Chicago TV Horror Movie Shows : From Shock Theatre to Svengoolie

by Unknown

• ISBN13: 9781893121133
• ISBN10: 1893121135
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Trade Paper
• Copyright: 2007-12-01
• Publisher: Everything Goes Media Llc

Summary

The first comprehensive look at the horror movie programs that found their way to local TV stations in the 1950s, this book discusses how the motion picture industry initially disparaged and feared television but eventually began to embrace it, and it focuses on films grouped into the horror genre. Thousands of films that had long been gathering dust in film studio vaults gained new life with TV genre programming, and Chicago's tradition of TV horror movie shows was born in 1957. During my generally misspent youth, I devoted an inordinate amount of time watching the most preposterous movies ever made. I use the word preposterous advisedly, because that s the precise term to describe films involving giant scorpions, teenage werewolves, little green Martians, big alien brains, fire-breathing space turtles, 50-foot women, puppet people, humongous leeches, killer shrews, and grasshoppers as big as the Shedd Aquarium. Not that I have any regrets. --Author Ted Okuda, from the Introduction Although the motion picture industry initially disparaged and feared television, by the late 1950s, studios saw the medium as a convenient dumping ground for thousands of films that had long been gathering dust in their vaults. As these films found their way to local TV stations, enterprising distributors grouped the titles by genre so programmers could showcase them accordingly. It was in this spirit that Chicago s tradition of horror TV movie shows was born. TV viewers couldn t get enough of the old monster movies everything from glossy Frankenstein and Dracula epics to low-budget cheapies featuring giant grasshoppers and teenage werewolves. Here in Chicago, these films were broadcast on such horror movie shows as Shock Theatre, Thrillerama, Creature Features, and Screaming Yellow Theater. Chicago TV Horror Movie Shows: From Shock Theatre to Svengoolieis the first comprehensive look at Chicago s horror movie programs, from their inception in 1957 to the present. Through career profiles of the Horror Hosts who provided comedic interludes between commercial breaks, discover which creepy presenter was one of the 12 reporters to travel around the country with the Beatles during their 1965 66 U.S. tour, and learn about the politics behind Channel 32's sudden (and outrageous) switch from Svengoolie to the Ghoul. Also included are broadcast histories of such hostless programs as Creature Features, Thrillerama The Big Show, The Early Show, The Science Fiction Theater, and Monster Rally, along with a guide to 100 fright films broadcast on Chicago television and a look at the Shock! horror library that started a TV craze. Filled with rare photographs and ever-before-published data, Chicago TV Horror Movie Shows celebrates a grand tradition in local television.

Author Biography

Ted Okuda is a Chicago-based film historian and writer. His previous books include The Golden Age of Chicago Children's Television (Lake Claremont Press), The Columbia Comedy Shorts, The Monogram Checklist, The Jerry Lewis Films (coauthored with James L. Neibaur), and The Soundies Distributing Corporation of America (coauthored with Scott MacGillivray). Other recent book credits include coauthoring Charlie Chaplin at Keystone and Essanay: Dawn of the Tramp with David Maska, contributing chapters for Guilty Pleasures of the Horror Film and Science Fiction America, and writing the foreword for Castle Films: A Hobbyist's Guide. Okuda's articles, interviews, and reviews have appeared in such media-themed publications as Filmfax, Classic Images, Cult Movies, Outré, Classic Film Collector, The Big Reel, and Movie Collector's World. He has discussed film, television, and pop culture topics on The Today Show, Chicago Tonight, Three Stooges Stooge-A-Palooza, Nude Hippo: Your Chicago Show, and NBC–Channel 5 News.