Movie (& Old Television Broadcast!) Review: THE WAY OF THE WEST (1934 / Summer ’99)

Certainly longtime readers (of which I have at least a few) will recall my affinity for the “B-Western.” That is, the poverty row or otherwise lower budgeted films of the western genre from the 1930s and 1940s. These cheapies weren’t limited to the 1930s and 1940s, but those two decades are certainly where the majority of my favorites hail from. I grew up on a steady diet of these offerings, via my much-loved and much-missed WAOH TV-29 (which I extensively detailed here), and it’s a fandom that continues to this very day. Of course, we’ve seen posts on the subject here on the blog prior (proof #1, #2 and #3).

Well, recently I was poking around b-westerns.com (an utterly indispensable site with a veritable wealth of information on the subject) when I decided to click on the vaaaaaaguely-familiar name of Wally Wales. It was while perusing their biography on him that my eyes fell upon a mention of one of the studios he worked for: Superior Talking Pictures. This perked my figurative ears right up, because Superior Talking Pictures, man, you wanna talk cheap, they were C-H-E-A-P. Monogram offerings were practically Spielbergian productions in comparison to Superior! They were terrible in the best way; because of this, I’ve held a serious interest in their offerings for years.

So anyway, I looked at Wally Wales’ filmography, and stumbled upon the title of The Way of the West, from 1934. The synapses in my brain began firing, and I progressively dredged up the memory: I taped that one back in the day! A thankfully-quick dig through my VHS boxes (helped by the recollection of the tape brand I had it on) unearthed the object of my desire, and so here we are.

Excepting specialty video dealers, the only normative way for most folks to catch & keep many of these B-Westerns back then was through the magic of VCR, provided you had a regular television outlet for these films – which I did. That has since changed exponentially; the public domain status of many (most?) of these flicks has meant a variety of DVD releases, never mind the legal online options. The Way of the West seems to fall under both categories – there were/are DVD editions out there, and even the Internet Archive has it for free viewin’ and/or downloadin’.

I’d certainly be interested in acquiring a shiny, factory-pressed DVD edition of the feature, but there’s something to be said for taking a trip back in time via a VHS recording. I have no exact date, but it’s from the summer of 1999 – a whopping 21 years ago! My recording is old enough to drink HAW HAW HAW! The sobering realization that 20+ years have elapsed since I taped this notwithstanding (talk about time shifting!), it’s fun to revisit a specific time and place in my personal history – especially since I have zero recollection of ever actually watching this recording! And even better: it’s from TV-29 (via America One Television’s syndication), so there’s some fun extras present, too!

We’ll take a look at those accoutrements momentarily, but for now, let us dive into the cinematic marvel that is Superior Talking Pictures’ The Way of the West…

Our title screen (duh!)

I could be awfully choosy about what I did and didn’t keep where VHS recording was concerned back then, and truth be told, I’m really not sure why I decided to keep The Way of the West. I don’t know if I even realized this was a Superior Talking Picture back then (the pertinent info isn’t front-and-center on the opening screen seen here; it’s buried at the bottom of the following screen). Maybe it had to do with the mystery surrounding the leading man of the movie, as recounted by America One movie host Alan Stone before the picture? (Stone’s intro is one of the accoutrements we’ll look at after the movie, by the way.) Or maybe it was the involvement of, as you can see here, Art Mix, who I was familiar with back then. Or maybe I just liked the title and obscure creakiness of the whole thing, I dunno. Not that I’m complaining, of course.

Looking at the screen capture here, you’ll notice right above the title the specific notation of “The American Rough Riders.” Now, there was indeed a Rough Riders series of westerns, but they came later and were a product of Monogram. So, I’m not quite sure what the header alludes to here. Wally Wales is more or less a solo hero in this one, so was this an already-known group of silver screen names that Superior was capitalizing on, something Superior was trying to gather attention with, or…? At any rate, the more well-known Rough Riders had nothing to do with these Rough Riders. Maybe that’s why I kept the recording? I would have at least known of the later Rough Riders at that time, so maybe this struck me as weirdly funny?

The plot? (Some spoilers ahead, like anybody cares.) Hey, did you know that cattlemen and sheep herders were (are?) mortal enemies? I sure didn’t, but that’s exactly what this movie posits; that those in charge of cattle hate those in charge of sheep with a deadly, all-consuming passion.

That’s what drives the plot here: the government gives out land for grazin’ and whatnot, with no regard for whether the animals doing said grazing are big smelly milk machines or cotton covered creatures. Well, Dad Parker and his two children, ‘Fiery’ Parker and her younger brother Bobby, have some of this gub’mint granted land and a huge herd of sheep – and that draws the ire of one Cash Horton and his cohorts (one of which is the aforementioned Art Mix, who had a storied western career; like I said, I knew of him even back then). These nefarious chumps have been enlisted to drive Parker off, and this, needless to say, provides the impetus for our story here.

Wally telling Cash to get lost (or something along those lines)

Standing in defense of the Parker family and solidly on the side of good is Wally Gordon (Wales). Wally comes to the aid of Fiery early in the picture, rescues Bobby from some bullying via Cash’s crew, and is just an all-around good egg. To further demonstrate the burning rage that apparently exists between cattlemen and sheep herders, when queried on the subject of whether he’s a cattle man or a sheep man early in the film, Wally responds: “Well, I try to be just plain human being; sheep or cows, we have to live and let live, you know?” The fact he even needed to elaborate on this points to a rift that, again, I had no idea was a thing. Maybe it was only an issue in the world of the movie?

Wales isn’t a bad leading man, though a tad generic in the role. He certainly fares better than he could have, considering the material he was saddled (HAW HAW HAW) with. You don’t expect much from a B-Western, particularly one that isn’t from one of the big ‘B’ studios (Monogram, Republic, heck, even PRC). Even so, Way is pretty creaky, and more importantly, dumb. Hey, it wouldn’t be a Superior if it wasn’t!

Amongst the inanity (and this is just a sampling):

Awkward camerawork (particularly later in the film) that ostensibly progresses the plot (sheep being herded etc.) but really kind of juts around haphazardly and with obstacles in the landscape (read: trees) partially obscuring the shot. Good enough, I guess!

Also, a few instances in which the dialogue seemingly starts late during a new shot or is awkwardly paused/broken. Forgotten lines, miscues, or poor editing? I don’t know, but it’s pretty funny when it happens!

Regarding the script, it’s often eye-rollingly stupid. Shortly after Dad Parker specifically introduces his foreman (Wally!) to Cash, Cash asks who he is, to which it is then re-explained to him! There’s more than one dumb instance between Wally and Cash, too; the final exchange between them, a callback to a conversation from earlier in the film, is so awkwardly delivered that it’s practically jaw dropping – especially when Cash concludes by having a hearty laugh over it! (Despite his being in custody and about to be put in the slammer…though, oddly enough, without being restrained in any way. I guess this hardened criminal was on the honor system?)

You want amateurish action? The Way of the West has you covered! The fights in this one are bad even by cheapie old western standards. Dig this: early in the picture, Wally knocks a baddie out by raising his arm towards him, and then there’s a quick cut to his fist pushing the bad guy’s face, and then a cut to the guy hitting the ground – unconscious. It’s amazing. Apparently folks in the world of the movie are made of paper; the slightest shoves are capable of knocking people to the ground. And accusing Cash of killing in cold blood, even though mere accusations are all that can be thrown at him at that point? Why, that’s the cue for a huge, yet highly pathetic, bar brawl to take place!

Near the end of the film, Superior realized that speeding the film up (as in, running it at a faster FPS rate) during fight scenes helps, which it does indeed do; too bad that relatively-clever decision actually makes the stuff that came before look even worse in comparison. Prior to that decision, there’s a long drawn out bit where Wally and Cash wrestle on the ground, and instead of the daring fight it’s supposed to be, it just comes off awkward and sad – especially since there’s no music on the soundtrack to enhance the action. (The lack of soundtrack, aside from the open and close of the film, was par for the course for cheapo westerns at that time).

And then there’s the just plain puzzling moments in general. At one point, Wally is pinned down by Cash’s gunfire, so he takes his hat off and uses some nearby sticks to set it up as a decoy so he can make a retreat. Not a bad idea…except that he sets up the hat so low to the ground that Cash couldn’t possibly see it. And if he could, then he could also certainly see Wally exiting.

Among the most “say what?” moments of the movie: at one point, some unconscious bad guys are “humorously” dumped in a watering trough. (The actors tend to flinch when they first hit the water, but don’t let that destroy the illusion, okay?) Sound lighthearted enough? Well, considering one of them is dropped in face down while ostensibly unconscious…

And if all that wasn’t enough, there’s heroic-yet-comedic relief provided by young brother Bobby Parker. I have yet to see a B-Western where a kid in such a role doesn’t annoy me to some degree. His accidentally almost shooting an unsuspecting guy in the head is actually treated with frivolity! Later, he’s enlisted to go undercover to find proof that Wally didn’t kill a guy in cold blood – as if a little kid skulking about wouldn’t be suspicious. (Of course he overhears a conversation that needlessly explains the frame-up in detail.)

Oh, and by the way, Wally is secretly a government agent sent to investigate the cow/sheep war, but this point has no real bearing on the story and thus never really goes anywhere; it’s just kinda ‘there’ by the end of the picture. So why even include it in the first place?

But you know what the ironic thing about all this is? For a Superior Talking Picture, this really isn’t that bad. Is it cheap and creaky and occasionally amateurish, even outright stupid? Oh, without a doubt. And yet, considering how bad these Superiors could be, The Way of the West actually kinda succeeds in comparison. It’s hardly a beacon of B-Western movie making, and you don’t go into these things expecting a highfalutin experience anyway, but it still fares considerably better than, say, Range Riders, which could probably be considered the high (low?) water mark of Superior Talking Picture ridiculousness-in-every-facet. (Indeed, I once had an extensive DVD review of the film up here at the blog, though it’s currently reverted to draft-form for revisions; maybe I’ll get around to re-posting it at some point, provided I feel industrious enough.)

So yes, The Way of the West, it’s technically terrible, but a lot of fun to watch in a “bad movie night” sorta way. Its flaws are myriad, but except for that whole “potentially drowning a guy” thing, I guess it doesn’t do anything too offensive…

Oh…oh wow…

…OH HEY WAIT A SECOND WHOA WHOA WHOA!!!

Is, is t-that a freakin’ swastika on Cash Horton’s back?! It sure is! Boy, the dude’s an even bigger bad guy than he first appeared to be! I guess there’s no better way to say “HEY THIS IS THE VILLAIN OF THE PICTURE” though, is there?

ACTUALLY, before it became known as the symbol of, erm, you know, the swastika had a number of different iterations and meanings. Indeed, this isn’t even the first time I’ve seen it in a B-Western. Here, let Wikipedia tell you more.

The trivia section of Way‘s IMDb page says it was meant as a Native American good luck sign. I believe it; besides the fact the ‘bad’ version of the symbol is slightly different anyway, we’re talking pre-WWII film making here; it wouldn’t make much sense to put the Nazi symbol in a movie of this nature anyway. As we’ve seen, Superior could do some dumb stuff in their movies, but that would be particularly head-scratching.

Nevertheless, none of that changes the fact that the image does provide an initial “HUH?!”

(By the way, this is the scene where Horton shoots Dad Parker in cold blood. Dad winds up dying from his injuries, so just ignore the fact that it seriously looks like Horton shoots him in the posterior, okay?)

So, that’s The Way of the West. Okay, sure, from a technical standpoint it’s a terrible movie. Or at least, not a very good one. But you know what? I had a lot of fun watching. It held my attention, and while it’s not the chief offender in Superior’s oeuvre, there’s enough eyebrow-raising moments to be found to make it worth your while. Boy am I glad I taped it forever ago!

The discovery of new old stuff like this is just what made young me so addicted to TV-29 and America One’s syndicated offerings that 29 presented on a daily basis. Indeed, considering I (to the best of my recollection) never actually watched the recording, I guess this is as close as I can get to recreating those days of my youth.

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HEY, WAIT! We’re not done just yet! Remember, I promised to showcase some accoutrements that were part of this broadcast! There were four moments outside of the movie that struck my interest. Three of them were commercials, but the fourth was this:

Alan Stone! Stone was the host of America One’s movies at the time. If you scroll waaaaay back up to the start of this article and read my TV-29 retrospective link (here, just have it again), you’d see how much I liked this guy. In fact, after that article, I did an online search for him, hopefully to find where he wound up after his A1 duties were finished. Maybe I could get a hold of him for an interview – or at least an autograph. Sadly, I didn’t turn up anything helpful.

Stone appeared before and after movies on a daily (nearly daily?) basis at the time. Unfortunately, his outro was cut off by me (mistake!) on this recording, but I kept the intro. Stone mainly talked about the many names Wally Wales was known by throughout his career (seriously, look it up!), and as he often did, displayed some of his dry humor with a “so you figure it out” after naming several of Wales’ monikers off.

For this broadcast, obviously this was part of America One’s “Western Theater” showcase, which specialized in movies just, like, well, just like this one. (Aw okay, they usually weren’t this chintzy!) It’s strictly thanks to Western Theater that I’m the B-Western fan that I am today!

Instrumental Legends Compilation Ad! Okay, so when it came to broadcasts on TV-29, there would typically be two ways the commercial breaks during a respective broadcast could go: ones that split time with ‘national’ ads and locally-produced spots, as you would tend to expect of an independent station. But then, there were other broadcasts where it was strictly ‘national’ ads; ITT Tech, mail order music and videos, things like that. It’s the latter category that this broadcast we’re looking at now falls in. I’m okay with that though, because the music compilation commercials present, the ads are practically burnt into my mind, so often were they run back in the day.

Many of these commercials were for Cornerstone Promotions comps, and that’s the case with what you’re seeing now: Instrumental Legends, a two disc (or cassette) set comprised entirely of instrumental oldies. I actually own this one (collecting these Cornerstone CDs has become a hobby of mine, thanks mainly to these commercials I saw endlessly back in the day), and there’s a lot of good stuff on it – provided you like instrumentals, of course. (Check out that Discogs link and judge for yourself!) And look at that screencap; it may be hard for some to remember a time when two CDs could run nearly $30, and two cassettes were nearly $20!

Malt Shop Memories Compilation Ad! Of all of the Cornerstone Promotions commercials I saw back then, there was perhaps none more played, or memorized by yours truly, than this one: Malt Shop Memories, another two disc/tape set, this one focusing on 1950s jukebox-worthy tracks; stuff you’d supposedly hear in a – say it with me – malt shop. Go figure! (Be forewarned: there’s more than one compilation that goes by the title Malt Shop Memories, but this is the one burnt into my brain.)

Since I’m very much a 1950s &1960s rock guy (in all the various forms the vague term of “rock” entails when applied to those two decades), this set is very much right up my alley. Looking at that Discogs link, you’ll see that the set leans towards slower, Doo Wop tracks, though I’m just fine with that.

Unlike the preceding Instrumental Legends commercial, which mainly featured happy couples and ‘relaxing’ images (flowing streams and whatnot), this Malt Shop Memories commercial went all out in recreating the stereotypical 1950s malt shop, complete with teens in period-appropriate clothing, dancing, and just enough lip-syncing to make me feel embarrassed for the actor. Oh how I love this commercial; it just may be my favorite music compilation spot of all-time!

Pinkard & Bowden: Gettin’ Stupid Ad! Another one I practically know by heart, though despite the (seeming) ubiquity of the commercial at the time, in comparison to the preceding two collections Gettin’ Stupid is actually kinda tough to find, or at least sells for a bit more.

Pinkard & Bowden were a comedy country music duo, specializing in parodies of popular songs and humorous originals. Think of a countrified Weird Al Yankovic x 2 or something like that. The ad plays up the comedic aspects of the duo by having them lip sync and act out in costume some of the songs found on this collection.

This commercial, obviously it was still running by 1999, but apparently the compilation first released in 1993. One of the things I find my most interesting about it now is seen in the screencap here: the option to purchase it on vinyl. I consider, roughly, 1990-2005 to be the ‘lost years’ of vinyl, and releases within those years, after the format lost mainstream popularity and before it made a welcome comeback, to be of extreme interest. If the CD version of this comp is tough to find, I can only guess how obscure the vinyl is!

(The option to buy on the seemingly-dead vinyl format was often seen on these mail order advertisements throughout the 1990s, and as someone who scours a lot of vinyl at thrift shops and whatnot, I can tell you used copies of these don’t turn up nearly as often as I’d like. A 1991 Bobby Vinton comp was and is cool, but the big find in this category for me over the last few years? Andy Griffith’s 1995 Gospel music collection. I remember the commercials for that one, too; I do believe they were still airing well after ’95.)

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There you have it: a movie review, an old television broadcast review, and a look back at what comprised my cinematic interests 21 years ago. (Hey, some things never change!) Stuff like this provided the foundation for not only my ongoing love of the B-Western genre, but also local programming (even though, technically, nothing here was really locally produced).

This was a fun article to write, and definitely a fun broadcast to revisit, or visit, depending on how you look at it. Maybe some of the content here will be hard for people to understand just why I’m so enamored by it, but if nothing else, maybe I’ve introduced another good bad movie for y’all to throw into the queue. That’s something to be proud of, I think? Whatever.

WAOH TV-29 & WAX TV-35 – The Son Of Ghoul Show: 1951’s “The Hoodlum” (December 5, 1997)

I cannot believe this aired 19 years ago today. I refuse to believe this aired 19 years ago today! Where has the time gone?! (I discovered this information kinda late, which will account for the relative breeziness of this article.)

Recorded by yours truly in the early weeks of his Son of Ghoul fandom, this particular episode has become a personal favorite of mine. Maybe not so much because of anything it does itself (though it’s certainly a fun outing), but more because of where it all falls in my life, when the weekend promised a constant sense of discovery. I mean, not only did I get to indulge in this show that I had only discovered a bit over a month prior, but I also got to see totally new-to-me movies such as this, which, as a young film buff, was just like candy. Add in the Christmas season and the general mood of the time in which it aired, and it’s not too hard to realize I’ve got mad nostalgia for this one. (Further fueled by the fact that my brother and I got a Nintendo 64 for Christmas that year – cool winnins!)

From December 5, 1997, off of WAOH TV-29 / WAX TV-35, here is the low-budget 1951 film noir opus, The Hoodlum, as presented on The Son of Ghoul Show. (This also would have aired December 6, as the same episode ran on both Friday and Saturday evenings at that point, though I’m reasonably sure what I recorded here was the Friday airing.)

Now, there actually is a more-personal slant to this episode, one that ties in with something I brought up in my big huge 30th anniversary tribute article this past summer. We’ll get to that in due time, however.

I’ve been a Son of Ghoul fan since November 1, 1997, and yet, in all that time, the introductory segment for this episode may be my all-time favorite; it’s just so perfect.

Apparently they had run The Hoodlum before, and subsequently gotten complaints that their projector wasn’t centered correctly. Not so; the film was just severely cropped. To that end, during the introduction SOG drags out a piece of cardboard and draws a diagram to explain what the deal is.

According to him, the movie was originally 35mm, and much of the picture was cropped when 16mm television prints were made, which was what they had for the show. To demonstrate the differences between the two, he draws a drive-in movie (a poorly-attended one; “There’s one car there!”), gives a rough approximation of what’s now missing in the picture (the film doesn’t pan-and-scan; what’s in the center is it), and then proclaims the movie “The Oodlub,” which is pretty much the on-screen title here. He then finishes with a declaration of not caring whether viewers understand what he’s talking about or not, because he doesn’t really have to watch the movie. “They pay me to be here; what’s your excuse?”

It’s such a fitting intro, very funny but also kinda informative. To my 11-year-old self watching this back in ’97, I got a kick out of it. Still do, obviously.

He sure wasn’t kidding, either!

“A film noir on Son of Ghoul? Say what?”

Yep! While most of the offerings on The Son of Ghoul Show are in the expected horror and science fiction genres, he does occasionally branch out. Sometimes the show will feature comedies, mysteries, or, as in this case, crime thrillers. The Hoodlum was really my first glance at his stepping outside of the usual fare. Honestly, it wasn’t quite my cup of tea back then (though, needless to say, I was still smart enough to keep this recording), though in the years since, I’ve grown to really love film noir. Nowadays, this is right up my alley!

“The Oooodlubb—“

Elaine’s Dad Lawrence Tierney plays Vincent Lubeck, a convict and legit “bad egg.” Despite apprehensions on the part of the prison staff, an impassioned plea by Lubeck’s mother gets him paroled – and he almost immediately starts back up with the shady business.

Lubeck is an all-around scumbag; he causes his brother’s girlfriend to kill herself (after his brother has given him a job at his own gas station, mind you), but the main plot-point of the film is an armored car hold-up and Lubeck’s gathering of a crew for said hold-up. It doesn’t quite go down peacefully. Like I said, dude’s a bad egg.

Despite the extreme cropping, wasted print quality, and Son of Ghoul’s multiple declarations that the film is “trash,” I actually kinda liked it upon this latest viewing. It’s short and pretty cheap, but Tierney is terrific and the plot held my attention fairly well. The Hoodlum ain’t exactly the de facto film noir, but if you’re a fan of the genre, it’s not all that bad.

I could go on, but look, the movie is in the public domain and only like an hour, so just go watch it for yourself, okay? And, you’ll note the Internet Archive features a print with readable opening credits! Go figure!

Funny Son of Ghoul drop-in: Near the beginning, as Lubeck is being the warned the dangers of not staying on the straight-and narrow, a quick shot of ol’ sparky had SOG superimposed sitting in it, laughing like a mad man and actually plugging it in! Notice the door that was inadvertently (?) superimposed to the far-right of the screen; gotta love local TV!

That’s enough about The Hoodlum. I just don’t have all that much to say about it, and besides, it’s time for the important stuff…

The first skit of the night was an installment of Burn-Out The Dinosaur. For anyone questioning SOG’s sense of humor, these skits left little room for doubt: WARPED.

That’s exactly what these were, warped takes on Barney the Dinosaur, the big purple 1990s phenom that was second only to Urkel in inexplicable popularity. The premise of the skits was simple; generally, Burn-Out would manically laugh and abuse his co-host Brett. Brett filled the loving, caring, teaching role – one that wouldn’t have been out of place hanging with the actual Barney. Burn-Out was the insane half, and he came complete with a parody of Barney’s theme song, in which it’s proclaimed his mom is a streetwalker, his dad is in a bar, and Burn-Out himself makes a living by, what else, stealing cars.

In this installment, both Burn-Out and Brett are hungry for a late night snack, which leads Burn-Out to ask Brett if he knows what his favorite sandwich is. Why, it’s a knuckle sandwich, of course! The entire skit is basically an excuse for this little dinosaur puppet to pummel a grown man, even after Brett forgives him (because “forgiveness is an important part of life”). High art it ain’t, but then, it wasn’t supposed to be. Silly, funny stuff!

(Full disclosure: I still kinda like Urkel.)

Mail time!

When I started writing to SOG (I believe my first letter was read on-air shortly into the new year), these were the segments I anticipated most, for obvious reasons. The man himself, reading correspondence from me, on the air?! What could be better?

I had no such correspondence in the mail for this episode, but that doesn’t mean segment isn’t fun. Among the entries read on-air, SOG got a package from The Beatnik Termites band, and a letter from someone in Florida that was somehow seeing the show, a comment which lead to the first of several jabs at the station’s power signal – apparently it was coming in pretty weak in some areas of Northeast Ohio.

BUT, it’s the third letter read that I find the most interest in. It’s basically a fan letter, telling SOG how much they love watching him, but the question of how they can find out where SOG is appearing in-person (answer: “WATCH THE SHOW!!!!”) leads to the announcement of his double-feature matinee at the Highland Theatre (more on that in a bit), as well as…

The personal slant I mentioned earlier!

Yep, a week from that Sunday, SOG himself was there in-person at JC Comics & Cards! I was there! It was my first time meeting him! I. WAS. THERE. MAN.

JC was a big sponsor of The Son of Ghoul Show at the time, and his commercials were often seen during breaks (we’ll see one in just a bit here, actually). I was well familiar with the establishment already; it was nearby, I loved it, so yeah, I pretty much had to be there on December 14th!

Look, I went into further detail about this visit during the previously-linked 30th anniversary article, and I don’t really want to rehash it all over. Just go to the 30th anniversary post. I even have some photos from the event there! SOG was just the greatest at JCs, and indeed, I even talked about this personal appearance in the first letter I sent to him! See, this all connects, somehow!

(JC Comics & Cards is still at that exact spot; you should go there, because the place is awesome.)

Mr. Banjo was up next. Another long-running skit, the premise was supposed to be the titular character (a hillbilly stereotype, basically) presenting old novelty clips. Technically, he did just that. But, what these bits always ended up as was Mr. Banjo constantly yelling (and often threatening) his green-screened dog “Boner,” who would bark incessantly. Trust me, it was hilarious, and even today when SOG runs one of these oldies, they’re crowd pleasers.

This installment doesn’t stray too far from the norm, though a clip of dogs running on spinning wheels provides yet another shot at the station’s power signal (that’s how it’s powered, y’see).

Son of Ghoul-Zilla, a claymation bit in which a gigantic SOG rises from the sea and wrecks a city. Obviously a take on Japanese giant monster movies, with the cheesy special effects to match. This has been a popular short over the years; it gets regular airtime even nowadays.

An event that was being pitched all night. That coming Sunday, December 7, SOG was appearing at the Highland Theatre for a double-feature matinee. For only $3, you got to see two full-length feature films, though they weren’t exactly Spielberg: 1996’s Dead of Night and 1997’s A Woman Scorned 2 were the features that weekend. As SOG claims later in the show, they’re hard-R flicks, which explains the whole under-18-you-need-a-parent disclaimer spouted several times throughout the broadcast.

I’m pretty sure I saw Space Jam at the Highland, though I don’t think I’ve been back since.

With Christmas right around the corner, SOG was of course pitching his official t-shirt; at the time of airing, if you wanted one (or more) to get there in time for the big day, you had two weeks left. Afterwards, they were “discontinuing them,” at least for the time being. SOG has an especially-winning line here about getting them for “your offspring, or your fat hubby.“ Who could resist one of these after a pitch like that?!

It makes sense to promote these during the holidays, but what I find particularly interesting is the apparently limited nature of them at the time. T-shirts are big business for SOG nowadays, but back then, you had to act fast. According to the segment, they were only available in the large and extra large sizes, and again, they were touted as being discontinued for a time after the two weeks were up. Near as I can remember, that never quite came to pass, not for a lengthy period at least, but it’s interesting to look back on.

And no, that info in the screencap above isn’t still valid.

The show finishes with the reiterating of the upcoming personal appearances, and then SOG busts wild moves as the end credits roll, which is really pretty awesome.

Ignoring that whole personal slant thing, it may be hard for some readers to understand why I’m so fond of this episode. After all, it’s solid, but more or less just a regular entry. And, the movie featured won’t raise many eyebrows. But, I think because it’s such a good, solid episode is the reason I’ve grown so fond of it. It’s a great example of how The Son of Ghoul Show was formatted at the time, and for me, so early on in my fandom, when I couldn’t wait to discover more of this stuff each weekend, this recording takes me right back. It’s December 1997, I’m 11-years-old, sitting on the couch, watching Son of Ghoul and anticipating Christmas all over again. A powerful blast of nostalgia this one is, for sure.

Plus, the movie wasn’t too bad, either.

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And that brings us to the customary commercials section of the post. As usual, I like to recap some of the more interesting ads that aired during a respective broadcast. In this case, there’s a lot here that further fuels the whole nostalgia trip I’m currently on. Considering SOG is commercial-free nowadays, it’s a bit surprising to look back at a time when his show was pretty jam-packed with advertising.

Anyway, I’m not going to look at a ton of the ads from this broadcast, but I do have a few…

Quaker Square Christmas Village Ad

Quaker Square Christmas ads were all over this airing. Mostly, their animatronic Christmas village was spotlighted, though time was also given to showcase the Square as the ideal holiday destination station, with places to shop, eat, etc. So, yeah.

I want to say I visited the Christmas showcase around that time. I was somewhere with animated mannequins (or whatever), though I can no longer recall if it was Quaker Square or not. Still, the local Akron Christmassy-ness of this ad hits home for me, so even if I wasn’t there exactly, it still rates pretty high on the nostalgia meter.

Princess Diana Commemorative Stamps Ad

With Princess Diana’s death only a few months before, people were obviously still reeling. To that end, what better gift to celebrate her life than a commemorative stamp set and medallion for only $20? Because that’s exactly what this ad was for. Not exactly a solid fit for Son of Ghoul’s comedy, but hey, a sponsor is a sponsor.

This is the kind of collectible that was made to be collectible, and thus it’s probably worth like negative 32 cents nowadays. Or not, I don’t know. I certainly remember the (understandable) media frenzy surrounding her death, and while I don’t know this for sure, I’d imagine there were probably much less classy attempts to commemorate her than this. So, if you had a Diana fan on your Christmas list, I guess this wouldn’t have been a bad choice.

WAOH TV-29 / WAX TV-35 Happy Holidays Bumper

One thing I always liked about WAOH / WAX (“The Cat”) was that the station had a strong local flavor. Obviously that was to be expected with them being a local independent station, after all. But, watching The Cat, it just felt like Akron; there weren’t many (any?) other stations at the time, or now, that I can say that about. It’s a thought that makes me miss the late-1990s and early-2000s Cat all the more.

In that local vein was this quick, simple “Happy Holidays” bumper, in which a voiceover wishes the viewer just that, while a stereotypical Christmas scene of Santa in a train resides in the background. I don’t know what it is about this exactly, but it just seems so right, so Christmas 1997 in Northeast Ohio.

WAOH TV-29 / WAX TV-35 WWF Shotgun Promo

Professional wrestling was big, big business in the late-1990s, and while I can’t claim to have ever really been on that train (though I liked Hulk Hogan when I was younger – but then, who didn’t?), I certainly remember the massive hype surrounding all things wrestling at the time. Heck, for quite awhile, ECW actually followed Son of Ghoul on, I think, Saturday nights.

So anyway, The Cat managed to get the syndicated WWF Shotgun program on their roster, airing twice a week in an “okay” Tuesday night time slot, and a “screw that” Saturday afternoon time slot. Aside from Shotgun being ostensibly edgier than ‘normal’ WWF, I can’t say a whole lot about it, since, you know, I never watched wrestling. Nevertheless, this edginess is demonstrated via a promo featuring a lot of herky-jerky scenes and punctuated with effects not unlike those of a VCR fast-forwarding. Edgy.

So, The Cat had some WWF (back when it was the WWF) in 1997, and that’s something to be celebrated, right?

JC Comics & Cards Christmas Ad

See, told ya we’d see JC Comics & Cards again!

There were several JC ads seen on The Cat, and SOG specifically, over the years. Near as I can tell, this one is the earliest, or at least the earliest I captured. In it, set to the tune of squirrels singing something Christmas-related, a Santa runs around the store, playing with toys, picking out shirts, and other “this is where Santa goes for his gifts” imagery.

Above left: Santa plays with a Millennium Falcon toy, which is fitting, because JCs was the place to go for Star Wars toys in the late-1990s, especially the vintage ones. To an 11-year-old, it was mind-blowing seeing that amount of old, rare Star Wars stuff all in one place. And his box of $3 loose vintage SW figures? I was all over that whenever I went in.

He still has tons of great rare comics, imports, collectibles, and so on. I wasn’t kidding earlier; if you’re anywhere nearby, you owe it to yourself to check JCs out.

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Alright, enough.

As I mentioned during my intro to this post, this article is breezier than usual. I had been mulling over a post on this broadcast for awhile anyway, and when I deduced the original air date and realized the 19th anniversary was right around the corner, I just didn’t have a ton of free time to put it together. So, I apologize if this feels like a dash-off. It certainly wasn’t intended to be. It was either that or wait until the 20th anniversary. ‘Course, I didn’t have to post on the actual anniversary date, but that’s something I like to do whenever possible.

Still, I think you can get a pretty good taste of what made up my Friday (and Saturday!) nights at the time. Even though I taped countless episodes (which I still have), and even though Son of Ghoul is still on-the-air, I don’t know, there’s just something about going back in time and reliving when I was first being introduced to all of this. And when it comes to momentarily regaining that feeling, this episode is one of my favorites. For yours truly, it hits all the right bases; boy am I glad I had the foresight to record all this stuff back in the day!

Mystery Science Theater 3000’s Retro TV Debut This Past Weekend (Also: The Musings Of A Lifelong MSTie On His Early Fandom.)

*Standby for shameless gushing.*

This past weekend, Mystery Science Theater 3000 made its Retro TV debut. I don’t want to say that all is now right with the world, but there’s little doubt that it’s just a little bit better place to live nevertheless.

I talked about this right after the announcement that MST3K reruns would be returning to TV via the Retro TV network, which in Northeast Ohio, is WAOH TV-29 in Akron, WAX TV-35 in Cleveland (the station formerly known as “The Cat.”) I’ve been counting the days (sometimes literally, sometimes figuratively) to July 5, and now that the “big event” (as I have deemed it) has occurred, well, I’m ecstatic. Lemme ‘splain a bit…

Mystery Science Theater 3000. The show with the robots and the theater seats and the so much ripping on the bad movies. I could go into more specific details, but for the sake of whatever, let’s condense the summation to this: A guy and his two robots are stuck in outer space and forced to watch terrible movies as part of a mind-monitoring experiment, ostensibly in the hopes of ultimately ruling the world with “the worst movie ever made.”  Their only defense? Mocking (or “riffing”) the movies mercilessly.

Of all the shows I love or have loved, of all the shows I am or was an admitted fanatic of, in my own bizarre little world of personal mythologies, MST3K is and always be the “big one.” So much of what makes me, well, me started with MST3K. If I’m being honest with myself, perhaps not so much my initial fascination with movies or my need to continuously collect more of them; that had begun about a year before I discovered MST3K. But, there is little doubt that MST3K launched that fascination into the stratosphere (figuratively speaking, I mean; using the term in a literal sense would probably mean death or at least serious maiming on my part). After MST3K had the hooks in me, I was never the same.

Mystery Science Theater 3000 first started at a local TV station in Minneapolis in 1988, went national in 1989 on what would eventually become Comedy Central, and moved to the Sci-Fi Channel in 1997, which is where I, at 10/11 years old, came in. Since I had a growing interest in old horror and sci-fi films already, it stands to reason that I was far more familiar with the Sci-Fi Channel than I was Comedy Central. When the initial promos proclaiming the series was moving to the channel began airing, I was already tuned into Sci-Fi. Indeed, prior to those advertisements, I was wholly unfamiliar with MST3K. I may have passed it while channel surfing, but that would have been the extent of my familiarity with the show.

An added bonus following my discovery of MST3K was that I began actively searching out the oddball titles, the weird, forgotten flicks, even films that evoked a certain time period I wasn’t around for (I’m looking at you, downbeat 1970’s movies! Relay my well-wishes to Keenan Wynn!) BUT, that was just a side-effect of MST3K fandom. The real benefit of becoming a fan was that it absolutely introduced me to a world of sharper, funnier comedy. It became (and remains) my first, biggest, and longest-lasting TV obsession.

Readers of this sad blog will no doubt have seen my numerous long, blabbering soliloquies of love posts regarding our Northeast Ohio movie hosts: Ghoulardi, Hoolihan & Big Chuck & Lil’ John, The Ghoul, Son Of Ghoul, Superhost, and so on and so on. The fact of the matter is that my love of them initially began with MST3K, which as previously mentioned isn’t even a local product. I remember Superhost from his waning days on WUAB TV-43, I had caught Big Chuck & Lil’ John a few times before & during 1997 (and I certainly knew them as local personalities from all their local endorsements and whatnot) and I was probably vaguely aware of Ghoulardi, But MST3K was really the genesis of my whole movie-hosting fascination (even if I don’t necessarily consider MST3K quite the same thing, though I’d be hard-pressed to explain why exactly I don’t.) After MST3K, there was a new appreciation for this sort of thing, which in turn lead to fandom for, respectively, Son Of Ghoul and The Ghoul, which continues to this day (and at points has reached the same fevered heights.)

Unlike some, I didn’t quite get hooked on MST3K right away; rather, it was kind of slow burn, a gradually building fandom. Initially, I was more interested in the movies, and the running commentary courtesy of the silhouettes at the bottom of the screen was an amusing bonus. But, the more I watched the show, the more I found myself digging it for more than just the featured movie of a given episode, though in all honesty the movie still did, and does, have a lot to do with how a particular episode “strikes” me (again, figuratively speaking. I’d hate to think of an episode physically punching me in the face!) The first half of the initial Sci-Fi season (in actuality the show’s 8th season on national TV, though finer points such as that were unbeknownst to me at the time) featured black & white films from the Universal library. That was the “slow burn” period of my fandom. Some of the movies I liked (The Deadly Mantis), others left me kinda cold (The Undead).

It wasn’t until the spring/summer of 1997 that things hit the fan for me (figuratively I mean, because…aw forget it, I’m tired of that gag.) It began with the May 31st airing of The Giant Spider Invasion, which I tuned into due to my burgeoning but not-quite-solidified fanaticism. After the initial shock of discovering that they were even allowed to run color movies wore off (remember, I was 11 years old, I had no real prior knowledge of the series, and in general never really knew what the hell I was talking about anyway,) things clicked into place, the stars aligned, and I finally, completely “got it.”

The next week, MST3K was absolutely appointment television for me. The movie was Parts; The Clonus Horror, and the fire from the previous week turned into a full-out inferno. There was no turning back now. I was hooked, absolutely, and I’ve remained hooked ever since. Was it The Giant Spider Invasion episode or the Parts: The Clonus Horror episode that’s really responsible for turning me into a full-blown MSTie? It could go either way, and I tend to go back and forth. Spider was first, but Clonus had the bigger effect and is the episode that I hold more memories for and really feels more like the first. Plus, I think Parts: The Clonus Horror is a genuinely interesting, though not without faults, film. I guess in the end it doesn’t really matter.

All throughout the rest of summer 1997, I watched Mystery Science Theater 3000 every chance I got, but alas, my ability to actually view the show was temporarily halted. At the time, the Sci-Fi Channel was a premium cable channel. I guess “premium” is the right term for it. You needed the cable box to pick the channel up, anyway. At the end of summer ’97, Dad decided he no longer wanted to pay for said cable box, and considering I was only 11 years old, had little say in the matter. So, out went the cable box, and with it, access to my favorite show. I had a few episodes recorded, I was able to get a far-away Aunt with Sci-Fi-access to tape a few more for me, and several episodes had been released on VHS by Rhino by that point, so I wasn’t completely Bot-deprived, but nevertheless, I had no *ordinary* access to my show, and this, needless to say, troubled me greatly.

Over the next several years, more and more episodes were made available on VHS and later DVD, I discovered the numerous tape-trading sites out in internet land, and even Sci-Fi joined the basic cable line-up, which allowed me to walk over to a much-nearer Aunt’s house to record episodes on Saturday mornings, something I took advantage of until January 31st 2004, when the final MST3K (The Screaming Skull) aired on Sci-Fi and thus TV in general…until now.

So, maybe now you’ve got some understanding as to why I treated the show’s Retro TV debut to something akin to the Super Bowl. I’m sure many people, fellow MSTies included, probably saw it as something neat but not necessary. Not me, though. It wasn’t for lack of MST3K, either; I’ve got a lot of episodes, and I think the majority of the series has been officially released on DVD by this point. Unlike 1997 me, I really have no shortage of the show.

No, my excitement stems from the fact that, frankly, I think a show as great as Mystery Science Theater 3000 needs to be on ‘real’ TV. Pristine DVD copies are terrific, of course, but there’s just something about knowing it’s out there, being broadcast over the airwaves. Furthermore, as mentioned waaaay at the top of this post, our Retro TV affiliate is WAOH/WAX. This is the same station that Son Of Ghoul airs on! After my ability to watch MST3K ended with the summer of ’97, I desperately searched for something like it to fill the void, which eventually lead to my discovering Son Of Ghoul. It wasn’t a “well, I guess it’s good enough” replacement either; SOG provided a somewhat different but nevertheless intensely fanatical, erm, fandom in me that continues to this day. Both shows airing on the same station is something I could have only dreamt of so many years ago, and the fact that it is now happening is, I don’t know, poetic justice? That doesn’t apply here at all, does it? It’s fitting to me, is what I’m tryin’ to say.

Plus, I haven’t been able to watch MST3K over the air in “real time” since 1-31-2004, and not in my own home since that summer of 1997. So, that’s nice.

Following the initial announcement, my fervor was further stoked with a “coming soon” promo on Retro TV, which began airing soon after. It kept me more excited than any 10-second promo that consisted of a more-or-less static image and some sound bytes has a right to. More importantly, the fact it was airing several months in advance showed (to me, at least) that Retro TV was going to go the extra mile for the show. The commercial for Rifftrax’s live Sharknado only bolstered that feeling; if it weren’t for MST3K’s impending Retro TV arrival, I just couldn’t see that promo airing on the station otherwise.

Further proof that Retro TV was going to treat MST3K as something special was the later announcement that it would be airing twice on the weekends: Saturday at 8 PM EST, with an encore on Sundays at 5 PM EST.

This, however, presented a problem for your Northeast Ohio Video Hunter: Son Of Ghoul airs every Saturday from 7 PM to 9 PM. Usually, whatever was on Retro TV at 9 PM wouldn’t be preempted by local programming, so I figured we’d get at the very least one hour of MST3K before Off Beat Cinema at 10 PM. Prior to the 8 PM announcement, I had been presuming that MST3K wouldn’t be replacing the Saturday Off Beat Cinema, which in turn had replaced Wolfman Mac’s Chiller Drive-In (the normal Sunday Off Beat Cinema has continued before and since.)

Oddly enough, for as fanatic as I can be about this sort of thing, if the last hour of MST3K following SOG was all we Northeast Ohioans were going to get, I actually could have lived with that. I wouldn’t have preferred that situation, but some is better than none. And as it turned out, the un-preempted last hour after SOG is exactly what happened. Something about it just seemed so right for me: The show that MST3K lead me to, followed by the show that lead me to it…or something like that. It’s an entertaining three hours, is what I’m getting at.

Luckily, the Sunday 5 PM encore saved things for me, as that aired complete and uninterrupted. I was seriously concerned that infomercials would take MST3K’s place, but come Sunday, all was well.

The fact that MST3K was coming back to TV, even if only through reruns (running the gamut of the entire national run of the series, seasons 1-10,) was such a source of excitement for me that the actual episode that was premiering became sort of an afterthought…

Retro TV kicked things off with the third episode of the first season, the 1942 PRC cheapie The Mad Monster. It’s a mega-low budget werewolf film, and needless to say, it ain’t very good (a bad movie on this show?! Go figure!) Here’s the deal with the first season: like any good show, there was a period of groove-finding. That is, it’s a hit-or-miss episode at best. I’m not a big fan of the first season anyway; I mean, sure, I generally like it, but after seeing the heights the show reached in the following seasons, it can be tough to go backwards. Add to that an installment of the Radar Men From The Moon serial they covered, which I’ve traditionally been pretty lukewarm at best on, and well, it’s a case where you’ve really got to look at the bigger picture.

Keep in mind, I’m not looking a gift horse in the mouth; I understand Retro TV logically has to start at the beginning, and it’s probably better to get these weaker episodes out of the way first rather than throwing them in the middle of a run of strong episodes, and rest assured, the vast majority of the Retro TV line-up is downright killer (the list has been modified a bit since the initial announcement. You can read the current retro TV package courtesy of Satellite News here.)

It’s also easy to forget in this day and age of rampant DVD releases and/or otherwise easy access, that for years the season one episodes were scarce. At a certain point, as per request of The Brains (the affectionate MSTie name for the showrunners) the early episodes just weren’t shown on Comedy Central. Eventually some were ran again, but bottom line is that they were greatly downplayed in comparison to episodes from the rest of the series. SO, the fact that some of them (only two at the moment – The Corpse Vanishes is the next episode coming up before they head, briefly, into season two) are running at all, well, they still have that “hey these are kinda rare!” aura, even if they’re really not anymore. I wasn’t even watching the show during the Comedy Central days, and they still sort of feel that way to me.

My main concern here is that someone that has heard of MST3K and may be familiar with the Rifftrax/Cinematic Titanic projects will tune in, not be impressed, and come away thinking the show is wildly overrated. Give it a few weeks guys! Things get good with season two and great with season three on up! Don’t judge until you’ve seen Pod People!

To the episode’s credit, despite my general feelings toward the season (particularly the earlier half of the season,) I did find myself laughing or at least chuckling more than I expected to. I wouldn’t say any part of the episodes amounts to “home run” status, but if nothing else, it’s enjoyable.

And there are a few nice bits, host segment-wise. The bit where Tom Servo hits on a food processor is particularly memorable, at least as far as the first season is concerned (it’s also a remake of a skit originally done at KTMA.) The show got much better in following seasons, but there are always moments, always the flashes of brilliance, that made MST3K so, erm, brilliant.

From previous experience, I knew that our feed of Retro TV isn’t always the clearest. Not compared to the local broadcasting that airs on the channel, and certainly not compared to things broadcast on most other stations, and that holds true for MST3K in Northeast Ohio. It’s really my biggest and only actual complaint about being able to watch my favorite show on ‘real’ TV again. Even then, it’s a fairly minor quibble. That said, when I tuned in following SOG on Saturday night, initially I couldn’t tell if they were even playing MST3K. The quality was so dark (which wasn’t helped by the terrible print of the movie in the first place) that I wasn’t sure until I heard the riffs being thrown at the film. When things are light onscreen, it’s not so bad, but for large stretches of the episode, it was difficult, even impossible, to see the theater seats (see above.)

Those were my observations at least, and mileage may vary in other markets or even elsewhere in Northeast Ohio. But, at the end of the day, none of that really changes the fact that it feels damn good to see images like the one above playing on my TV screen. Mystery Science Theater 3000 is back on the air, where it should be. And for me, I can watch it on the same station as Son Of Ghoul. You have no idea how beyond cool I find that. Most of the episodes being broadcast feature movies in the public domain, so I hold no illusions of some of my all-time favorites such as Agent For H.A.R.M. or the aforementioned Parts: The Clonus Horror eventually showing up.

But that’s okay. I’ll watch this stuff endlessly no matter what they air, because I love the show just that much. I guess when it comes right down to it, I’m not that far removed from my 11 year old self, watching the show all throughout that summer 17 years ago.

“Gee, that was a swell movie!” Wait, wrong show.

Christmas & New Year’s with The Ghoul, Son of Ghoul and Big Chuck & Lil’ John (1998/1999)

There it is. Not the most-heralded of my many late-90’s/early-2000’s tapes, but certainly one of the more-heralded ones. Please ignore my sloppy, 12-year old handwriting (I’ve kinda sorta improved in that area), and while we’re at it, please ignore The Avenger (a 1961 Steve Reeves film) and the vague “TV Land Programs” descriptive line; those recordings are not conducive to our ultimate goal today (indeed, the TV Land stuff was recorded later, in the summer of ’99). Nope, we’re focusing on the ‘big three’ of Northeast Ohio horror hosts today, all on one powerhouse of a tape, all recorded during or around the holiday season of 1998/99, and all part of some serious nostalgia for me.

1997-1999 was probably the time period most responsible for making me, well, me. Not completely, of course; I continued to refine my goofy self (whatever that means) in the years following, but there’s little doubt that some of the things I’m a still a huge, huge fan of first took hold of me in the era this tape hails from. I had discovered Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Son Of Ghoul in ’97, The Ghoul came back to Cleveland TV in ’98, and despite first watching them in ’96, I really started to appreciate Big Chuck & Lil’ John around ’99. Except for the absence of MST3K and the now-head scratching inclusion of The Avenger, the tape seen above is really a pretty great description of your Northeast Ohio Video Hunter’s interests in the late-90’s. Even the old TV Land programming is a sight-for-sore-eyes.

The lead-off recording was The Ghoul’s first Christmas special of his WBNX TV-55 run. It’s also one of the earliest episodes I have from those WBNX years. I recorded the first couple episodes (which I still have), and a few select later ones (which I don’t), but as it stands, this is one of the earliest to survive. In lieu of any other opening credits or theme music, the specialized “Ghoul’s Christmas Special” title makes it clear that this is a ‘big deal’ in the Ghoul Power world. Also a big deal: according to a quick internet calendar search, this aired on Christmas ’98, a Friday, which was obviously December 25th (at the very tail-end of the day, 11:30 PM, but hey, it counts).

The Ghoul loved the Christmas season and would go all out to celebrate it, including the special Christmas-themed border and groups of kids in attendance, as seen above. It’s clear he loved the holiday season, and the next year, he would even have, roughly, a month-long celebration, running the 1935 Scrooge as well as Santa Claus In Mother Goose Land (which was actually The Magic Land Of Mother Goose and was, if I recall correctly, only vaguely Christmassy) in addition to the film that was also shown that first year…

It’s the 1959 Mexican film Santa Claus. A the time, I was only familiar with this movie via what was printed in the Mystery Science Theater 3000 Amazing Colossal Episode Guide, and since it wasn’t listed in Leonard Maltin’s guide nor had I discovered IMDb yet, I had no idea what year it was even released in, which is why, if you scroll back up, you’ll see I have only “Mexican” listed in brackets next to the title on the tape sleeve. I wouldn’t have known even that if the opening credits didn’t mention Mexico.

The Ghoul loved running this movie during Christmastime, and I have four separate Christmas airings of it: this first one from 1998, plus 1999, 2000 and 2001. And for all I know, he ran it again and again during the rest of his WBNX run.

Truth be told though, I’ve never much cared for the movie. If it weren’t for the fact that it was then a (to me) obscure foreign film, and one that had been MST’d at that, I’m not sure it would have survived all these years, let alone the three other airings I have. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad I have all of them, the more Ghoul the better, but I’m not as enamored of this flick as others are. In fact, for a movie that’s gained a pretty impressive cult following, I really can’t stand it at all. Oh, I should love it for the incredible weirdness it presents (Santa battling the forces of evil, wind-up mechanical reindeer, Merlin, and a bizarre pair of moving red lips that are the very definition of “terrifying”), but I don’t know, it’s a movie that has always left me cold.

Not so with the second recording on the tape, which would have aired on Saturday, December 26th. It’s Son of Ghoul’s Christmas special! At the time, SOG was on both Friday and Saturdays, 8-10 PM, so an identical episode would have been aired the day before on Christmas Day as well. It’s interesting that both The Ghoul’s and Son of Ghoul’s shows were/are so different, yet they both really went the extra mile for Christmas.

Oooh, I’m diggin’ that swanky green border! Unlike usual episodes, SOG read the mail on the main dungeon set, as seen in that left screencap. On the right, the screencap comes from the very close of the show. As you can see, they even had a guy in a reindeer costume, and fake reindeer poop on the floor to go with him/it! Tis the season?

SOG’s annual Christmas show has become one of my favorite ‘extra’ parts of the season. Nowadays he’s only on Saturdays, and every weekend before Christmas, there’s a yearly show dedicated to the holiday. More than once (twice, to be exact, including this year), stuff I’ve sent in has been presented on the Christmas show, and it’s always a nice addition to my holiday season. I was regularly writing SOG by 1998, but nothing of mine was presented during his ’98 special. Considering I never really had anything particularly interesting and/or important to say back then, that was probably for the best.

It hasn’t been shown for a few years, but Santa Claus Conquers The Martians (see, I told you my UAV tape wasn’t the last you’d see of it this holiday season!) was once a yearly tradition, not unlike SOG’s running of Night Of The Living Dead every Halloween. I like this movie waaaay more than Santa Claus. It’s weird, it’s goofy, it’s idiotic, but all in a good way. Some may argue that the other movie was all of that and more, but the fact remains that Santa Claus Conquers The Martians is my preferred bad movie for the Christmas season. Even the MST3K version was, in my opinion, superior to their take on Santa Claus.

Speaking of the MST3K version, when they riffed the film, their print didn’t include the title card as seen above. Apparently, because of that, many people were unaware that the film circulated/circulates with a title card. which was odd to me, because by the time I saw the MST3K episode, every print of Santa Claus Conquers The Martians I had seen up to that point had a title as you’d expect.

I first saw this movie when SOG ran it during the Christmas season of 1997, and then right after, I got my copy of the Mystery Science Theater 3000 Amazing Colossal Episode Guide for Christmas 1997, and learned they did the film, too. It’s a pretty weird movie, clearly aimed at the lil’ baby childrens, in which martians kidnap Santa in order liven the martian children up. It includes Pia Zadora (who, contrary to my UAV tape’s description, is not especially precocious – yes, I’m still irritated by that line), and a guy that looks a lot like Jamie Farr but isn’t Jamie Farr (much to my chagrin).

That left screencap above is either the embodiment of the Christmas season, or a truly nightmarish visage, I can’t decide. Maybe it’s both.

At one point, SOG superimposed himself into the movie, and tried to light Santa’s pipe. I thought that was pretty funny.

The last (applicable) recording on the tape is the New Years portion referred to in the title. It didn’t air on New Year’s Eve or Day, nearest I can figure is it was broadcast in the first half of January, but nevertheless, this episode of Big Chuck & Lil’ John’s Couch Potato Theater has some pretty strong memories attached to it (not the least of which is the image above, well familiar to me from so many Saturday afternoons).

Ah, Big Chuck & Lil’ John on their old King Kong set. It was the same set as their usual Friday night Big Chuck & Lil’ John Show, except Couch Potato Theater was always broadcast Saturday afternoon and was called, you know, Couch Potato Theater. Couch Potato Theater was a bit of a wild-card: sometimes a full-length movie would be shown, other times old Three Stooges shorts or episodes of The Abbott And Costello Show, even skits-only if time was an issue (similar to what the revived Big Chuck & Lil’ John Show is now). In this case, though, old silent short comedies were the day’s subject.

My recording of this almost didn’t happen. At the time, I was a big, big fan of silent comedy films (still am, actually, though not quite as fervent), and trying to catch and tape some of them when they were run as unscheduled-between-programming-filler on WAOH/WAX was a common thing with me. Somehow, though, I missed the TV Guide listing for this episode of Couch Potato Theater, in which several old silent comedies were run over the course of the afternoon. To make matters worse, we had to leave soon because my brother had a basketball game. So, I grabbed the only available tape, cued it up after The Avenger, and hit record. Better than nothing, right?

I began taping in the middle of some Keystone film, the title of which I no longer remember, but was able to capture the entire last subject of the day: Charlie Chaplin’s The Champion, a 1915 Essanay film, which was from the period when Chaplin’s movies started to get really good. From how I understand it, this particular short has been the subject of much editing and whatnot over the years, but the version Big Chuck & LIl’ John ran was the Blackhawk Films print, apparently one of the better ones. Certainly lengthier, if nothing else.

The Champion, as the name and screenshots kinda sorta show, detail Chaplin’s Little Tramp character becoming a boxer. The subject of boxing is one I’ve always liked (having grown up on the Rocky movies), and the addition of an English Bulldog is always a plus, so yeah, I like this short. I’m sure I have many of them on cheap, public domain DVDs, but I’m not as familiar with Chaplin’s Essanay films as I am with his Mutual work, which I consider my favorite of his.

At the time, I was just then starting to appreciate Big Chuck & Lil’ John, something that would be more fully-realized when I began watching The Abbott And Costello Show on their Saturday afternoon program. Still, I recall having made a habit of at least checking the listing for their Friday night show, so I’m not sure how I missed the listing for these old silents. I can’t remember if I discovered the broadcast while flipping channels or if I came across it that day in TV Guide, but either way, I came in when most of it was over. It was one of those feelings, unfortunately well-familiar to me as a heavy-taper by then, of “Oh man, I’m missing this!” Of course, the follow-up “Well, at least I got some of it” took a bit of the sting away.

(If you go way back to the top and look at the tape’s label, you’ll see that the listing for this is off to the side and not where it should be, right after The Avenger. That’s because, for years, this broadcast was unlisted on the tape. I don’t know if it was due to the haphazard nature of the recording or what, but for whatever reason, I never labeled it properly. Oh sure, I took the time to label “TV Land Programs” later that summer, but Chuck & John got shorted on that front. It wasn’t until 2011 when I was making a concerted effort to label a lot of my tapes that had suffered in obscurity for years that this was duly notarized. It took a bit of searching, I could only remember it was on a tape with a purple Sony tape, but finally I found it, labeled it, and it is now given the proper respect it so deserves.)

There’s just under an hour of Chuck & John action on the tape, but even so, several skits were captured. My favorite of them (tied with “The Lil’ Flash,” at least) was Cuyahoga Jones, their Indiana Jones parody. This was the first time I had ever seen one of these skits, which were part of a continuing storyline in which Cuyahoga tries to steal the “Kapusta Diamond.” Big Chuck played Cuyahoga, and Lil’ John played Shortstuff. In this one, they tried to earn $20 in order to buy supplies to help them carry the safe containing the diamond out of the castle. Pretty funny stuff!

Believe it or not, there’s a lot of memories tied into this tape, more than I could ever hope to accurately describe in print. The video itself, yeah, I fondly recall all of this stuff from that winter season, but it also brings to mind that general period in my life. All of the things/shows/etc. I was and am into, sure, but also other memories, like going to the mall with my Mom for Christmas shopping, come to mind when thinking of the era this tape comes from. As much as I love the actual recordings, I think those memories are even more important to me. Maybe I’m doing a sloppy job of getting across what I’m trying to say, but hopefully you know what I’m getting at. I’m sure you can all relate in one way or another.

And so, with that, this Christmas post nears an end. I sincerely hope all of you have a fantastic Christmas and New Years. Thank you to all that have taken the time to read this blog, and in some cases, even pass the link around. Have a wonderful holiday season and be safe in the new year.

Stay tuned, more goofy stuff to come!

WAOH TV-29/WAX TV-35′s Annual Christmas Eve Broadcasts of Scrooge & Beyond Tomorrow (1999)

Remember my article detailing WAOH/WAX‘s annual Halloween broadcast of the original Night Of The Living Dead? Well, “The Cat” didn’t just go the extra mile for Halloween. Nope, they loved them some Christmas, too. Relatively speaking, they went all out. For years, every Christmas Eve they would play the 1935 version of Scrooge and 1940’s Beyond Tomorrow. And to make it all feel that much more special, both movies were commercial-free. Considering The Cat just loved to play cheapo mail-order CD ads over and over throughout the day, them running not one but TWO movies commercial-free was a pretty big deal.

Much to my chagrin, I don’t have an actual promo for this Christmas Eve event; if I did, that’s what you’d be reading about right now. I’m pretty sure they ran them, though, and truth be told, I have so many recordings from The Cat that I may actually have one somewhere after all, but for the time being, no promos. I do, however, have the intros to Scrooge and Beyond Tomorrow. I recorded Scrooge in it’s entirety, but only the start of Beyond Tomorrow is on my tape. That being as it is, this post will be pretty Scrooge-centric. I sincerely hope that’s the only time I ever have to write something that stupid again.

As the screencap above attests, the entire commercial-free evening was sponsored by Whole Shop Inc., who are still around, and I’ve even been to their place of business before. Indeed, most of the intro is taken up by a pitch for Whole Shop, but since they were gracious enough to sponsor the whole thing, you could and should be courteous enough to listen up. Well, in this case, visit their website.

Scrooge and Beyond Tomorrow are both incredibly, unbelievably, undoubtedly public domain, and thus probably quite easy for The Cat to obtain (this event was done by the station itself, rather than being syndicated content from America One, which The Cat relied on much of the time otherwise). Indeed, their PD-status has allowed them to be released over and over and over again on any number of budget VHS or DVD releases. I could go out and buy a ‘legit’ copy of either righnah aswespeak if I so desired, but I’m more than satisfied with my Cat broadcast of Scrooge, and nothing you say can change that.

 

Following the Whole Shop Inc. pitch is the most hype we’re gonna get for Scrooge during this intro: “Now, gather up your family and enjoy our special, commercial-free presentation of Scrooge! Here on The Cat, channels 35 and 29!” Somehow, I have a hard time seeing anyone gathering up the kids and sitting down together on the couch to watch a scratchy, black & white British creaker from 1935 on a low-power independent station that probably isn’t even picked up in large parts of the area, but hey, it’s a nice sentiment.

In all fairness though, I do have fond memories tied to this/these Christmas Eve broadcasts. Scrooge itself, sure, but more because of the atmosphere it was part of rather than the actual movie. Back then, Mom would turn off all the lamps, and the living room would be illuminated only by the lights on the Christmas tree, and Scrooge played hazily in the background while any final preparations for the following big day were made. I was long past the “Santa is COMING I’llneverfallasleep!” age, but there was of course still anticipation for Christmas, while conversely the atmosphere was also relaxed. I don’t know, maybe it’s impossible to put into words my feelings of nostalgia for the time period, but nevertheless it’s a time period I do indeed hold fond memories for. And Seymour Hicks was a part of it all.

It’s quite possibly the most trashed print of Scrooge ever! The whole film doesn’t look at bad as the opening moments do, but no one would have ever mistook this for archival quality material.

This recording was of the “third time’s the charm variety” for me. I first saw this Christmas Eve broadcast during the 1997 season; I wasn’t taping it that particular time, and in the days before DVRs, if you weren’t taping then and there, baby, you was outta luck. The next year, I did record it, or at least tried to. We were using a remote that handled both the TV and VCR, and I think my Dad hit something while trying to turn the channel, because the recording cut-out-and-then-back-in shortly after starting. I wasn’t real pleased about that. Luckily, 1999 went off without a hitch, and this whole stupid post is brought to you courtesy of that recording (fittingly, the tape this is on also features The Ghoul’s 1999 broadcast of, say it with me, Scrooge! The very same 1935 version, albeit a print in slightly better shape).

This version of Scrooge is also host to the world’s biggest lint-in-the-projector moment. Lookit that fella makin’ his way up the right side of the frame like a champ! I really have no idea why I’m wasting space on this insignificant aspect of the broadcast. I think this is what they in the industry call “filler.”

Beyond Tomorrow immediately followed the conclusion of Scrooge:

The intro was almost identical to Scrooge‘s, albeit with the obvious footage difference. “Now, gather up your family and enjoy our special, commercial-free presentation of Beyond Tomorrow! Here on The Cat, channels 35 and 29!” I have a feeling even more people ignored the family invitation for Beyond Tomorrow than they did Scrooge. I mean, I guess in theory I could see parents wanting their kids to see an old classic version of A Christmas Carol, but I’m guessing a significantly fewer number would have cared about Beyond Tomorrow. I mean, people know of it, but it’s not exactly up there with It’s A Wonderful life in popularity.

As for me, I’m casually familiar with the film, but I’ve just never had much interest in watching it. Maybe that’s unfair to the movie, I know, but I’m not going to lie to you; I just don’t really care about Beyond Tomorrow, which is why I never bothered to record the whole thing like I did Scrooge (also, I think I have at least the opening credits still on tape, but that would require back-breakin’ tape-diggin’ in order to unearth, and considering only three people are going to care about this post anyway, I’m going to risk the ire of those three and skip the Beyond Tomorrow screencaps. I know, I know, bah humbug).

WAOH/WAX ran these Christmas Eve broadcasts for years, though I don’t know when then began or ended. Maybe they ended with the affiliate-switch to RTV in 2009. Nevertheless, in their own small way, these airings became a kind of part of my yearly Christmas holiday. Not that I ever sat there hardly daring to blink in anticipation for them, but they were indeed a comforting little something ‘extra’ each holiday season. Maybe that’s all they were intended to be, and if they weren’t, maybe that was enough anyway.

Have a great Christmas Eve and a wonderful tomorrow (I’ve got a Christmas Day surprise lined up for y’all, as well.)

WAOH TV-29/WAX TV-35’s Annual Halloween Broadcast Of The Original Night Of The Living Dead (1999)

It’s Halloween! It’s Halloween!!! Happy Halloween everybody!

I love this time of year, and I love this holiday! There are great movies on the air, there’s a great feeling in the air! Baby, I loves it!

Despite my mounds of horror-related crap, I initally had a tough time deciding what exactly to write about for the first Halloween post of my silly little blog. What I first had planned was a no go, for no other reason than I just couldn’t think of much to say. And that was for a 30-second commercial! So, at the proverbial last minute (well, two days ago), I decided to write about the original 1968 Night Of The Living Dead. Because Heaven knows what the internet needs right now is article # 5,637,242 on the movie.

Seriously, has there ever been a more written about movie than the original Night Of The Living Dead? It’s legendary (not to mention public domain) status has ensured that just about everyone has had their say on the movie by now. BUT, the Night Of The Living Dead I’m talking about isn’t just any old version of the move. No, this is one of The Cat’s (WAOH TV-29 in Akron and WAX TV-35 in Cleveland) annual Halloween airings of the film! This was a staple of the station in the late-90’s, and probably up through the 2000’s, too. Unlike other movies on the network (which were syndicated via America One, content from which WAOH regularly carried), The Cat had it’s own print of the film, and they ran it each and every Halloween as their 8 PM movie.

Of course, there are no station I.D.’s during the movie, and most of the commercials were either ones I’ve talked about before or not interesting enough to talk about now, so I can’t prove this is absolutely a genuine WAOH/WAX airing, but I’m nothing if not honest, so let me assure you that it indeed is. Not that anyone besides me really cares one way or the other, but just thought I’d throw that out there. Also, while I’m reasonably sure this is a 1999 airing, it could also conceivably be a 2000 airing; the commercials were of no help whatsoever in determining the exact year, but again, no one besides me really cares. But, I gotta be straight with you, my loyal reader(s).

Night Of The Living Dead has been public domain forever (basically since it was released), so local stations running it is nothing out of the ordinary. But, one thing I always loved about The Cat’s annual broadcast of the film was that while it was a reasonably sharp print (although my screenshots, taken from my DVD conversion of a now 14 year old VHS copy that was recorded in SLP mode from a local independent station, may not always accurately reflect that), it was also very dark, dusty, dirty and scratchy. Now, most people would want their Night Of The Living Dead to be as clear and clean as possible. Not me, and I’ll tell you why: in regards to this movie, the more worn-out a print is, the more nightmarish the film becomes. It’s already black & white and claustrophobic, and the dirt and scratches only add to the ‘scary’ vibe the film naturally has, in my opinion. it’s almost like looking through a dirty window and seeing something that you shouldn’t.

Honestly, I feel the same way about the 1922 Nosferatu: clean it up as much as you want, add tints, whatever, but leaving it black & white and worn-out gives the film a nightmarish quality that, I feel, no amount of restoration can replicate. Oh, I understand why these films need to be preserved in the finest quality possible, I’m not arguing that at all. Restore ’em, get ’em out there on DVD and/or Blu-Ray, let the people see the flick the way it was meant to be seen. There was an artistic vision that can and often does become obscured under the grime from years of runs through the projector. So yeah, I’ve got no problem with each new, ostensibly better release of Night Of The Living Dead (or Nosferatu). I’m not even sure what I’m really proposing here. What, the latest Blu-Ray is gonna tout “Old & unrestored! Looks like it was dragged around the parking lot 6 or 7 times!” or some such tagline? Alls I’m sayin’ is that fried old Night Of The Living Dead effects me in a way the cleanest print ever couldn’t. I know that won’t be a popular opinion. In fact, I may be the only one that holds it, but I’m fine with that. Yeah, I’m weird (but isn’t Halloween for weirdos?).

The Cat’s annual broadcast of Night Of The Living Dead wasn’t what introduced me to the film, though. I think I first saw the annual Halloween airing in 1998, but it was a year earlier that I stumbled upon Son Of Ghoul’s showing of the flick. I had seen neither it nor Son Of Ghoul in any real capacity prior, but I was instantly hooked on both. Not only did I immediately become a SOG fan, but I absolutely loved the movie. Having no experience with the show, it took me a minute to realize they were dropping sound effects and whatnot into the movie, and while I found them funny, they didn’t distract from the film, which I quickly became hooked on.

Upon that viewing, Night Of The Living Dead struck me in a way few, if any, other horror or sci-fi movies had before. It genuinely scared me. Granted, I was 11 years old, and I wasn’t exactly hiding under the covers; it was a good kind of scared, a chilling “can’t stop watching” movie that left a lasting impression on me. It instantly became a favorite film of mine, and beyond that, introduced me to a whole new world of horror movies. This was something more intense, more genuinely frightening than I had ever experienced before. It was great.

(Just like WAOH/WAX used to do, Son of Ghoul still plays Night Of The Living Dead every year for Halloween, including this past weekend.)

Let me reiterate that that introduction wasn’t this airing, but it’s close, at least as far as evoking personal memories of that era, when I was constantly discovering new old movies. From Night Of The Living Dead, I checked out the other films in George A. Romero’s “Dead” series (at least as many as had been released at that point), other zombie movies, any new-to-me horror or sci-fi movie I could get, even branching out into Italian and Spanish (and beyond) flicks. For awhile, I would have considered the 1978 sequel Dawn Of The Dead the best and my favorite, but over time, I’ve really reverted back to preferring the original; I’ve grown to appreciate the claustrophobic, increasingly intense atmosphere (it all starts out normal enough, and then all hell proceeds to break loose) and black & white cinematography more and more over the years. Not that Dawn is bad in any way, but Night just appeals to me more nowadays.

I should also note that this original Night Of The Living Dead is really the only ‘brutal’ horror film I still retain love for. Not that it’s really as “extreme” as some modern horror films are, of course (though it’s still a very effective film). After a good part of my teen years, when I had “the more gore, the better!” mentality, I eventually developed an aversion to overtly graphic horror or sci-fi movies; anything that realistically depicts people being murdered and such (especially when it’s just for the hell of it), I really don’t care for. Nowadays, I generally prefer the Universal or poverty row films of the 1930’s & 1940’s, and the cheapies of the 1950’s & 1960’s (and even into the 1970’s). I mean, no one in their right mind would ever take The Creeping Terror seriously. Also, you couldn’t pay me to watch some of the Eurotrash I watched back then, today. Night Of The Living Dead, though, still works for me because, yeah, it’s scary, people die horrible deaths, but there’s an underlying air of, I don’t know, something deeper, I guess? George A. Romero wasn’t just feeding people to zombies for the hell of it, is what I’m saying. Rather than repelling me, Night Of The Living Dead hooks me in the same way it did when I was 11 years old and watching it on Son Of Ghoul.

For those that haven’t seen it (yeah, all four of you), I suppose now is as good a time as any to give a bit of a synopsis, though it should be clear by now that this isn’t really that kind of film review. Night Of The Living Dead is a 1968 film by George A. Romero, the first of what would eventually become a series of “Living Dead” films (as well as the first of many, many knock-offs). The plot, in a nutshell, involves corpses that suddenly spring back to life with a craving for the flesh of the living. Those bitten by said corpses are then destined to become flesh-eating zombies themselves. The normative way of killing a zombie is by setting it on fire or destroying the brain via shooting, bashing, and so on.

So, it ends up that seven people become stranded in an isolated farmhouse, a farmhouse becoming increasingly surrounded by more and more zombies. The inital idea is to board up the windows and wait for help, but it eventually comes to be decided that they need to get out and find help themselves. I really don’t want to risk spoiling any of the film, because watching it fresh with no idea what’s coming next is an amazing experience. I will say that the ending, which I don’t dare reveal for those that may not have seen it (again, a number that is quite possibly in the single digits), absolutely knocked me out when I first saw it. I mean, it just blew me away.

Night Of The Living Dead is just about the easiest film in the world to see. Since it’s public domain, you can find it for free and legal download on the internet, or for those less technologically experienced, it can be found on a huge number of DVDs, VHS tapes, and it’s even on Blu-Ray now. Of course, print quality varies from version to version, and as a rule of thumb, the more you pay, the more namebrand the manufacturer, and the better it’ll look. Not always, but often. At least, that’s how it usually played out back in the VHS days.

Which brings me back to this WAOH/WAX airing from 1999, which this article is ostensibly about. It’s that copy that I recorded way back then that means the most to me. Not because I didn’t have ‘official’ copies (I got a cheapo $4 VHS copy from Best Buy relatively soon after my initial viewing in ’97), but because it really does recall my memories of growing up watching The Cat, when I was almost constantly discovering (and taping!) something new and cool. Nowadays, Night Of The Living Dead may no longer be in my top 10 favorite films ever list, but it’s almost certainly in my top 10 horror films list. All of the countless rip-offs, homages, and whatnot that have been released in the years since, and yet, few (none?) can touch the original; the aforementioned Dawn of The Dead, in my opinion, comes closest.

At any rate, Night Of The Living Dead is one of the definitive Halloween movies, one that should be watched if you haven’t seen it, or watched again if you have. I don’t know if I’ll replicate the ’99 WAOH broadcast that this recording comes from, but I’m happy knowing that I can, even if the channel itself isn’t the same nowadays.

Have a great Halloween, everybody!

WAOH TV-29 in Akron / WAX TV-35 in Cleveland (“The Cat”) stuff.

[UPDATE: This article has turned out to be one of the most popular on this site. As such, I feel it’s worth mentioning that WAOH TV-29 ended its life on October 25, 2017. So, as ’17 drew to a close, I felt the need to not only recognize once again the station that was so, so important to me over the years, but to also take an updated and expanded – not to mention better written – overall look at it. You can see that article right here, and believe me, I think it’s FAR superior to the early effort you’re currently looking at.]

In the late-90s and early-2000s, one of the most important channels for me was WAOH TV-29 in Akron / WAX TV-35 in Cleveland, better known as “The Cat” (Cleveland-Akron Television, dig?). Both 29 and 35 were the exact same channel, so I’ll simply identify it as The Cat or WAOH. There’s surprisingly little info about the station on the internet, and someone I was talking to once exhibited some interest in the fact I had recorded a number of programs off the station (believe me when I say I taped a lot of stuff).

What made the channel so special to me was the sheer number of ancient movies, old TV shows and local content they ran. Granted, the majority of the movies and TV shows weren’t actually owned by WAOH, but rather was syndicated content from the America One Network, but the fact remains that The Cat ran things you weren’t going to find on ANY other channel. And all of the local programming gave The Cat a terrific Northeast Ohio flavor.

Furthermore, despite the A1 affiliation, this was really an honest-to-goodness independent station, something that (unknown to me at the time) was becoming increasingly rare around the U.S., and while there was still some old and/or local programming on other channels (for example, WJW had Big Chuck & Lil’ John, and WBNX brought The Ghoul back in 1998), none reveled in it like WAOH.

I discovered the station in the summer of 1997. It was nothing earth-shaking, I was just flipping channels, when I came across an airing of a hugely battered old print of the original 1930 version of The Blue Angel. No one else was running things like that, not regularly on local TV at least, and from then on, I was hooked.

Of course, perhaps the most popular show, and certainly my favorite on the channel, was The Son Of Ghoul Show. Like Ghoulardi and The Ghoul before him, Son Of Ghoul ran old movies, inserted humorous sound effects/drop-ins, performed comedy skits, and read viewer mail. As I’ve mentioned before, SOG started on WOAC TV-67 in 1986, and in 1995 he moved to The Cat.

Those screencaps above are from my two earliest SOG Cat promos. The one on the left is a silent still-card promo that ran for 10 seconds, so what you see is what it was. The one on the right features the standard SOG-pitch: He mentions the show and  the awful movies they run. It’s an all-around promo, and SOG did more than a few for The Cat over the years. Most of them say basically the same thing, but I mean, they’re supposed to.

I actually didn’t discover SOG right away. I mean, I saw the promos, sure, and I had seen bits and pieces of the show here and there, mostly in passing. But it was Halloween 1997 that I actually sat down and watched the show. I stumbled across an airing of the original Night Of The Living Dead, which I had never seen before. Even with all of the sound effects and jokes (it took me a minute to realize what they were doing, but I immediately loved it), I seriously dug the movie, and I became an instant SOG fan. I even wrote him a bunch of letters, and his reading them on the air was always a thing of great excitement. Of course, I was only like 11/12 years old, so I never had much to actually say (and watching my old tapes, I can’t help but cringe a bit).

Today, Son Of Ghoul is still running, and I’m still watching. That screencap above is from the latest promo for the show that I’ve seen. I captured it in 2011, but I think it’s been running since 2009, and I know it’s ran several times since 2011. The reason I say 2009 is because that’s when The Cat became an RTV affiliate, and SOG’s timeslot switched to Saturday evenings at 7:00 PM. The promo is, like the one above, a standard SOG pitch: talking about the awful movies, humorous sound clips, and comedy skits, with the exception that SOG mentions the new timeslot “starting in June,” which was when The Cat became RTV (though I still continue to call it The Cat, and always will). Despite the June mention, this is the only promo I’ve seen the station run for SOG relatively lately. Probably because most of the vast majority of content is RTV’s, and they have their own promos and whatnot. But, you do catch some locally-produced promos here and there. I don’t think they run quite as much as they used to, but there were some WAOH-produced spots for RTV shows, which I’ll get to in a bit.

Speaking of local promos for syndicated content, that sort of thing isn’t new to the station. The screencap on the left is from 1997, the one on the right from 1999. Both are for the western movies that the channel ran every weekday afternoon (and on Saturday afternoons for awhile, and if I recall correctly, occasionally on Sundays, too). Both promos are more or less the same: various scenes from old westerns, while appropriate music plays.

The afternoon Western flick was actually America One’s “Western Theater,” and I loved it. It’s thanks to these films that I became a fan of  westerns. You didn’t tune into this program to see The Shootist, though; these were all old rickety “B-Westerns,” mostly from the 1930s and 1940s. Probably all of them were/are in the public domain. You saw the standards like Roy Rogers, John Wayne’s poverty row films, Hoot Gibson, Ken Maynard, Rex Bell, etc. etc.

Speaking of films, through America One, The Cat ran a lot of them. This promo is from 1999, and spotlights just how many they played a week. Even back then, the claim of “over 40 films a week” seemed just a bit high to me, but they did play a lot. There was a morning movie that began at 10 or 11 AM, and ran for an hour and a half, the western at 12:30 PM, which also ran for an hour and a half, then the noon movie at 2 PM, which ran for 2 hours. At 8 PM, there was another 2-hour movie. The overnight hours generally featured content from the American Independent Network (AIN), and, if I recall correctly, was two 2-hour films in a row. The weekends were a wildcard. I have a recording of three consecutive westerns from a Saturday afternoon in the late-90s, but that wasn’t always the case. There could be one, maybe two, or maybe none. Sundays generally had less than that or none altogether, and didn’t necessarily have to be a western (I once taped The Tonto Kid, obviously a western, on a Sunday, but my copies of Goliath And The Vampires and Monster From A Prehistoric Planet, clearly not westerns, also came from Sunday airings).

I don’t know, maybe over 40 films a weeks wasn’t so far off after all.

Most of the films were from America One, but there were a few that the station itself seemed to own. Every Halloween, they’d run Night Of The Living Dead. Since none of the A1 branding was present during these annual airings, I’m guessing the station owned its own print. For Christmas Eve, they’d run the 1935 Scrooge and then Beyond Tomorrow back-to-back, commercial-free. I still have a recording of Scrooge, but not Beyond Tomorrow.

A movie that received some actual promotion was their 1999 airing of the infamous Reefer Madness. I taped it, but later taped over it. I don’t recall if it was an A1 presentation or not. A1 films generally weren’t singled out for promos like this, but I don’t know, maybe they thought there was a specific audience for this? They had various clips on-hand for the promo, and the local announcer that did all of The Cat’s promos did the voiceover here, too. Maybe the clips were provided by A1? Either way, I may not have the actual airing, but at least I managed to capture the original promo.

Sprinkled throughout all of these movies were lots of old TV programs. The early mornings typically had old black and white sitcoms before the morning movie, The Cisco Kid once ran before the afternoon western, and Dobie Gillis followed the 2 PM afternoon movie.

At one point, there was a fairly big push for the Dobie Gillis reruns. They were all humorous, such as the one above. There were a couple “Dear Maynard” spots, always featuring someone writing in to Maynard ala Dear Abby, and then Maynard’s “advice” (a clip from the show taken out of context, which was really pretty funny since it was essentially a non-sequitur moment). There were also promos playing up Bob Denver’s then-recent arrest for marijuana, Dobie’s father’s strictness, and Dobie’s falling for every girl under the sun.

Dobie ran until about 1999, and since I had grown accustomed to watching the 4:00 PM weekday airings after school, I found myself missing it once it was gone. TV Land ran episodes now and then, and nowadays you can catch it on MeTV, but those old Cat airings probably mean the most to me. Even today, I still really like the show.

Other shows that appeared on The Cat over the years courtesy of America One or other networks:

One Step Beyond I watched a few times, but it never really grabbed me. Sort of a lower-rent version of The Twilight Zone.

While I like old sitcoms, The Adventures Of Ozzie And Harriet was never one of my favorites. WAOH’s promo for it, though, was awesome. This was when V-Chips were first being widely introduced, and the gag was that Ozzie was V-Chip-free TV, but all of the clips had words bleeped out as if there was constant swearing in the show. It was a riot. As you can see from that and the Dobie promos, The Cat often put a lot of humor into their spots.

Two more I never liked. Bonanza, I know it’s considered a classic, but I’ve always been a Gunsmoke man. Also, The Beverly Hillbillies has always left me cold.

Still, The Cat did a great job of selling these promos, mostly through humor, and if I already didn’t like them, I probably would have tuned in to check them out.

And of course, Enigma Theater With Edward St. Pe’, which I’ve already written about, aired very late Saturday nights/Sunday mornings on WAOH, though it seems very, very few people remember it nowadays.

I mentioned above the overnight airings being from the American Independent Network. A lot of the same movies as America One were shown, but the prints weren’t the same. AIN even ran some of genuine “big time” movies once in awhile. Once, they played the original 1939 Stagecoach, which I taped. Despite having never seen the film prior, I could tell huge chunks of the movie were cut out; Stagecoach was just way too disjointed, way more than any film widely considered an American classic would be. I later taped over that airing with a unedited version from AMC, and I kinda wish I hadn’t done that, because in retrospect, films of that caliber (i.e. big-time, never-gonna-be-public-domain) weren’t usually shown on The Cat.

This was a fairly minor problem with the daytime programming, but the overnight schedule was notorious (to me, at least) for often being incorrect. It was a crapshoot whether a scheduled movie would actually be run, or an entirely different film instead. Many times, there was a movie listed that I was seriously stoked for, and I’d set the VCR timer, only to be crushed come the morning when I found out something I had zero interest in was played instead.

Rather, a lot of WAOH’s late night programming was often made up of content from who-knows-where. I mean, nothing ever “wrong” or disturbing, but still, waaaay obscure stuff from the far reaches of the U.S. I haven’t always had the greatest sleep patterns, and I recall sometimes stumbling out of bed and watching The Cat when I couldn’t sleep, and wondering “Where did this come from?” Have you ever heard David Cronenberg’s inspiration for Videodrome? When he was a kid living in Canada, late at night his TV could pick up signals from Buffalo, NY, and he’d worry he’d be able to see something he wasn’t meant to. It was the same sort of thing with late night WAOH.

Of course, at the heart of The Cat was the local programming. Son Of Ghoul, sure, but also a lot of stuff that’s been more or less lost to time. A lot of The Cat’s local programming was simple, live call-in shows, with the host or hosts seated in front of a plain black screen and taking phonecalls. Today, the only shows from the old days left besides Son of Ghoul is Steve French Sportstalk and Handy Randy.

Back Talk was exactly that, chiropractic talk. And Senior Talk? Well, that was what it sounds like, too. Back Talk I don’t recall running very long, but Senior Talk ran for a number of years, at least until 2006. It may have been a casualty of the 2009 switch to RTV, I don’t know.

Dining Out With Steve ran for a looong time. I believe it did last until the 2009 switch. Basically, you could call in, talk about local restaurants, and even get gift certificates.

The Hunting And Fishing Show ran for a number of years, and in the summer of 2011 they even tried bringing it back, but it didn’t last very long.

Big Al was very short-lived. It was essentially people performing in a karaoke bar, and hosted by the show’s namesake. I only caught one episode, which featured a bizarre Elvis impersonator that admittedly did sound a lot like The King, but didn’t look much like him at all (despite Al’s constant insisting the guy was “so real it’s scary!” or something to that effect).

I don’t know when Steve French started hosting his WAOH show, but it’s still on, and apparently still pretty popular. I even tried calling in a few weeks back, but I didn’t get through, which is probably a good thing, since I’m by no means a sports expert and the last thing I need is to make an idiot of myself on local TV.

While on the subject of the local call-in shows, SOG hosted a live game show from about 2001 to 2004 or so. Unfortunately, this promo is all I have as far as original recordings go (I did buy some DVDs from SOG himself at the last Ghoulardifest convention). Son of Ghoul’s House Of Fun & Games ran at a time when I actually couldn’t watch The Cat. Y’see, we couldn’t pick it up with the rabbit ears dad decided to use to save money at one point. I wouldn’t even have this promo except I went to grandma’s house one afternoon to tape a movie I particularly wanted back in 2001.

So, that’s my “golden age” of WAOH/WAX, roughly 1997-2001. Like I’ve mentioned, they became an RTV (Retro Television) affiliate in the summer of 2009. Since Son Of Ghoul survived the switch, I was generally okay with it, though I missed some of the old movies or other assorted America One content. Still, RTV was pretty cool. A lot like old school TV Land. A line-up shift in the summer of 2011 took away most of my favorite programs, though there are still a few shows I like, and Wolfman Mac’s Chiller Drive-In on Saturday nights and Off Beat Cinema on Sunday nights is pretty awesome.

To end this post (aka massive article), here’s a few screencaps from locally produced promos for RTV content, which harkens back to the late-90s era I so fondly recall. All of the modern promos are simply scenes/music taken from the opening credits of the respective series, with appropriate logos and voiceover. Unfortunately, no promos for Airwolf or Quincy, M.E. were ever made, and RTV no longer runs them, much to my chagrin.

Neither of these are run anymore. Knight Rider is legit awesome, and I don’t mind The A-Team in small doses. Knight Rider in particular I really miss.

You’d better believe Magnum, P.I. gets two screencaps. Of all the shows that left the RTV schedule in the summer of 2011, this is the one I miss most. I’ve mentioned before what I big fan of the show I am, and while I’ve got the DVDs, it’s still nice to see Magnum being actually aired on TV, even if the broadcasts were a loooong way from DVD quality. As of this writing, no one, at least not in my area, is playing the show, and THAT, my friends, is major uncool.

Highway To Heaven is still being aired on RTV, but Starsky & Hutch is not. I don’t like either show. Starsky & Hutch, in particular, is a show I want to like, I should like, but I really, really don’t like. It’s just never done anything for me.

So, there’s my long, long overview of WAOH TV-29/WAX TV-35. There’s more I could talk about, but man, this post is a beast as it is. It’s not what it used to be, but I’m glad the station is still around, and that they’re still supporting Son of Ghoul. As of this writing, I’m not too big on RTV’s programming line-up (aside from Wolfman Mac & Off Beat Cinema), but if RTV keeps WAOH/WAX alive, I’m all for it.

Better to have some semblance of The Cat than none at all, right?