After I got over my "nightmare years", during which I was fascinated by, and scared to death, by movies like "War of the Worlds": I became a big fan of them. On Saturday night, a local T-V station programmed a series during which a scary movie was shown, during the commercial breaks for which, a narrator, who appeared in person in front of a backdrop resembling a horror chamber of some sort, spoke of Voodoo and the occult. He was an old grizzled guy, no doubt made-up to frighten. He had several small stuffed figures, perhaps a foot tall, on which he practiced. His closing line was always, "Stick Pins"!, whereupon he stuck several into one of the effigies. Just wondering if anyone else had such programming. It was ~ 1960. Frank
Yes, actually. We had "Shock Theater" after the late news every Saturday night with "Dr. Ghoulman." I was a little kid, but I always watched with my teenage brother.
Ours was on Friday nights. Seems like it was called Friday Night Frights, but that might have been later. After that came the National Anthem.
We had two horror movie hosts in our area: Sammie Terry and The Ghoul. Friday nights were prime watching times...all the old Dracula, Frankenstein and Mummy movies. What I could never understand was how the Mummy, dragging one leg behind him, arm wrapped to his body and swathed in linen strips could ALWAYS catch up to perfectly healthy people who presumably could escape certain death by just outrunning the undead. But NOOOOOO..... We'd make my poor grandmother sit up with us to watch the movies (which came on late in the evening). She couldn't doze off, either. No, she had to sit upright, eyes open, arms around as many kids as possible. Did I say I had the best Grandma in the world?
Growing up, I had Chiller Theater, which aired old black and white horror movies produced from the 1940's to early 1960's. Horror movies weren't terribly graphic back then, and I loved sitting before them on a Saturday night with a big bowl of popcorn! There's actually a retro-styled horror movie TV host still on the air (MeTv) called Svengoolie. He emerges from a coffin at the beginning of each show wearing cheesy vampire make-up, and introduces the evening's old horror movie, interjecting facts and even songs about it as the film progresses. A comic horror host, people throw rubber chickens at him!