Ghoulardi

The character of Ghoulardi, played by disc jockey, voice announcer, and actor Ernie Anderson, was the host of late night ?Shock Theater? at WJW-TV, Channel 8, in Cleveland, Ohio from 1963 through 1966. ?Shock Theater? featured grade-?B? science fiction and horror movies. It is best remembered in its Friday night time slot.

Related Topics:
Disc jockey - Announcer - Actor - Ernie Anderson - WJW - Cleveland, Ohio - 1963 - 1966 - Grade-?B? - Movie

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Anderson was a big band and jazz enthusiast, and WWII U.S. Navy veteran born in Lynn, Massachusetts on November 22, 1923. This irreverent and influential movie host was strictly hipster, unlike the horror character prototype. Ghoulardi?s costume was a long lab coat covered with ?slogan? buttons, horn-rimmed sunglasses with a missing lens, fake Van Dyke beard and moustache, and various messy, awkwardly-perched wigs.

Related Topics:
Big band - Jazz - WWII - U.S. Navy - Lynn, Massachusetts - November 22 - 1923 - Hipster - Costume - Lab coat - Sunglasses - Beard - Moustache - Wig

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During breaks from the movies, Anderson addressed the camera live in a part-Beat, part-ethnic accented commentary, peppered with: ?Hey, group!,? ?Stay sick, knif? (?fink?), ?Cool it,? ?Turn blue? and ?Ova deh.? Anderson improvised because of his difficulty memorizing lines. He played a number of novelty and offbeat rock and roll tunes, plus jazz and rhythm and blues songs, under his live performance. Moreover, he had his crew surreally insert stock film clips or clips of himself into the movie he was hosting.

Related Topics:
Beat - Rock and roll - Rhythm and blues

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"Shock Theater" drew both a black and white cult audience, who loved Ghoulardi's beatnik costume, the music, and his hip talk, which was a nod to black jazz and R&B artists. White mainstream viewers enjoyed his broad, unpretentious ethnic humor.

Related Topics:
Cult audience - Beatnik - Hip

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Ghoulardi spared no unhip targets: the inhabitants of Parma, Ohio and Oxnard, California, bandleader Lawrence Welk and polka music, Cleveland television personalities Mike Douglas and Dorothy Fuldheim, plus other public figures. He also mocked the films he was hosting. In particular, Ghoulardi unmercifully jeered Parma, Ohio, a working-class suburb, for its ethnic ?white socks? sensibility, creating a series of taped skits called ?Parma Place.? He adopted a crow and named it ?Oxnard.?

Related Topics:
Parma, Ohio - Oxnard, California - Lawrence Welk - Polka - Television personalities - Mike Douglas - Dorothy Fuldheim - Suburb - Crow

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Ghoulardi used friends and members of his talented Channel 8 crew as supporting cast: cameraman ?Big Chuck? Schodowski, film editor Bob Soinski and writer Tim Conway (later of Carol Burnett and ?Dorf? fame). He was further assisted by teenage intern Ron Sweed. Sweed boarded a cross-town bus to try to meet his idol at a live appearance, clad in a gorilla suit. Anderson invited Sweed onstage; to the crowd?s delight, Sweed stumbled offstage into the audience. This, plus some unnanounced gorilla-suited visits to the Channel 8 studios, sealed his place as Anderson?s right-hand man and heir apparent.

Related Topics:
Tim Conway - Carol Burnett - Intern - Ron Sweed - Gorilla suit

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Channel 8 capitalized on Ghoulardi?s wide audience with a comprehensive merchandising program, giving Anderson a percentage. Anderson also formed ?Ghoulardi All-Stars? sports teams, which played as many as 100 charity contests a year, which, reflecting his popularity, frequently attracted thousands of fans.

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Anderson openly battled Channel 8 management. In spite of the show?s wide audience, they worried that Ghoulardi was pushing too many television boundaries too quickly, and tried to reign in the character.

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Anderson would have none of this. He provoked his bosses by detonating plastic action figures and model cars with firecrackers and bombs provided by viewers, on air, once nearly setting the studio on fire. (?Cool it with the boom-booms.?)

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Induced by Tim Conway, who had already left town, and greater career promise, Anderson retired Ghoulardi in 1966 and moved to Los Angeles, California. His plan was to act in film and television. Instead, he made a successful career in voice-over work, including for the ABC TV network ("The Lu-u-uhv Boat").

Related Topics:
1966 - Los Angeles, California - Voice-over - ABC

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In the early 1970s, Sweed took over the Ghoulardi character and costume with Anderson?s blessing and became known as movie host ?The Ghoul? on another channel. Channel 8?s Bob Wells (?Hoolihan the Weatherman?) and ?Big Chuck? Schodowski took over Ghoulardi?s Friday night movie time slot as ?Hoolihan and Big Chuck,? becoming Anderson?s tamer but familiar successors. Anderson died on February 6, 1997.

Related Topics:
1970s - The Ghoul - February 6 - 1997

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More than 40 years after Ghoulardi signed off, his legacy endures: polka music, white socks, chrome lawn ornaments and pink plastic flamingoes are the things that made Parma famous. Cleveland native Drew Carey has paid tribute to Ghoulardi in his television sitcom, as have the punk-a-billy band The Cramps, by naming their 1990 album Stay Sick. David Thomas, of art rock band Pere Ubu, said that the Cramps were "so thoroughly co-optive of the Ghoulardi persona that when they first appeared, Clevelanders of the generation were fairly dismissive." Thomas credits Ghoulardi for the "otherness" of the Cleveland/Akron bands of the late 1970s and early 1980s, including the Cramps, his own Pere Ubu, Rocket From The Tombs, the Electric Eels, and The Mirrors: "We were the Ghoulardi kids." The most literal Ghoulardi kid, Anderson's son, film director Paul Thomas Anderson, named his production company "The Ghoulardi Film Company" in his father's honor.

Related Topics:
Lawn ornament - Plastic flamingo - Drew Carey - Sitcom - The Cramps - 1990 - David Thomas - Art rock - Pere Ubu - Pere Ubu - Rocket From The Tombs - Electric Eels - The Mirrors - Paul Thomas Anderson - The Ghoulardi Film Company

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