Monster of the Day #1682

Updated on December 26, 2017 By Ken Begg 34 Comments

I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas!

Maila Nurmi, aka Vampira, kind of kicked off the entire bad movie thing with her seminal ’50s horror hostess show in Los Angeles. Along the way she co-starred in Plan 9 from Outer Space and had a reportedly torrid affair with James Dean (!). The line between Morticia Addams and Vampira and Elvira is pretty stark.

Horror hosts remain a thing, although almost all have only been viewed by fans in a discrete city or small region, so they’re individual fame generally doesn’t spread that far. Still, it’s a nice cottage industry, and often a last gasp of that style of local programming.

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  • Gamera977

    Hope everyone had a great Christmas!

    Mine went well until Bob Marley warned me I’d be visited by three Christmas spirits: Herbie the Misfit Elf, The Grinch, and John McClain. Then things got a little wierd….

    Think I’d said it before, I find a woman with a nice slender waist to be really sexy but Nurmi took it waaaaayyyyyy too far!!! I think I’d take Elvira instead.

  • Dorothy P Cobb

    Svengoolie broadcasts nationwide on MeTV on Saturdays at seven.

  • Ericb

    How did she breath while wearing that getup?

  • bgbear_rnh

    Seymour (Larry Vincent) was my guy. Los Angeles early 70s host several years after Vampira and before Elvira. If he had not been stricken by cancer, I think he would have made it to some national level popularity. Jabootu fans would want to look for him in “The Incredible 2-Headed Transplant” where he is the caretaker/father of test subject murdered near the beginning.

  • Gamera977

    Poor me living in a rural area- I guess Joel Hodgeson and Mike Nelson would be the only hosts I’ve seen… ;(

  • Ericb

    I grew up in the NYC metro area in the early 70s and I never saw a local horror host. Did I somehow miss him/her? We had 3 independent stations and all three showed monster/sci fi/horror movies in prime time on Saturday nights (they also would show stuff on Saturday and Sunday afternoons, those were the days!). Two had named shows, channel 5 (now a Fox station) had Creature Features and channel 11 (now a CW station) had Chiller Theater and neither of those had a host. I don’t remember Channel 9 (now a sub-Fox Me TV station) having a special show for these movies but they always could be depended on to show them. Anyone from this area remember a host from this time?

  • Ericb

    Slightly OT, our channel 9 had this wonderful tradition of showing King Kong every Thanksgiving. An interesting holiday choice.

  • Svengoolie being on the air again (back for a while, actually) does my heart good.

    Oh, and Merry Christmas all! Again!

  • We had Count Gore de Vol, who was also Captain 20 for daytime kiddie TV. Nice guy, still maintains a pretty strong online presence and continues his show there. Also turns up in The Galaxy Invader out of costume.

    Merry Christmas, Happy Boxing Day, I may sober up by the New Year!

  • Rock Baker

    She also had a fling with Orson Wells, and recounted a story of stepping out of the other room and presenting herself unclothed to his eyes. “Magnificent carcass” was his unique reply!

    To get into her Vampira costume, Nurmi would fast for three days. The minute the show was over, she’d rush over to the hot dog place across the street and gorge herself. I believe it was during one of these feeding sessions that she first met Criswell.

    For what it’s worth, my Slice Of Cheesecake Maila Nurmi pictorial remains one of the blog’s most popular posts.

  • bgbear_rnh

    Interesting. In LA, when Seymour switch independent stations, the channel 9 did not get a replacement host, just did as you indicated, kept showing “Creature Feature” sans host. When Seymour/Larry died, channel 5’s “Fright Night” went with a couple of unpopular hosts until Elvira showed up.

  • Rock Baker

    I’m pretty isolated, in terms of TV stations large enough to have a spook show host. Growing up, though, when he had the huge analog dish (boy, what a great picture we could get with that dish), there were times when a horror show came in on one of the channels out of another State. Mad Jack, I think he called himself… Honestly, I was there for the movies, so I found the host segments intrusive. Svengoolie is fun, though.

  • Eric Hinkle

    Merry Christmas, everyone!

    I grew up in the Lehigh Valley of PA (southeast part of the state, south of Scranton and about an hour and a half north of Philly). We had some great stuff on locally when I was a kid like Shock Theater with Dr. Shock. He died entirely too young at the age of 42, and was followed by characters like Stella the Maneater, the Daughter of Desire, hostess of Saturday Night Dead.

    And wasn’t there some really long-running horror host down in New Orleans called Morgus the Magnificent?

  • Flangepart

    Check out the Documentary ‘American Scary.’ Lots of good interviews with that one.
    Question: What yer preference- Try to be scary/spooky, or just laugh it up and be silly, like Sven?
    I prefer the absurd and don’t care types. Like Rich Koz, and his ‘dad’ Jerry G. Bishiop, Ghoulardi/The Ghoul in Cleveland, Stella, folks like that. And of course Joel/Mike and the Bots.

  • Eric Hinkle

    I prefer the jokesters myself.

  • Beckoning Chasm

    I lived in Gore DeVol’s broadcast area too–he was great. There was also an obscure guy on a local station who couldn’t even get Monogram films. He was the Bowman Body, and he was also great because he whistled when he breathed.

  • The Bowman Body just passed away earlier this year (or late last year, the deployment still has my recent dates screwed up). I was sad to hear it as he always seemed to be a really great guy and was still making personal appearances even in the last few years, even though I think the show was already well off the air by the time I got to Richmond in ’91 (Channel 20 was carried on cable outside of the DC area, so I had Gore de Vol even back in Lynchburg, before moving to NOVA).

    There is a great documentary out there called “Virginia Creepers” about the fact that per capita we seemed to have managed more home-grown horror hosts than any other more urbanized states. Worth seeking out if you have any interest. Doctor Madblood from the Norfolk area is still around making appearances as well. And I think Mr. Lobo is in NOVA, even though he is an online host.

  • Virginia Creepers is also an excellent doc on the subject, even though it only focuses on a single state. We had more than our fair share of hosts though, so plenty of material.

  • zombiewhacker

    King Kong, Son of Kong, and Mighty Joe Young, to be precise. (Yep, I grew up in the tri-state area, too.)

    Then the day after Thanksgiving, WOR would show Toho films. Don’t know why.

  • zombiewhacker

    Channel 5 (WNEW TV, in those days) did in fact have a horror movie host. (Normally he was their regular station announcer.)

    He didn’t really have a schtick like Zacherly or Elvira. No costumes or elaborate sets. He simply provided deliberately cheesy intros to old flicks like Phantom of the Rue Morgue (“Merv Griffin was so traumatized while making this movie that he was never the same again…”)

  • Ericb

    Strange, I have absolutely no memory of this.

  • zombiewhacker

    I just found his page on Wikipedia. (Can’t link ’cause Jabootu will eat it, but go to Wiki and search for Creature Features WNEW.)

    The host’s name was WNEW announcer, Lou Steele. (“It’s ten P.M. Do you know where your children are?”)

  • Ericb

    Thanks. All I can remember was the Creature from the Black Lagoon them playing over a blurry picture of a monster face.

  • Whoops, not Mr.. Lobo, I was thinking of Dr. Sarcofoguy!

  • Ericb

    … which was pretty weak sauce compared to Chiller Theater’s six fingered claymation hand.

  • Rock Baker

    Morgus was even the star of his own movie in the early 60’s, THE WACKY WORLD OF DR. MORGUS, I think it was called.

  • zombiewhacker

    Yeah, I loved that theme music.

    Check Youtube, search for WNEW CREATURE FEATURE OPEN (FINAL TEST). A Tuber named tapthatt2012 has the CF opening posted.

    CREATURE FEATURES BUMPERS (RECREATIONS) (also from tapthatt2012) has a picture of Steele at the 00:28 second mark.

    Tap also has NYC TV bumpers from Million Dollar Movie and other nostalgia items (Crazy Eddie commercials, Phil Rizzuto Money Store clips, etc.)

  • zombiewhacker

    I don’t know about you, but when I was little, every time CT went to a commercial break, I’d run out of the room, because the six fingered hand bumpers scared me THAT much.

  • zombiewhacker

    Svengoolie was Ernie Anderson, right… that guy who ended up doing 80s TV intros on ABC?

  • zombiewhacker

    Yeah, that waistline is a little weird-looking. Lisa Marie wasn’t nearly so skinny in the Ed Wood movie, IIRC.

  • Eric Hinkle

    I’ll keep my eyes open for it, thanks.

  • Ericb

    Thanks. That all seems like eons ago. I remember when I was little the concept of a “money store” really confused me.

  • Rock Baker

    I’m not sure who played the original guy, as I only discovered the show through the nation-wide broadcasts starring Rich Koz. I guess I’m sorta like those kids who only discovered the replacement Bozo.

  • Marsden

    In NEPA we had Uncle Ted’s Ghoul School. He was just an older guy wearing a fez and trying to be spooky. He showed up as a replacement host on the afternoon’s Dialing for Dollars weekday movie and even on the weekday morning kids show Hatchey Milatchey. The station was WNEP channel 16. But that was at over 20 years ago, maybe 30.

    The Ghoul School is where I first saw The Screaming Skull!