{"id":282,"date":"2012-10-30T13:17:08","date_gmt":"2012-10-30T17:17:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.drfilm.net\/blog\/?p=282"},"modified":"2020-12-06T21:30:54","modified_gmt":"2020-12-07T02:30:54","slug":"sammy-and-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.drfilm.net\/blog\/?p=282","title":{"rendered":"Sammy and Me"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

When I saw that the Classic TV Blog Association<\/a> was having a blogathon about horror movie hosts, I knew I would have to get involved.\u00a0 The whole reason this blog exists is because of a horror movie host.<\/p>\n

Let me transport you to a long-ago time in the early 1970s.\u00a0 TV stations stopped broadcasting at 2 or 3 in the morning.\u00a0 Cable TV was almost unheard of.\u00a0 Infomercials did not exist.\u00a0 In a big market, there were maybe 5 or 6 stations that you could watch.\u00a0 In the evening, after the news, you could either watch Johnny Carson or an old movie.\u00a0 That\u2019s about all there was.<\/p>\n

In those days, we didn\u2019t have the cultural illiteracy about old films that we have today.\u00a0 Films were literally suffused into the air.\u00a0 We saw them all the time.\u00a0 It was nothing to see a film 30 or 40 years old, even in prime time.\u00a0 Black and white?\u00a0 No problem.\u00a0 We knew the Marx Brothers, WC Fields, Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Boris Karloff.<\/p>\n

Since films were so commonplace, there was some need for brand recognition.\u00a0 In the 50s, when Screen Gems released the first package of Shock Theater to television stations, someone hit on the bright idea of having a horror film host.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know who it was.\u00a0 Someone will tell you it was Vampira, others will say it was someone else.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t really matter.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

By the 1960s, almost every market had one.\u00a0 In Indianapolis, my home town, it was Sammy Terry.\u00a0 (You get the joke?\u00a0 It\u2019s a pun on \u201ccemetery.\u201d\u00a0 OK, subtle it isn\u2019t.)\u00a0 By the mid-70s, most of these had died out, but a few survived.\u00a0 Elvira and Svengoolie are two of the more known ones that have made it all these years.<\/p>\n

Sammy Terry worked for WTTV, our local independent station.\u00a0 WTTV was something of an anomaly.\u00a0 It was technically a Bloomington station (about an hour south of Indianapolis), but they sneaked the transmitter northward to hit Indy.\u00a0 That could be the subject of a blog entry in itself.\u00a0 WTTV\u2019s transmitter never worked quite right.\u00a0 There was always snow in the picture, in a predictable pattern.\u00a0 As a kid, I always suspected that it was my dad\u2019s makeshift antenna that didn\u2019t work, but when we got cable, I noticed that WTTV still<\/em> didn\u2019t come in quite right!<\/p>\n

In those days, a TV section came every week in the local newspaper.\u00a0 It was important.\u00a0 TV wasn\u2019t endlessly repeated, and there was no way to record it to watch later.\u00a0 If a movie or a show came on that you wanted to see, you\u2019d have to schedule your life around it.\u00a0 WTTV, lacking both ratings and network affiliation, was like a window into the past, using outdated equipment and techniques well after the other stations had moved on.<\/p>\n

One day, I was scanning that section and I saw that Sammy Terry was running the 1931 Frankenstein <\/em>with Colin Clive and Boris Karloff.\u00a0 Now, in those days they marked all the black and white shows with a B\/W sign.\u00a0 Just why they did it, I didn\u2019t know, but at least you knew if a movie was black and white or color.<\/p>\n

I noticed that Frankenstein <\/em>was not listed as a black and white program!\u00a0 Could it be?\u00a0 Did they even have color film in 1931?\u00a0 I had no idea.\u00a0 The whole concept fascinated me.\u00a0 Luckily, I had someone to ask.<\/p>\n

My grandmother was staying with us at the time.\u00a0 She was profoundly overweight, in ill health, and she had cataracts that needed surgery.\u00a0 In those days, cataract surgery was a big deal.\u00a0 You had the surgery and it took 6 weeks to recover, and there were all sorts of problems with it.\u00a0 Today you\u2019re in and out and stapled in half an hour.<\/p>\n

Grandma was not able to live by herself (which she normally did) during the recovery period.\u00a0 I knew if anyone would know about color films of the time, she would.\u00a0 She and I were really the only people in the family interested in the arts and movies. \u00a0 Grandma loved the movies.<\/p>\n

She\u2019d seen Frankenstein<\/em>, but she couldn\u2019t remember if it was in color.\u00a0 I asked her if it could have been in color.\u00a0 She said it was possible, because there were some early color processes at the time, but she didn\u2019t remember.<\/p>\n

Well, that was all I needed.\u00a0 I went to ask my mom if I could stay up and watch Frankenstein <\/em>that weekend.<\/p>\n

Well, mom was harried.\u00a0 She was under a lot of stress taking care of grandma, and she did one of her typical stall tactics.\u00a0 \u201cWell see,\u201d she said.\u00a0 \u201cIf you behave.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is code for NO.<\/p>\n

In all honesty, I can understand where she was coming from.\u00a0 It was on late, and she didn\u2019t want to deal with all that hassle, and worse yet, I was a sensitive kid who scared easily.\u00a0 The idea of me staying up late was ridiculous.\u00a0 She knew I\u2019d have a fit if she outright said no, so she tried to stall me.<\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t work.<\/p>\n

I behaved myself admirably all week.\u00a0 I wasn\u2019t going to give her an out.\u00a0 I was planning to shove it back in her face on Friday night.\u00a0 And that didn\u2019t work either.<\/p>\n

\u201cEric, you have to go to bed.\u00a0 It\u2019s late, and I don\u2019t want you staying up that late.\u00a0 You\u2019ve never done it before.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou said I could if I behave, and I did.\u201d<\/p>\n

I knew the battle was lost, but intervention was around the corner in the form of my grandmother.<\/p>\n

\u201cSister,\u201d she said (she often called mom \u201csister\u201d because she is part of a set of twins.) \u201cI heard you tell Eric if he behaved that he\u2019d get to stay up.\u00a0 He\u2019s been talking about this all week.\u00a0 You should let him see it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMother,\u201d countered my own mother, \u201cI need to get to bed.\u00a0 I can\u2019t stay up with him and watch it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s fine,\u201d Grandma said.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019ll <\/em>stay up with him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Remember, I said that grandma was the only other person in the family who really \u201cgot\u201d movies.\u00a0 That was great.<\/p>\n

Mom reluctantly agreed, laid a lot of ground rules, but the hour was late and she was tired.\u00a0 She didn\u2019t have the energy to fight.\u00a0 HAHA!\u00a0 It was going to work.<\/p>\n

Grandma sat on our green couch and cautioned me that if I got overly upset about this then she\u2019d send me off to bed and that would be it.\u00a0 She folded her hands over her giant belly and waited for the movie to start.<\/p>\n

I think I had seen parts of the Sammy Terry intro before, because it looked a little familiar.\u00a0 Sammy wore a cowl and was made up with greasepaint, looking a bit like Conrad Veidt in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari<\/em>.\u00a0 Played by local performer Bob Carter, there was always something avuncular and silly about Sammy, and he didn\u2019t scare me at all.<\/p>\n

I still remember this after all these years.\u00a0 I\u2019d worked myself into a tizzy about seeing this, wondering if it could actually be color.\u00a0 I knew the time was nigh.\u00a0 Sammy (or someone) had fashioned a poster for Frankenstein<\/em>, done very cheesily in a hand-drawn way.\u00a0 At the bottom someone had penciled in this tag line: \u201cIn Horro-Color!\u201d<\/p>\n

WOW!\u00a0 Could it be?<\/p>\n

It was my first Sammy Terry intro and I just wished he\u2019d shut up and run the movie.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think my grandmother even lasted through the first 10 minutes of the show.\u00a0 By the time the film started, she was gently snoring, with her hands still folded in front of her.<\/p>\n

Well, as you probably know, the film was in black and white after all. (Of course, this sparked a lasting level of curiosity in me, because I have a long demonstration about the history of color in the movies that\u2019s one of my most popular shows.)\u00a0 I eagerly sat through the movie, color or not.\u00a0 I was delighted.\u00a0 The film had a weird rustic feel that I found to be really cool.\u00a0 I sat quietly through the end of the picture, woke grandma up, and we both went to bed.<\/p>\n

She created a monster.<\/p>\n

I was hooked.\u00a0 I wanted to keep watching Sammy Terry and see more of those films.\u00a0 I had to.\u00a0 Grandma gamely stayed with me on most of them, still usually falling asleep.\u00a0 She had one eye done, 6 weeks recovery, and another eye, 6 more weeks recovery.\u00a0 By that time, I was a hopeless addict.\u00a0 She went home, but I kept watching Sammy.<\/p>\n

I discovered that my parents didn\u2019t care too much as long as I didn\u2019t make a lot of noise to wake them up.<\/p>\n

I discovered that the local bookstore had a new book by film historian Denis Gifford that gave a great history of these movies.\u00a0 Mom had picked it out, and she had it wrapped \u201cFrom Grandma\u201d for Christmas that year.\u00a0 I recently found the 8mm home movie of that Christmas, showing me unwrapping the present.\u00a0 I still have the book.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

That’s me (on the left) with my grandmother and sister, Christmas 1973<\/p>\n

I seldom missed Sammy Terry, and I went on to catch the Saturday night offering on WTTV, which was called Science Fiction Theater<\/em>.\u00a0 In the summertime, WTTV had another film host showing Summer Film Festival<\/em> which consisted of more mainstream films.\u00a0 I loved it too.\u00a0 WISH Channel 8 had host Dave Smith with another show called When Movies Were Movies<\/em>.\u00a0 I loved it too.<\/p>\n

It got so that in the summer I was up until 3am most every night.<\/p>\n

Sammy was still a special favorite.\u00a0 I loved his silly jokes and weird introductions, his hairy spider (named George) who interrupted the proceedings periodically.\u00a0 I even loved the stupid gaffes that we\u2019d never see today.\u00a0 The Sunday paper listed one film as Sammy\u2019s show for the week, but the Friday paper listed another film.\u00a0 That night, Sammy\u2019s intros were for the film in the Sunday paper, but they ran the film listed in the Friday paper!\u00a0 OOPS.<\/p>\n

My grandmother died in 1975.\u00a0 She was a special woman and I miss her to this very day.<\/p>\n

WTTV canceled Sammy Terry in about 1976.\u00a0 I was outraged.\u00a0 I started a petition to put him back on the air.\u00a0 But the times had changed and they didn\u2019t want to go back.<\/p>\n

They finally relented and brought him back in the early 80s.\u00a0 The film package wasn\u2019t as good as it had been, but it was still fun to see Sammy back again.\u00a0 There were fewer Karloff and Lugosi pictures and more gut-laden Hammer films.<\/p>\n

Then, in the mid-80s the world changed again.\u00a0 When cable became widespread, the studios discovered that they could make more money from a cable film showing than from the local stations, so they pulled all the old films.\u00a0 As historian Jim Neibaur has said, it was like they decided to make one station the repository for all the old films and they filled the rest with infomercials.<\/p>\n

Sammy Terry was gone.\u00a0 Bob Carter continued to play the character at live shows and in the occasional special.\u00a0 I met him a few times.\u00a0 He ran a music store close to where I lived.\u00a0 Seemed like a nice guy, but it was never more than a passing encounter.<\/p>\n

Mr. Carter has been in ill health for the past few years, so he has not been so active.\u00a0 His son is carrying on the Sammy Terry tradition.\u00a0 I haven\u2019t seen him yet, but I wish him well.<\/p>\n

Of course, I started to miss that late-night experience I had so loved.\u00a0 I collected videotapes of my favorite movies.\u00a0 Then 16mm film.\u00a0 Then 35mm film.<\/p>\n

I’m not on TV (not yet, at least), but I carry film projectors to run film shows wherever I’m wanted. \u00a0 I got to run a movie with WTTV\u2019s cartoon show host, Cowboy Bob, and WFBM\u2019s Three Stooges host, Harlow Hickenlooper.\u00a0 It was freezing cold, and with the two of them there, including me and an assistant, I think we had 6 people in the audience.\u00a0 Oh, well.\u00a0 I had fun anyway.<\/p>\n

And that still doesn\u2019t bring the story to a close.<\/p>\n

One of the things that dogs me about new technology is how we throw out the whole of the old to embrace the new.\u00a0 We often don\u2019t fully appreciate the magic of what we had until it\u2019s gone.<\/p>\n

The old horror hosts and the movie hosts in general helped us appreciate films made before we were born.\u00a0 It was just part of who we were.\u00a0 Now, all you have to do is channel hop over Turner Classic Movies and you\u2019ll never see them at all.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s no disrespect to Robert Osborne or Leonard Maltin to say that they\u2019re not the same as the guys from the old days.\u00a0 They are preaching to the converted.\u00a0 You don\u2019t watch them unless you specifically want to see an old film.\u00a0 There\u2019s nothing wrong with that, but sometimes we look at old films as either obsolete relics or unapproachable HIGH ART.<\/p>\n

There is little appreciation for film as an art form today.\u00a0 That\u2019s why I created Dr. Film<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0 It\u2019s a deliberate throwback to the old hosted-film format.\u00a0 Dr. Film <\/em>isn\u2019t specifically for horror films, although we will show them. It\u2019s got the poverty-induced sets and goofy jokes that all the hosted-film shows had.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s different about Dr. Film <\/em>is that its purpose is to subtly educate (and I hope it is very subtle).\u00a0 I hope it\u2019s just strange enough to catch an errant viewer asking, \u201cWhat the heck is THIS?\u201d <\/em>before he flips the remote one more time.<\/p>\n

No, this doesn\u2019t mean I regard the new Sammy Terry as competition, because he\u2019s not doing the same thing.\u00a0 Nor do I regard Svengoolie or Elvira as competition.\u00a0 I embrace them all (I\u2019d particularly like to embrace Elvira in that tight dress, but I digress.)<\/p>\n

I always think that a rising tide floats all boats.\u00a0 And I think that the movie host is something we\u2019ve lost and that needs to return.\u00a0 I think we all miss them, even if we don\u2019t know it.<\/p>\n

Dr. Film <\/em>isn\u2019t really competition for anyone, because the show hasn\u2019t made it to the airwaves.\u00a0 In all honesty, it probably never will.\u00a0 But I\u2019m still in there trying, because I\u2019m trying to save a part of our past that I miss.<\/p>\n

Instead of tilting at windmills, I\u2019m saving film.\u00a0 I might just as well be trying to save Fizzies, Burger Chef, and handmade chocolate sodas.\u00a0 Hey, maybe it\u2019s a lost cause, but someone has to do it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I saw that the Classic TV Blog Association was having a blogathon about horror movie hosts, I knew I would have to get involved.\u00a0 The whole reason this blog exists is because of a horror movie host. Let me transport you to a long-ago time in the early 1970s.\u00a0 TV stations stopped broadcasting at … Continue reading “Sammy and Me”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"powered_cache_disable_cache":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,207],"tags":[25,108,109,110,107],"class_list":["post-282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-background-on-the-blog","category-film","tag-dr-film","tag-horror-films","tag-late-night-television","tag-movie-hosts","tag-sammy-terry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drfilm.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drfilm.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drfilm.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drfilm.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drfilm.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=282"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.drfilm.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":287,"href":"https:\/\/www.drfilm.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282\/revisions\/287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drfilm.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drfilm.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drfilm.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}