John Zachary Who Perform Twist Again
| John Zacherle | |
|---|---|
 Zacherle in 1968 | |
| Born | (1918-09-26)September 26, 1918 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.Due south. |
| Died | Oct 27, 2016(2016-x-27) (anile 98) Manhattan, New York, U.Due south. |
| Other names | John Zacherley |
| Alma mater | Academy of Pennsylvania (B.A., English Literature, 1940) [ane] |
| Years active | 1954–2015 |
| Career | |
| Evidence | Shock Theater (1957–58) Zacherley at Big (1959–threescore) |
| Station(s) | WCAU-TV (1957–58) WABC-TV (1958–60) |
| Style | Horror host |
| Country | Usa |
John Zacherle ( ZAK-ər-lee; sometimes credited as John Zacherley; September 26, 1918 – October 27, 2016) was an American television host, radio personality, vocaliser, and vocalism player. He was all-time known for his long career as a television receiver horror host, often broadcasting horror films in Philadelphia and New York City in the 1950s and 1960s.[two] Best known for his character of "Roland/Zacherley", he as well did vox work for films, and recorded the peak ten novelty rock and roll vocal "Dinner With Drac" in 1958.[3] He as well edited two collections of horror stories, Zacherley's Vulture Stew and Zacherley'due south Midnight Snacks.
Biography [edit]
Zacherle was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.s.,[iv] the youngest of four children of a depository financial institution clerk and his wife. He grew up in Philadelphia's Germantown neighborhood, where he went to high school. He received a bachelor'southward degree in English literature from the University of Pennsylvania. In Globe War II he enlisted in the The states Army and served in North Africa and Europe. Later on the state of war, he returned to Philadelphia and joined a local repertory theatre visitor.
In 1954 he gained his first tv set role at WCAU-TV in Philadelphia, where he was hired every bit an actor playing several roles (ane was an undertaker) in Activity in the Afternoon, a Western produced by the station and aired in the New York City market.[four] Three years afterwards, he was hired as the host of WCAU's Stupor Theater, which debuted on October 7, 1957.[4] As the host, Zacherle appeared wearing a long black undertaker's glaze as the character "Roland" (pronounced "Ro-country") who lived in a crypt with his wife "My Dear" (unseen, lying in her coffin) and his lab assistant, Igor. The hosting of the blackness-and-white show involved interrupting the film to practise numerous stylized horror-comedy gags parodying the moving-picture show; an influential modify which pioneered a now-standard television genre. In the opening sequence, Zacherle as Roland would descend a long circular staircase to the crypt. The producers erred on the side of goriness, showing imitation severed heads with claret simulated with Hershey's chocolate syrup. During the comedy "cut-ins" during the moving-picture show, the soundtrack continued to play on the air, while the visual feed switched briefly to a shot of Zacherle as Roland in the middle of a related humorous stunt, such as riding a tombstone, or singing "My Funny Valentine" to his wife in her coffin. The show ran for 92 broadcasts through 1958.
He was a close colleague of Philadelphia broadcaster Dick Clark, and sometimes filled in for Clark on road touring shows of Clark's American Bandstand in the 1960s. Clark reportedly gave Zacherle his nickname of "The Cool Ghoul".[iv] In 1958, partly with the assistance and backing of Clark, Zacherle cutting "Dinner with Drac" for Cameo Records, backed by Dave Appell.[4] At get-go, Clark thought the recording – in which Zacherle recites humorously grisly limericks to rock and curl accompaniment – was also gory to play on Bandstand, and made Zacherle return to the studio to cut a 2d tamer version. Eventually both versions were released simultaneously as backsides on the same 45, and the tape bankrupt the tiptop ten nationally.[4] Zacherle later released several LPs mixing horror sound furnishings with novelty songs.[4]
Move to New York [edit]
The purchase of WCAU past CBS in 1958 prompted Zacherle to get out Philadelphia for WABC-TV in New York, where the station added a "y" to the finish of his name in the credits.[4] He continued the format of the Shock Theater, subsequently March 1959 titled Zacherley at Large, with "Roland" becoming "Zacherley" and his wife "My Dear" becoming "Isobel". He too began actualization in motility pictures, including Key to Murder alongside several of his old Action in the Afternoon colleagues. A regular feature of his shows continued to be his parodic interjection of himself into erstwhile horror films. He would run the motion picture and have "conversations" with the monster characters. He kept his "wife" in a coffin on stage. His co-star "Gasport" was in a burlap sack hanging from a rope, occasionally emitting moans. The on-air chat consisted of Zacherle repeating the moans he heard from the sack.
John Zacherle in the 1960s
In a 1960 promotional stunt for his motility to WOR-TV, Zacherley—by then, a Babe Boomer idol—staged a presidential campaign. His "platform" recording can exist institute on the album Spook Forth with Zacherley, which originally included a Zacherley for President volume and poster set which is highly collectible today. Also, in 1960, he was a invitee on CBS-Boob tube'southward What's My Line, on the October xxx broadcast, as the terminal guest. (Two of the panelists had to disqualify themselves, as they knew his identity.)
In 1963, he hosted blithe cartoons, every bit well as Chiller Theatre on WPIX-TV.
In 1965, he hosted a teenage trip the light fantastic show for three years at WNJU-TV in Newark called Disc-O-Teen, hosting the show in total costume and using the teenage show participants in his skits.
In December 1968, Zacherle moved to radio as the forenoon host for progressive stone WNEW-FM. In the summertime of 1969, he became the station nighttime broadcaster (ten PM–ii AM); in June 1971, he switched his show to WPLJ-FM, where he stayed for 10 years.
On February 14, 1970 he appeared at Fillmore East music hall in New York Metropolis to introduce the Grateful Dead; his introduction can exist heard on the album Dick's Picks Volume 4.
1980s and beyond [edit]
In the early on 1980s, he played a wizard on Captain Kangaroo, actualization without his Roland/Zacherley costume and make-up. He continued to perform in character at Halloween broadcasts in New York and Philadelphia in the 1980s and 1990s, once narrating Edgar Allan Poe'southward The Raven while backed up past the Philadelphia Orchestra.
In 1983, he portrayed himself in the feature length horror comedy Geek Maggot Bingo produced and directed past Nick Zedd in sequences shot in Zacherle'southward apartment on the Upper West Side.
In 1985 he hosted a special for Newark NJ music video station WWHT U68 entitled "The Thirteenth Hr."
In 1986, he hosted a direct-to-video program chosen Horrible Horror, where he performed Zacherley monologues in betwixt clips from public domain sci-fi and horror films.
In 1988, he struck up a friendship with B-movie horror director Frank Henenlotter, voicing the puppet "Aylmer", a slug-like drug-dealing and brain-eating parasite, ane of the lead characters in Henenlotter's 1988 horror-one-act film Brain Impairment, and cameos in his 1990 comedy Frankenhooker, appropriately playing a Tv weatherman who specializes in forecasts for mad scientists.
In late 1992, Zacherle joined the staff of "Thousand-Rock", WXRK, at a fourth dimension when the roster included other gratis-form radio DJs including Pete Fornatale, Jimmy Fink, Vin Scelsa (with whom he'd worked at WPLJ) and One thousand thousand Griffin. For the next four years he hosted a Saturday forenoon evidence called "Spirit Of The Sixties". He departed in January 1996 when the station switched to an culling rock format and hired all new jocks.
In 2010, Zacherly starred in the documentary, The Aurora Monsters: The Model Craze That Gripped the World. The film was written and produced past Dennis Vincent and Cortlandt Hull, owner of the Witch's Dungeon Classic Picture show Museum in Bristol, Connecticut. The documentary includes a number of short pieces featuring Zacherly and his boob co-host Gorgo, of Beak Diamond Productions. The film went on to win a Rondo honor.
Zacherle continued to make appearances at conventions through 2015, and his collectibles, including model kits, T-shirts, and posters, continue to sell. The book Goodnight, Whatever You Are by Richard Scrivani, chronicling the life and times of The Cool Ghoul, debuted at the Chiller Theatre Expo in Secaucus, New Jersey, in October 2006. Scrivani and Tom Weaver followed it up with the scrapbook-style "The Z Files: Treasures from Zacherley's Archives" in 2012.[five]
The comic book anthology, Zacherley's Midnite Terrors (created by Joseph Thou. Monks, and featuring height artists like Basil Gogos, Ken Kelly, William Stout and Mike Koneful), was created solely as a tribute to "Zach". 3 issues were published, and Zacherley acted in a commercial to promote them.
Zacherley connected to brand occasional on-air appearances, commonly around Halloween, including a ii-hour bear witness at WCBS-FM with Ron Parker on October 31, 2007. (Past this point, the 89-year-old was i of the very few people left in radio that was older than the medium itself.) Zacherley and Chiller Theatre returned to the WPIX airwaves on October 25, 2008 for a special showing of the 1955 Universal Pictures science fiction classic Tarantula!.
The Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia inducted Zacherle into their Hall of Fame in 2010.[6]
He died on October 27, 2016, at his home in Manhattan at the age of 98.[7] [2]
Legacy [edit]
He was the uncle of My Little Pony creator Bonnie Zacherle.[vii]
Partial Zacherley at Large episode guide [edit]
Aqueduct 9's resident picture show historian Chris Steinbrunner compiled a listing of all Zacherley'south shows from their start to New year's 1960:
These shows were later on syndicated to KHJ-Television receiver, the RKO General station in Los Angeles.
Short story collections [edit]
Zacherle edited two short story collections for Ballantine Books in 1960. Listed here are their contents.
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Discography [edit]
Albums [edit]
- Spook Along with Zacherley (Elektra: EKL-190) 1960
- Monster Brew (12 songs) (Parkway LP P-7018) 1962
- Scary Tales (Parkway LP P-7023) 1962
- Monster Mash (10 songs; partial re-upshot of Parkway album) (Wyncote LP W-9050) 1964
Singles [edit]
- "Igor"/"Dinner with Drac" (Cameo 130-1)
- "Dinner with Drac Pt.1"/"Pt.two" (Cameo 130-2)
- "80-Two Tombstones"/"Lunch with Female parent Goose" (Cameo 139)
- "Hurry Burry Baby"/"Dinner With Drac" (Parkway 853)
- "I Was a Teenage Cave Man"/"Dummy Doll" (Cameo 145)
- "Surfboard 109"/"Clementine" (Parkway 885)
- "Scary Tales from Mother Goose"/"Monster Monkey" (Parkway 888)
CDs [edit]
- Twist Collection (OOZ 617) 2001
- Monster Brew/Scary Tales (ACE CDCHD 1294) 2010
- Monster Mash Party (Transylvania 4-5709)
- Dinner With Zach (Transylvania 6-5000)
- Spook Along with Zacherley (Collector's Choice Music)
Meet besides [edit]
- Vampira
- Elvira, Mistress of the Dark
- Dr. Gangrene
- Morgus the Magnificent
- Dr. Shock
References [edit]
- ^ "Remembering the Cool Ghoul", The Pennsylvania Gazette, December 21, 2016. Accessed June 28, 2020
- ^ a b William Grimes (October 28, 2016). "John Zacherle, Host With a Ghoulish Perspective, Dies at 98". The New York Times.
- ^ Watson, Elena M. (2000). Television Horror Film Hosts: 68 Vampires, Mad Scientists and Other Denizens of the Belatedly Dark Airwaves Examined and Interviewed. Jefferson, North Carolina, United states of america: McFarland & Company. p. 265. ISBN0-7864-0940-1. Archived from the original on September 28, 2007. Retrieved August one, 2007.
- ^ a b c d east f m h Colin Larkin, ed. (2002). The Virgin Encyclopedia of Fifties Music (Tertiary ed.). Virgin Books. p. 515. ISBNi-85227-937-0.
- ^ Kilgannon, Corey (October 19, 2012). "Once a Ghoul, Always a Ghoul". The New York Times.
- ^ "Hall of Fame". Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia.
- ^ a b Barnes, Mike (October 28, 2016). "John Zacherle, Delightfully Schlocky TV Host of Horror Movies, Dies at 98". The Hollywood Reporter . Retrieved October 28, 2016.
External links [edit]
- Welcome to the Abode of Zacherley: The Cool Ghoul
- John Zacherle at IMDb
- Halloween Horror Hosts Rise Once more
- Anthopology 101: From B(allantine) to Z(acherley) by Bud Webster at Galactic Primal
- Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia website
- New York Radio Archive: WXRK-FM 92.3
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Zacherle
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