Old ad for "The Black Cat" on WBKB's Shock Theatre in Chicago

This nifty old advertisement for 1934's The Black Cat popped up in one of my Facebook groups. Channel 7 in Chicago was known as WBKB from 1953 to 1968. Its "Shock Theatre" was one of many such shows that launched around the nation when Universal sold its syndication package of 52 classic horror films — called Shock! — to local television stations in 1957 (through Screen Gems). 

Thus was spawned the phenomenon of local TV horror hosts. WBKB's version ran from 1957 to 1959 and featured Marvin, his companion Dear and hunchback Orville, along with a band called the Deadbeats. Dear's face was never seen until the final episode, according to Wikipedia. "Shock Theatre" was remembered fondly by one commenter in IMDb.com in 2014:

"For early television played late at night, this show was the best. The goofy music and the scary things on the show scared a little kid like me half to death but I loved it. Especially Marvin's humor. The movies were old time horror classics like Dracula and Frankenstein, etc. I wish I could get some of the episodes. I don't know if WBKB in Chicago kept any of them or not. Any show named Shock Theater in any other town just copied what was already done in Chicago. Marvin even took some of the show on the road to local ballparks like Comiskey. His band was great also. It even had a guy playing accordion in the band. I would love to see episodes of Shock Theater, even online somewhere."

Here are a couple stills from The Black Cat, including Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff playing chess, and Karloff leading a pre-Code satanic ritual in a German Expressionist setting.