dead's Lori Cardille.

2. Zacherley
Yes, I'm probably biased for having grown up in the Northeast, but Zacherley--a.k.a. The Cool Ghoul--is considered by many as something of a patron saint of horror fandom. He hosted a variety of horror movie showcases on TV in Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey in the 1950s and '60s, and even inspired a young boy in Brooklyn who would one day become the father of the writer of this blog. He is also something of an honorary master of ceremonies for the bi-annual Chiller Theatre convention.

1. Vampira
Perhaps the allure of mystery is a big part of Maila "Vampira" Nurmi's continued appeal. Although she only appeared on the air in California during the mid 1950s and almost no footage survives, she is generally credited with being the first true horror host, and the character she crafted has almost become something of a Jungian archetype. She famously appeared in Ed Wood's Plan 9 from Outer Space, and has inspired a look which endures to this day (most notoriously co-opted by the aforementioned Peterson). Simply put, Vampira is more than a person, she is a pop culture entity.


* I'm indebted to the Rondo-nominated E-Gor's Chamber of TV Horror Hosts for being such an invaluable source of precious info in putting this list together.

Fear Invades the Living Room: A History of Horror TV, Part 1

Although often overshadowed by the older and less limited tradition of horror in theatrical motion pictures, the horror genre has nevertheless been a constant and important part of the history of television dating back to its very beginning as a commercial medium. It might be a more confined format in terms of running time, and in recent decades in terms of content, but horror television has benefited from something that all TV shows benefit from to one degree or another: intimacy.

It's an intimacy that the more communal movie experience doesn't allow (even more true in the pre-VCR age). And when it comes to a genre whose purpose it is to get under your skin, to exploit that which unsettles and frightens you, that level of intimacy is a major advantage.

Even though the phenomenon of TV didn't take root until after World War II, the concept of horror entertainment within the privacy of one's own home wasn't quite novel even then--after all, horror programs had already been a staple of radio stations going back decades. Perhaps that was why, in the beginning, horror was able to get its footing on television by drawing directly on that earlier medium.

It was Lights Out, a hugely popular horror/thriller anthology radio show of the 1940s, that was the first to make the transition. In 1946, the first of four Lights Out specials aired on American TV, the nation's first real taste of the boob tube's power to send a tingle down the spine using both audio and video components. They were followed in 1949 with a regular Lights Out series that ran for two seasons, presenting tales of the supernatural, some even based on the horror stories of authors such as Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edgar Allen Poe.

Once Lights Out was a hit, the door was open for a slew of anthology series, most based on the old radio format. In those early days, TV programmers were eager to fill their schedules with whatever they could get their hands on, and further radio adaptations such as Suspense (1949-53) in the U.S. and Appointment with Fear (1949-55) in the U.K. fit the bill. Even horror movie legend Boris Karloff got into the act with a short-lived anthology he hosted called Mystery Playhouse (1949).

The format of presenting a different tale of terror each week proved a stalwart of the early years of television, and Karloff wasn't the only cinematic luminary to benefit from its potential. In 1955, understanding how a TV series could act as the greatest form of self-promotion possible, director Alfred Hitchcock, best known for his suspense thrillers, kicked off his very own anthology show: Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Enormously popular, it ran for nine seasons, giving viewers a condensed TV version of Hitchcock's trademark blend of dark humor and murderous mayhem.

Aside from anthology programming, the other distinguishing feature of horror TV in the '50s was an obvious one. After all, what easier way for content-crazed programmers to fill their slates than by showing previously released movies? B-grade horror films were among the most easily acquired, and thus soon became a late-night staple. Across the nation, hordes of "horror hosts" sprang up. These campy personalities were hired by TV stations to introduce the movies, as well provide entertaining segues to run before and after commercial breaks. The first of these was Vampira, whose 1954-55 program out of Los Angeles set the standard. Among later hosts, New York's Zacherley--"The Cool Ghoul"--was the epitome.

The biggest windfall ever enjoyed by these types of programs was the 1957 leasing to TV by Universal Pictures of its impressive library of 1930s and '40s horror classics. Packaged as "Shock Theatre", the collection of movies that included Dracula, Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, etc., managed to repopularize those moldy oldies with a whole new generation of youngsters that ate them up with relish. An explosion in monster movie popularity resulted, producing the generation that would forever after be lovingly known as "monster kids".

Meanwhile in the U.K., there was some experimentation going on with presenting horror material in a format other than the ongoing series. The 1955 BBC presentation of The Creature starring Peter Cushing, for example, was an early example of a successful horror TV movie. And true to the British concept of limiting a "series" to a single season--more akin to what Americans would call a miniseries--the BBC also produced the landmark Quatermass Experiment in 1953. It would be followed by two other series, Quatermass II (1955) and Quatermass and the Pit (1958), and later inspired the earliest theatrical successes of Hammer Films.

Nevertheless, the Americans stuck to their anthological guns. In 1959, the series One Step Beyond debuted, showcasing paranormal tales based on supposed real-life accounts. Although a well-produced program, it would be totally eclipsed by another anthology which debuted the very same season, and which ironically did take horror TV one step beyond.

Or more accurately, to another dimension. One of sight, and sound.

Other major shows:

• The Clock (1949-52)
• The Web (1950-54)
• Danger (1950-55)
• Topper (1953-55)
• The Veil (1958)

Soon to come: Part 2 - Terror Comes of Age