“The stroke of twelve…and there is one thing of which I am certain: For the next two hours we will be much, much safer in here than those of you watching from out there.”
The lines above come from the opening intro of a public access show that comes on every Friday night here called World of the Weird Monster Show with hosts Undead Johnny and Dementia. The production is low, the jokes are corny, and the acting stiff, but I still do love it. This week was a repeat of their Halloween episode from last year when the night’s feature was Ed Wood’s Bride of the Monster, which was also being shown on Turner Classic Movies as part of Rob Zombie’s Underground Movie series. And while I’m sure the print from TCM was far superior, I’ll take my version from Undead Johnny. Below is a photo of Undead Johnny which I took straight off the TV screen on the first night after discovering the show (the movie that night was the horrible Fangs of the Living Dead).
At the end of each show, Undead Johnny declares that “everyday is Halloween”. Check out the Myspace page too!
On Saturday nights, there is another local spook show called Svengoolie that comes on WCIU Chicago. The production on this one is a lot better (everyone is actually mic’d up!) and the jokes are actually funny sometimes. At the end of the show, for whatever reason, the legendary host Svengoolie is assaulted with rubber chickens as he returns to his casket.
The history of the Svengoolie character actually goes back thirty-six years! Check it out.