Who would have thought it? Svengoolie, formerly known as Son of Svengoolie, is now broadcasting his horror-movie host show on Cleveland's new Channel 19.2, ME-TV. I didn't even know Svengoolie was still haunting his home-airwaves out in Chicago (ME-TV is a syndicated "oldies" network from out of Chicago -- something like Channel 8.2's Antenna-TV). His programme is broadcast in Cleveland from 10 PM-Midnight on Fridays. When is a CLEVELAND movie-host going to have such luck?!
Still, it was nice to finally see what this show was like, and I was rather glad to see that Sven still had that ridiculous psychodelically-painted, upright, sacrophagus-like coffin, and still had to put up with scads of rubber chickens being hurled at him from time to time. And it was also nice to see that Sven still has all the members of his original cast still tagging along: the ghostly moustached skull of Zalman T. Tombstone, the green-faced-and-button-nosed ventriloquist dummy Durwood, and Sven's musical pal Doug Graves (plus a newer puppet/dummy I'd never heard of before: an undead rubber chicken called Curwin). His first show for Cleveland's ME-19 featured the movie "Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy".
I had read a great deal about Svengoolie from Elena M. Watson's book 'Television Horror Movie Hosts', and as may be expected (Son of) Svengoolie's original programmes were apparently much wilder and far more over-the-top than what I saw that first Friday -- but this is to be expected in this day and age where the monolithic multi-media supercorps and their crazed copyright-and-liability lawyers are always breathing down everybody's necks. No more unauthorized "karaoke", no more sound-bytes from copywritten songs or shows, no more inserting one's own visuals in copywritten broadcast material, etc. But the show was still very much like a classic Cleveland movie-host show (albeit with rubber chickens instead of kielbasis), and Sven in his current incarnation seems to predominantly broadcast Universal horror and sci-fi movies from the 30s through the end of the '50s. And on his first Cleveland programme, Sven even gave a brief introduction which pointed out how movie-hosting is largely extinct. I thought he overdid his exposition about the night's movie, but otherwise Sven's general demeanor of a somewhat jaded but still largely whimsical master of ceremonies was an interesting contrast to the effervescent and frothy buffoonery of Elvira, Mistress of the Dark (who still haunts THIS-43 on Sunday and Monday mornings). Indeed, now that Elvira isn't the only movie-host game in town, it's almost (but not quite) like how Cleveland's TV-weekends were like in the old days. But although I would much prefer a Cleveland station having a movie-host show which starred a local Cleveland host (the Ghoul or Hoolihan or ME), it is at least something. I'll still peek at Elvira from time to time, but it'll be interesting to see how Svengoolie does in this market.



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 08/22/2011 12:46PM by baronightwolf.

Er, one correction:

Svengoolie actually happens to be on ME-19 10 PM - Midnight on SATURDAY.

Not Friday.

And while I'm at it, the rubber-chicken dummy/puppet's name is spelled "Kerwin".

Mea culpa ...

And now I hear Big Chuck and Little John are back on Saturday mornings.

If this is true, it just might be that I will eventually have my own show at last: BARON NIGHTWOLF AND HIS FRIENDS OF REVENGE!

Well, at least I can hope ...

I should have known ...

The "Big Chuck and Little John Show" on Saturdays is just a half-hour of rerun skits with no movie.

And now "Elvira" is no longer on THIS.

Svengoolie is pretty good, but it still galls me that Cleveland has essentially abandoned its own movie-host traditions.

Ah well, who knows what tomorrow will bring, eh?

And this just in:

THIS-TV seems to have picked up Svengoolie as well.

Why couldn't a Cleveland-based movie host be so lucky?

Apparently Svengoolie was only on THIS for one show for Halloween.
He's still on Saturday nights on ME-TV, though.