Subtitle: The Return Of The
Vampire, 1944, starring Bela Lugosi.
Shock Theatre, with John
Zacherle, loomed large in my youth. Zacherle had this local NYC broadcast in
the 50’s. He dressed up Transylvania style with zombie makeup. His “lab
assistant” was Igor, who I recall dragged a bum leg around with him as he
walked. Zacherle would have some campy
scenario with a horror theme going on in between running old Hollywood films
featuring Bela, Lon Chaney, Boris Karloff and others of the genre. The show was
great…a place where boys could live the vicarious world of weird in between
pretending to be superman saving the world and building wooden go-carts with
old lawnmower engines. My cousin, blog reader #10,001, and I loved Shock
Theatre. We once, just for fun, created a body lying on its back with an axe
buried in its chest. I wonder if the photo still exists…Thank you John Zacherle
for that inspiration.
So, after enough diet of
werewolf, I found I could mimic the howl pretty well. It is something that has
followed me for many years. It grew a bit in high school but really blossomed
in college where I acquired a nickname, (there were others, I acquired
nicknames by the handful for awhile back then), “Wolfman”. Certain events and
parties seemed not complete without a good, loud howl. This carried on into my
early working years. I joined Wine World, the then Nestle owned business that
centered around Beringer, in 1979. By 1980, the president of the company was
calling me Wolfman. By 1986, when I was managing the company’s import division,
which was heavy with some really fine Italian wines, I was called, “Uomo Lupo”.
A workmate came up with it and it stuck for awhile. It is an attempt in Italian
for Wolfman.
So, this morning what turns up
on TV? The Return…and watching it, and the scene where the werewolf first appears, I realize that I have finally grown out of
The Wolfman Era of my life. But I must confess, I sure feel like giving out a
howl. But it’s early, Cathy is still sleeping.
The episode I remember involved a gorilla that had swallowed a soccer ball and Zacherle performed a soccerectome. The air pressure of the ball determined the winner.
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ReplyDeleteAnd then there was Gasport, the being in the bag. His use of cauliflowers for brains was inspired. I think I need to find that axe photo.
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