Hacker CinemaCreature Feature
TV series
Creature Feature was a TV horror movie series on WTOG in St. Petersburg, Florida, from 1973 to 1995. The films were hosted by Dick Bennick Sr. as Dr. Paul Bearer, who hosted a different cheap horror film every Saturday afternoon. Bennick created the character at WGHP in High Point, North Carolina for the station's Shock Theater in the mid-to-late 1960s after his previous persona, Count Shockula, proved less than satisfactory. The humorous Bearer character was a pun-spewing, bad-joke-telling host who spoke in a gravelly voice with a halting speech pattern. His usual attire was a long-tailed vintage tuxedo with his hair parted down the middle and slicked straight down the sides, with heavy mascara and grease paint. His skewed gaze, which Bennick perfected by turning his one artificial eye outward, only contributed to the atmosphere. He also twisted around some words and names to reflect the horror atmosphere—he frequently called the horror films "horrible old movies", and the city that WTOG's studios were based in "St. Creaturesburg". One typical joke started with a close up of a hammer in Paul's hand. He strikes a package of Wrigley's Spearmint gum several times with the hammer, then looks up at the camera and says "I'm just sitting here, beating my gums." Bearer also aired occasional novelty songs, such as Tom Lehrer's "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park," to which he would often lip-sync while pretending to accompany himself on a matte-black-painted baby grand piano.
1 neutralfrom 1 commenter
Where to watch
No streaming data for this title.
1 comment on Hacker News
I grew up in the Washington DC area watching WDCA Channel 20, where the legendary and inimitable Dick Dyszel played the second and longest running "Bozo" (who ran live gerbil races), and the more "modern" Spock-eared "Captain 20" on the kid's shows (with the tag line "Live Long and Win Lots of Prizes", who ran live Atari tank battles), and the Dracuesque "Count Gore De Val" on the horror movie show "Creature Feature".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKC6JpqudME&list=PLaJhh0k4dkH1Mu0JyIouph4oN2xKzTI5R
He shot a hilariously cheesy public service announcement that got locked into the scheduling computer and was shown so often, even after he was fired, that it is still burned into my brain: "Hi kids, I'm Captain 20, flying without an airplane, right?"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Dyszel
http://www.captain20.com/screening.htm (with the original video)
Screening Room
On Sept 2, 1981, Peg Sullivan, who was one of the original liaison people from Taft Broadcasting when they purchased WDCA in 1980, came to me and said that as part of the license commitment, we were going to do a Public Service Announcement about the difference between fantasy and reality on television.
I liked the idea and asked her what she had in mind and when she wanted to shoot it. She said that there was an open spot in the production schedule that afternoon and as far as content went, "It's up to you!"
After thanking her for the advance notice, my mind went back to stories I had heard in my youth about kids being injured by trying to fly like TV's Superman. So, a few hours later, we went into the studio, I had the crew set and light a blue chromakey sweep and take a camera outside into the parking lot. There was no script, but I had in mind what I wanted to say. It took about 20 minutes to set, light and rehearse the spot. We did the first take and it was OK, except that some glare on my shoes "keyed" out and it looked bad. So, I took my shoes off and we did the second and last take. Peggy loved it. Management loved it and it was put into the scheduling computer to begin airing the following week.
The spot ran and ran and ran. The computer was instructed to run the spot on a regular schedule during kid's programming and then whenever there was an additional opening in the schedule. Because it was an important part of the license commitment, it was given a special priority code that could not be easily over-ridden.
The spot continued to run, even after I was fired Memorial Day weekend 1987, because no one knew how to override the code! Eventually they figured it out. But by then it was had run for five and a half years and was certainly the most viewed PSA in the history of the station.
To watch it with a broadband connection, click on the image below.