If you lived in the Chicago area ca 1978 (or your cable system carried WSNS TV-44) then this might bring back memories (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyk6eQulVgw).

Ahhh those were good times. Anyone remember creature feature on wgn? ? Or how about son of svwen on wfld? And the classic screaming yellow theatre ... man,those were. The days.....

In the '60s and early '70s, Channel 3 in Cleveland had an afternoon movie from 4:30 to 6:00 p.m. five days a week. Channel 8 always had a movie on (called "Fright Night Theater" or some such) during the Big Chuck and Little John Show on Saturday nights, until that program was canceled a few years ago. (The program may well have been reincarnated, or at least the movies they once showed may still be on after the 11:00 news on weekends.) Channel 19 had "Cinema 19" until they became a CBS affiliate in the early 1990s, and channel 43, now a MyTV affiliate, also ran old movies for many years.

I think afternoon and evening local movies were dropped by most TV stations when VCRs, rental VHS tapes and DVDs became popular. Viewers could now watch their favorite old (or not so old) films at their leisure, without having to wait for the film to air on a local station, or without having to worry about missing the film because they tuned in too late.

BTW, do any local TV stations still air afternoon or evening movies, during the week or on weekends? Unfortunately, they don't on any of Cleveland's seven broadcast TV stations anymore, except for "Masterpiece Theater" on PBS; it still airs here on channels 25 and 49.

You didn't even mention The Ghoul (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xBuYDq0le8)!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHAv7KZKmVA&feature=related

Ghost Host out of Baltimore is the one that scared the hell out of me. The clip above is a fine example of the low production values.

My Dad grew up with Zacherley, who was the one who popularized the whole horror host thing, padding out the odd running times for the old horror programers (which could run from 55 to 90 minutes). Horror hosts came to fore in 56-57, when Screen Gems released the Shock Theater film package. For the first time, classic horror films were being shown on television, and the response was huge. One of the inspirations to release horror movies like this came from a New York station that had been playing King Kong every night of the week for months, and it was still the highest rated thing on their station! From them and others in similar situations, the demand came for more monsters.

Svengoolie (AKA Rich Koz) is on WGN with Steve and Johnie right now :music:

We were briefly able to get Svengoolie here in Pa, in the early 90s, I think. It was through our satellite dish, so maybe we were picking up WGN? Either way, his show is brilliant, and one of the reasons I love to seek out low budget public access type stuff.

Oh, I meant on AM radio 720. He's been on WCIU (channel 26 in Chicago) for a while now. Before that it was on WFLD. It's been syndicated in several cities.

Here's the history of the show. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svengoolie