There's a long, wonderful history of horror and science-fiction movies, often presented by horror hosts, being shown on television, usually late Friday nights or on weekend afternoons. Today, the tradition continues via streaming platforms and online communities.
Here are a small handful of clippings on the topic I came across while browsing through Newspapers.com.
First up, this December 23, 1971, article in the Dayton (Ohio) Daily News announces the forthcoming debut of Dayton horror movie host Dr. Creep (Barry Lee Hobart), who would ghoul-rule the airwaves starting on January 1, 1972. Interestingly, though his debut was days away, his host name hadn't been finalized when this article was published. It states that they were considering Frank N. Stein, the Creep, Mortis Macabre and Corpus D. Lecti.
Here are some TV listings from the January 8, 1977, TV page of The (Glens Falls, New York) Post-Star. (I think I applied there after college; I still have all of my rejection letters bundled somewhere.) Packaged between a couple of old pirate movies, Shock Theater is showing 1946's
Catman of Paris, which is praised in modern reviews for having a pretty good horse-and-carriage chase scene.
This advertisement is from the October 23, 1975, edition of The (Pottstown, Pennsylvania) Mercury. It's for an appearance by WPHL-17's
Dr. Shock at a local Halloween event. Dr. Shock was portrayed by magician Joe Zawislak from 1969 until 1979, when he died suddenly of a heart attack at age 42. There's an hourlong
tribute video to him on YouTube. ( The bottom part of the advertisement is difficult to read, but the event location is Boscov's East at the Lebanon Valley Mall.)
Another TV listing, this one from the February 5, 1977, edition of the Asbury Park Press of New Jersey. In this one,
Creature Double Feature is packaging one of the worst movies of all time,
The Astro-Zombies (Ashar and I can confirm this), with one of the greatest movies of all time,
The War of the Worlds.
Finally, here's an amusing reader letter published in the July 16, 1978, edition of The Tampa (Florida) Tribune. "F.G." was tired of the oldies, probably after years of watching Universal films from the
Shock! package. He wanted more modern stuff. But, given that these programs had fairly low budgets, if his wish came true, he probably got a whole lot of 1970s fare such as
The House of Seven Corpses, The Legend of Boggy Creek and
The Bell from Hell.
