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TABITHA

(Tabitha Clutterbuck?)

Graveyard Shift

All night Friday starting at 8:30

Arena Pay TV Channel (City?, Australia)

1997-?

NOTE:

• Harold Achatz, our agent down under, contributed this entry, stunning new contender in the "hostess with the mostest" category. He notes: "The show goes out each Friday from 8:30 p.m. to about 1:00 or 1:30 a.m. Saturday morning, and then is repeated from the start so it goes for the rest of the night."
• Michael Monahan elaborates:

  For the past couple of years, Australians have been enjoying Tabitha, host of a Friday night double bill (and then some) called Graveyard Shift. They book theme nights: "Love in Vein" for Return of the Vampire and Corridors of Blood, "Frankly, My Dear" for Curse of Frankenstein and Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed, etc. They also mix in documentaries, including the syndicated John McCarthy series, The Fearmakers -- with even the documentaries reflecting the night's theme. The "Frankly, My Dear" evening screened the Fearmakers episode on Terence Fisher, for instance. A night of Ed Wood consisted of Plan Nine From Outer Space, Night of the Ghouls and The Haunted World of Edward D. Wood.
  Tabitha is a saucy little thing - sexy, slyly humorous, smart and fearless.... She has a tendancy to get her movie facts wrong on occassion, but clearly loves the genre.... She's developed quite a following, and has appeared in numerous magazine interview/photo essays.... Tabitha has recently appeared...er....au natural in a large format fashion/art magazine called Black and White. The theme for the issue is "Heroes, Angels, Devils" and it features models, actors and such in a wide variety of often mythical senarios. While many present themselves as literal winged angels and demons, Tabitha plays tribute to Betty Page.

TARANTULA (see also COAGULUS, COUNT VON THIRSTENBURG)

(Paul Kawecki)

Scream-In

Saturday afternoon at 6:30

WPGH-TV, Channel 53 (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania)

Late 60's? - ?? 1971

NOTES:

• Bob Tinnell, director of the classic-horror-tribute feature Frankenstein and Me, several other very cool movies, and co-author of a series of award-winning, very cinematic graphic novels, recalls:

  I remember as a young kid in the late sixties or possibly as late as 1971 a show hosted by a character called Tarantula on WPGH channel 53 in Pittsburgh. Who was this guy? I remember seeing some great stuff on there. I never see anything anywhere.

• E-gorespondent Kurt McCoy provides some tantalizing details:

  Very shortly after 53 went on the air, I'd have to say in the late '60's or very early '70's since I think Dark Shadows was still on the air at the time, they had a Saturday afternoon horror film show with two hosts. Initially they had a fairly lame vampire "Count" something or other with red hair. He was replaced by another host, called Tarantula. I remember the changeover quite vividly, since the ineffectual old count was staked in his coffin by Tarantula, complete with stage-blood and screams. Pretty gruesome for a Saturday afternoon kiddie show!
  Tarantula was portrayed as a kind of dark occult swinger, with amulets and sideburns and a whispery guru-kind of delivery. Very cynical compared with his predecessor's glib one-liner, lame pun approach. They even had little serial adventures between commercials, usually featuring Tarantula trying to get ahold of some new occult trinket. He was very much the Anti-Hero kind of character, as opposed to the usual amiable eccentric style host. I don't think the show lasted more than a year or so, but I'd love to find out more about it!

• E-gorespondent David Silvio remembers:

  TV host Tarantula's real name is, I believe, Paul Kawecki, and the name of the show was Scream In. The Count's name was Thirstenburg. Tarantula's servant was Hugo. I remember there was a special episode referred to as "Tarantula Goes To Hell." In 1971 I went to the Pittsburgh Playhouse to see Tarantula and Hugo in person. They did a skit before the screening of Night of the Living Dead.

• E-gorespondant FRANK-N_STEIN adds:

  I have a few memories of the show from Pittsburgh featuring Tarantula as host. I seem to remember it airing Saturday evenings, although I saw someone said it ran Saturday afternoons.
  Two movies I recall being on that show were Curse of The Demon and another movie that started out with a girl looking into binoculars which shot sharp spikes into her eyes when she adjusted the binoculars.....I can't recall the title of that movie. (It's Horrors of the Black Museum — E-gor.)
  I also recall Tarantula doing skits before, during and after the movie. One time he was being chased by a wizard or some such being. Tarantula's figure was superimposed over another scene making it look like he was running across a narrow stone bridge high above the ground.
  Tarantula also used to use the phrase "And now for some more of my incantational rites" after returning from a commercial break... and right before he'd get into one of his skits.

TARANTULA GHOUL *

(Suzanne Waldron)

Discover House of Horrors (The Tarantula Ghoul Show) among the "Local Programs" pages on the Yesterday's KPTV website, a wonderful tribute to this show and many others that aired from 1952-2002 on KPTV in Portland, Oregan. The House of Horrors page includes interesting info, a ghoulicious bunch of photos and print ads, and even downloadable MP3s of both sides of Tarantula Ghoul's 45 rpm record!

House of Horror

Wednesday at 10:30 pm, then 10:00 pm, then 10:30 pm again

KPTV, Channel 12 (Portland, Oregon)

October 9, 1957 - November 26, 1958

Elena Watson's Television Horror Movie Hosts reference:
mentioned in Ch. 3, "Invasion of the Ghost Hosts," pp. 24-25.

Magazine references:

• Suzanne Waldron pictured in and out of character (3 photos), show and personal life discussed on two-thirds page (40) of feature article "TV's Nightmares" in February 1959 issue of TV Star Parade, pp. 39-42. Click sidebar image to see scan of original.
  
  
• Picture in issue #6 (February 1960) of Famous Monsters of Filmland, p. 21.
  
  
• Mentioned in feature "The Horror of Them All!" in issue #13 (December 1988) of Filmfax, pp. 28-32.
  
  
• Discussed, with cartoon likeness in group drawing, in feature "Monster Mania '57" by Greg Theakston in issue #3 (March-April 1991) of Pure Images, pp. 2-11, 25-28.

NOTES:

• The TV Star Parade feature cited above (click sidebar image to see scan of original) provides a wealth of information:

  TARANTULA GHOUL pokes morbid fun at everything within range of Portland's KPTV
  Nobody, but nobody, is safe from the witty but acid tongue of Tarantula Ghoul, a cross between the Charles Addams woman and a "road company" Tallulah Bankhead, who welcomes viewers to her House of Horror in Portland, Ore., on Wednesdays (10:30 P.M., KPTV). She attacks the Highway Commission for removing the few decent death traps left, assails the City Zoo Commission for not exhibiting prehistoric animals, kids the D.A.R. with her own organization, the D.S.W.T. (Daughters of the Salem Witchcraft Trials). She's active in the Black Cross, lectures on Second Aid and keeps her finger in the political pie through her party, The Cemeterians (which boasts more ex-presidents than any other political group). With an occasional assist from Milton, a retired grave-robber turned gardener, Suzanne Waldron clowns up the Tarantula role enough to win family acceptance for the show. Taranch, as she's known off camera, introduces the films either with a special set or from her "home" -- a weirdly-decorated room overlooking a run-down cemetery (which she refers to as the neighborhood) and a patio where she an Milton "plant things." For Frankenstein pictures the lab was recreated for her entrance from the operating table. For the Mummy films she made her entrance from a mummy case. For Murders in the Rue Morgue she did the show in French with English sub-titles. King Kong was presented as a satire on This Is Your Life with a large studio audience of costumed monsters paying tribute to a live chimp, Kenya, an alleged great, great grandson of Kong. A native of Portland, Suzanne describes herself as having been "depressingly tall, thin and shy" during high school. But at Highland University in Las Vegas, New Mexico (sic?), she discovered the value of individualism -- which she had. Ironically, her first dramatic appearance was as one of the witches in Macbeth. After college, stock and touring shows, she returned to Portland to do radio commercials. Since the horror show started in October, 1957, Suzanne's been carted around in coffins, appeared with gorillas, held press parties in cemeteries, etc. Her most embarassing moment -- she fell asleep in a coffin and did NOT arise as scheduled for half-time ceremonies of a nationally-telecast football game. Her most frightening time -- appearing on stage with an 11-foot boa constrictor which, at the last minute replaced the smaller, less active snake she was used to. In her free time Suzanne reads and listens to hi-fi in an appartment she shares with an overly-friendly Great Dane named Frankenstein. She likes people, all kinds of music (she made two R 'n' R records -- "King Kong" and "Graveyard Rock"), dancing, art, skiing, riding, and surf-swimming. She still does commercials and spoofs the Movie of the Month, looking ahead to the day the horror craze joins Davy Crockett, but the way things look now, that may be a long way off.

• E-gorespondent EEA71AE@aol.com notes that on Tarantula Ghoul's Halloween rocker "Graveyard Rock" she was backed by the Cryptkickers.

TERRENCE *

(Russ Coglin)

Nightmare Theater

Thursday night

KRON-TV, Channel 4 (San Francisco, California)

1957 - 19??

Elena Watson's Television Horror Movie Hosts reference:
mentioned in Ch. 3, "Invasion of the Ghost Hosts," p. 22.

Magazine reference:

• Mentioned in feature "The Horror of Them All!" in issue #13 (December 1988) of Filmfax, pp. 28-32.
• Discussed in feature "Monster Mania '57" by Greg Theakston in issue #3 (March-April 1991) of Pure Images, pp. 2-11, 25-28 (see NOTE below).

NOTES:

• Greg Theakston reports that Terrence caused a mini-riot on the University of California campus at Berkeley on Thursday night, November 10, 1957, when he jokingly announced that "Berkeley believers will meet at the Big C at midnight." A thousand viewers showed up, many made up as vampires or victims, cheering "D-R-A-C-U-L-A" (that night's movie) or howling like werewolves. 32 policemen were called to break up the fracas.
• Doug Jones from Pacifica, California, recalls the show:

  As a kid in the '50's, I eagerly awaited Terrence on Channel 4, and first saw Dracula and Frankenstein on those Thursday night showings. He opened the show with a clip from a Victor Jory SHADOW movie (I think) and the dripping, bloody letters NiGHTMARE! would appear. The late Russ Coglin, who announced but never appeared as the host, later ran KGO channel 7 and will also be remembered as another beloved voice: he played the silent movie style villain in all the old CRUSADER RABBIT cartoons.
  (The villain's name in this wonderful pre-Bullwinkle Jay Ward cartoon was "Dudley Nightshade." For more information, see the Crusader Rabbit page at The Toon Tracker - Finder of Lost Cartoons site -- E-gor.)
  Sidelight: When they first aired Frankenstein, it had the footage of little Marilyn Harris being tossed in the lake!

Terror, Dr. *

(see DR. TERROR *)

Terry, Sammy *

(see SAMMY TERRY *)

Texas 27 Film Vault

(see RANDY and RICHARD)

Thall, Willie *

(see THE BARGAIN CITY KID and WILLIE THALL)

13 (Thirteen)

(see UNCLE GHOULIE, CARBUNCLE, 13 and GORDON THE GORILLA)

TJ

(Doug Heim)

Read about TJ and the ANT on the "Green Bay Hosts" page at Dick Nitelinger's Milwaukee Hosts of Horror website.

TJ and the All Night Theatre (eventually abbreviated to TJ and the ANT).

Friday Night at 10:30 (Starting time varied, but after 10:30)

WLUK-TV, Channel 11 (Green Bay, Wisconsin)

Friday, May 6, 1977 - March 5, 1982

Magazine reference:

• Discussed and pictured in the feature "Titletown's First All-Night TV Film Fest: TJ and the ANT!" by Dick Nitelinger (Golembiewski) in issue #55 (June 2005) of Scary Monsters Magazine, pp. 84-86. The article include an interview with Doug Heim conducted by the author in November 2004.

NOTES:

• The initial source for this entry was the following request from show fan "Lebowski" posted on USENET:

  I am a new member of this community, but would like to send a plea into cyberspace for anyone who grew up in the 70's in Wisconsin, regarding an all-nite movie program called TJ and the A.N.T (the all night theatre). This program was responsible for shaping (warping?) my young cinematic sensibilities with fare like The Conqueror Worm, Live On the Air, It's Captain Midnight!, This Island Earth, Son of Kong, etc., as well as live location specials like a Halloween special from a "haunted" balcony of a theatre in downtown Green Bay.
  The show originated out of Green Bay on Channel 11 (I believe the ABC affiliate at the time) and the host was a late 20-something who was into some pretty great drive-in stuff, but also featured short films and animated stuff that viewers sent in. I remember him as a kind of melding of Doctor Johnny Fever and Andy Travis from (TV sitcom) WKRP!
  It aired in the mid-to-late 70's (who knows how long before I, at the tender age of 8, got hip to it), and it really distinguished itself from other "horror host" shows on at the time as a more teen-oriented show.
  My request is if anyone has any info on the show or TJ, let it out! I know this is a long shot, but my curiosity is killin' me!
  Lebowski

• TJ and the ANT fans rejoice — Dick Nitelinger (Golembiewski) has LOTS more info about TJ and the ANT, both on his Milwaukee Hosts of Horror website (see link above), and in the Scary Monsters Magazine feature article cited above... for instance, the following (adapted) information:

  Like many stations at the time the show started, WLUK-TV went off the air around 1:00 pm, but Doug Heim felt he could keep the station on all night long if they had something to run -- and they had over 500 prints from the C&C Television package of RKO films that they could run any time they wanted to. Management liked Doug's idea but told him HE would have to host the show, which petrified him because he had never been in front of the camera. He was comfortable running master control, but not with being on the air. He toughed it out, the show became very popular, and he went on to do other shows, including Barney's Club House Pow and The Dance Machine.
  
  Doug Heim used the name "TJ" because his on-air persona wasn't a typical horror host character, but just a "Television Jockey" — the guy sitting in the control room running the station, with a microphone and a camera pointing at him.
  
  Doug would run anywhere from 2-5 films a night depending on their length and the previous programming, including Charlie Chan films and old westerns. Most nights he showed at least one horror film, and some nights that's all he showed.

Tooloose Noneck *

(see TOLOUSE NONECK, aka TOOLOOSE NO-NECK *)

TOLOUSE NONECK, aka TOOLOOSE NONECK *

(Rick Felski)

Visit Milwaukee Hosts of Horror, horror hostorian Dick Nitelinger's GREAT web tribute to Tolouse Noneck and all the other TV horror hosts and shows of that area, for incredible information and loads of audio-visual treats.

Shock Theater

Saturday afternoon at 12:30 p.m.

January 5, 1980 - May 31, 1980

Shock Theater (switch to double-feature)

Saturday night at 10:30 p.m.

June 7, 1980 - August 30, 1980

Shock Theater Double Feature (Halloween one-shot)

Halloween night at 12:40 p.m.

October 31, 1980

Shock Theater

Saturday afternoon at 12:30 p.m.

January 3, 1981 - December 29, 1984

(First film was The Phantom Planet; last Revenge of Frankenstein)

Shock Rock

WISN-TV, Channel 12 (Milwaukee, Wisconsin)

January 6 - September 13, 1985:

Sunday mornings from 10:30 - Noon

January 6 - March 31; April 14 - April 21, 1985

January 6, January 20 - February 3, February 10, 1985 (11:00 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.), February 17 - March 31, 1985

Saturday late night at 12:30 a.m.

May 4 - June 22; July 13 - August 3, 1985

Friday late night at 1:30 a.m.

August 9, 1985

Friday late night at 1:00 a.m.

August 16, 1985 - September 13, 1985

TooLoose & Company Halloween Special (one-shot)

Saturday night at 11:30 p.m.

WISN-TV, Channel 12 (Milwaukee, Wisconsin; also syndicated in numerous cities)

October 26, 1989

TooLoose & Company (13-week syndication)

Saturday at midnight

WISN-TV, Channel 12 (Milwaukee, Wisconsin)

February 24 - May 19, 1990

Elena Watson's Television Horror Movie Hosts reference:
discussion and one picture in Ch. 23, "Rock Shock: Toulouse-NoNeck," pp. 158-161.

Magazine references:

• Show discussed in depth, including an interview with Rick Felski, in the essential essay "Shock (With Rock) Milwaukee's Last Horror Host... An Interview With TooLoose No-Neck!" by indefatigable Milwaukee horror hostorian Dick Nitelinger, in issue #30 of Scary Monsters (March 1999), pp. 70-75. 7 pictures plus two promotional handouts, an advertisement and a caricature drawing!
  
  
• Dick Nitelinger provides more in-depth info in "An Interview with TooLoose NoNeck's Sidekick: 'Dr. Feeleystein, I Presume?'" in issue #57 of Scary Monsters (January 2006), pp. 53-55. This feature, based on the memories of Jim Feeley, who played "Dr. Feeleystein" as well as Tolouse's girlfriend "Betty," is illustrated with photos and screen grabs.

NOTE:

• Dick Nitelinger reports that the Shock Rock shows were 60-90 minutes of music videos.

Tom B. Stone, Doctor

(see DOKTOR TOM B. STONE)

Tracy the Gorilla

(see BOB BURNS; DR. SHOCKER and IGOR and TRACY THE GORILLA)

TREBOR, aka COUSIN TREBOR

(Robert Shive)

Way Out

Thursday night at 10:30 and (?) Saturday night after the 10:30 movie

WCIA, Channel 3 (Champaign, Illinois)

c. 1963-1965

NOTES:

• WCIA celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2003 (first broadcast in November, 1953). The picture of Robert Shive as Trebor comes from the Picture Gallery (page 3) in the History of WCIA pages on the WCIA website.
  
  
• Long-time E-gorespondent Ken Kwil was the first to send information about this host:

  I found some info on a horror show host that's not mentioned in your site.... The host's name is Trebor. That's Robert spelled backwards. He had a show in '63 and '64 that showed the old Universal monster movies. The name of the show he was on is Way Out, seen in the Champaigne, Illinois area. If I find out more, I'll let you know.

• Show fans Kevin and Gail Young wrote about this show:

  WCIA in Champaign, Illinois, had a horror host in the early to mid 1960's named Trebor (Robert Shive). The name of the show was Way Out, which ran after the 10:30 movie on Saturday nights.

• John Hardy, like Ken Kwil, remembers this show airing on Thursdays — maybe it was on both nights?:

  Does anyone have any information on Way Out or its host Trebor? It ran on Thursday nights at 10:30 on WCIA in Champaign Illinois about 1963-65.

• Horror hostorian Kurt McCoy dug up some information on Trebor in the Lexis/Nexis library database and passed it on. The following is excerpted from a longer article covering several other TV personalities and shows:

  THE PANTAGRAPH (Bloomington, IL.) October 26, 2000, Thursday
  SECTION: Entertainment, Pg. G3
  HEADLINE: "Those were the days, my friends"
  BYLINE: DAN CRAFT
  The first and the beast
  
  .... Even more startling was our brief telephone encounter with Robert Shive of Indianapolis, who played Cousin Trebor, the resident ghoul of WCIA in Champaign for several years back in the mid-1960s.
  As we mention in our story, Shive underwent a medical emergency this past week, cutting off our planned interview with him at a sadly inopportune moment. (He was recuperating as of press-time.)
  However, we spoke briefly enough to be reminded that Shive was just a kid fresh out of college, barely 20, when he took on the role of Trebor; today, he is in his mid-60s. So the voice on the other end of the didn't match up too closely with our extremely vague memories.
  But the one thing we will always remember about Trebor is that he was on hand for the very first horror movie we were ever allowed to stay up and see — on a school night yet ('twas our birthday, and special compensation was granted).
  Trebor's Way Out series ran at 10:30 p.m. on Thursdays. The movie that night: a little Z-budget wonder from 1958 called The Brain From Planet Arous, starring the one and only John Agar as a scientist possessed by a rogue alien brain from ... yes, the planet Arous.
  As a kid in jammies, barely old enough to differentiate between good and evil, let along good movie and bad movie, we were suitably terrified by what was revealed as — in later, more mature viewings — "The Inflatable Balloon on a Wire From Planet Arous."
  Oh, well. It's still a cherished memory we hold dear.
  Thanks, Cuz.

TV Lenny (Crazy TV Lenny)

(see MR. MEPHISTO)

TV's Count Dracula

(see COUNT DRACULA, aka TV's COUNT DRACULA)

Two Fat Ghouls

(see SCRUFFY McGHOUL and CHESTER THE WEREWOLF)

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