Dispatch #289: Fort Wayne's Horror Hosts

 

WPTA's Shock Theater in the 1950s (left), the 1970s (center), and WFFT's Nightmare Theater (right) in the 1980s

I've covered some of this material previously at this blog, but it's just a little over a week until Halloween, so what the heck...

Today's Dispatch spotlights Fort Wayne's horror hosts—that trio of spooky gentlemen who fronted broadcasts of horror movies on local TV over the years.

The first was WPTA's Dr. Meridian, who hosted their weekly airings of classic Universal Horror movies from their Shock Theater syndication package in the late 1950s. As the good doctor was before my time, I have no idea what he looked like or if his hosting style was campy or sinister.

Actor Jeff Gibson's Asmodius was the frontman for WPTA's Shock Theater airings in the 1970s that I watched religiously as a kid. Gibson's tone changed gradually during his tenure, going from mostly serious to fairly campy. Years later, I got to meet my childhood horror host when we worked together briefly at a Fort Wayne bookstore.

Finally, Summit City residents in the 1980s thrilled to weekly visits from The Shroud, a black-clad figure portrayed by Don Paris on WFFT's Nightmare Theater. In sepulchral tones, the deadly serious Shroud dispensed fascinating bits of trivia about the classic monster flicks he showed each week.  

In the early 1980s, I got to meet Paris in his Shroud persona when he did an autograph signing at Dick Stoner's legendary magic/gag shop in downtown Fort Wayne.

Sadly, the era of Fort Wayne horror hosts came to an end when Nightmare Theater ended its run on WFFT. These days, Summit City residents have to get their Saturday night fright-flick fix with out-of-town horror hosts such as Svengoolie or Lord Blood-Rah.

My childhood experiences watching Jeff Gibson's Asmodius led me to create the fictional horror-host Count Mortius, frontman for the Shock Theater broadcasts beloved by 12-year-old Samantha "Lizzie" Stanton in my e-book, Samantha Stanton and the Mysterious Library.

There's more to come in the next dispatch.

 ©2023 SummitCityScribe

Dispatch #279: Night Monsters

      

Me and Mark on a Halloween night in the 1980s.

   Like millions of American kids, I loved dressing up on Halloween and going door-to-door begging for candy from my neighbors, usually in a cheap dime store costume from Ben Cooper or Collegeville—a plastic half-mask fitted tightly to my sweaty face with a thin elastic strap.

     I did so for the last time when I was nine years old, and although I continued to enjoy all the trappings and atmosphere of the spooky season in the years that followed, I didn't dress up again in horrific regalia for almost ten years.

     In the picture at the top of today's Dispatch, that's a teenage me on the left wearing the black coat and hat and sporting a chalky white skull mask. My friend Mark Ward (who painted both our masks) is the wolfman on the right. 

     The two of us went out looking like this out on a Halloween night in the early 1980s. We didn't go door-to-door, however—instead we merely tooled around Fort Wayne aimlessly after dark, occasionally popping into public places like Southtown Mall to gauge people's reactions to our frightful get-ups.

     Since this is the time of year when everyone from kids to grownups like to dress up in costumes both fanciful and fearful, here's an interesting article examining the history behind such traditions.

Photograph ©1964 Diane Arbus

    These days, my October traditions no longer involve wearing spooky garb, but I still have fond childhood memories of walking down the sidewalks in my northside Fort Wayne neighborhood after dark on Halloween—tucked into one of those Collegeville/Ben Cooper costumes from Kresge's or Mr. Wiggs—with a plastic jack-o-lantern bucket swinging from one hand that I hoped by the end of the night would be filled with sugary treats.

     There's more to come in the next dispatch.

     ©2023 SummitCityScribe

Dispatch #278: Cannibalism at the Disco

 

     I've been endeavoring to focus my posts this month on all things spooky, eerie, and macabre, and since today's Dispatch deals with cannibalism, I think it fits the bill quite nicely.

     In early 1971, I heard the song Timothy by The Buoys on local radio for the very first time. A disturbing tale of miners trapped underground in a cave-in—and the gruesome things they do to survive—it was nothing like the cheery pop tunes I usually heard on WLYV. 

     Even though I was just a kid, I understood immediately what the song was about and got a juvenile kick out of hearing something that I probably shouldn't have been listening to at that age.

     Of course, I was already heavily into monsters and horror movies at the time, so hearing a creepy rock tune about two trapped miners eating a third didn't give me any nightmares. 

     Songwriter Rupert Holmes went on to have a successful music career. You can read about the history behind his song Timothy here.

    Many years later, while living in NYC, I attended a Morrissey concert at what was then known as The Uptown Ritz (to differentiate it from the Ritz down in Greenwich Village)—located at 254 W. 54th Street in Manhattan. 

254 W. 54th Street in 1992.

     I knew at that time the venue had started life as a legitimate theater before becoming a CBS Radio/TV studio—and then the legendary 1970s disco Studio 54. What I hadn't known then was that in-between CBS and the disco era, the office building had also been the home of Scepter Records.

    Scepter was famous as the label of iconic 1960s girl-groups such as The Shirelles and the Chiffons, both of whom recorded at the label's original home at 1674 Broadway. 

     In 1965, however, Scepter moved to their new digs at 254 W. 54th Street, where acts as varied as The Velvet Underground, B.J. Thomas—and yes, The Buoys—cut studio tracks. I knew none of that history when I visited the Ritz on November 27th, 1992, however.

     I had a great time at the Morrissey show that night. Moz—on tour for his excellent Your Arsenal album—was in fine voice and hadn't yet veered off into the uncomfortable political statements he's infamous for these days. During the set from his opening act, Jet Black Machine, I remember glancing around the venue and thinking about the glory days of disco at Studio 54. 

     I had absolutely no idea back then that just a few floors above my head, Timothy—the song about cannibalism that gave me the shivers as a kid—had been recorded in a Scepters Records studio. Thinking about it now brings a mischievous grin to my face—just like the one I wore as a kid while listening to that macabre little song on WLYV back in 1971.

     Postscript: After the uptown Ritz closed in the mid-1990s, the space was vacant until the end of the decade, when The Roundabout Theatre Company found its home there—where it remains to this day.

     There's more to come in the next dispatch.

     ©2023 SummitCityScribe 

Dispatch #271: David McCallum

     Hot on the heels of yesterday's obit for author Allan Asherman comes word of another passing: actor David McCallum has died at age 90.

    Among Baby Boomers, McCallum is best remembered for his portrayal of secret agent Illya Kuryakin on The Man from U.N.C.L.E. in the 1960s, while modern TV audiences knew him as Dr. Donald "Ducky" Mallard (a character he played for 20 years) on NCIS.

     Whenever I think of McCallum, it's usually for his science-fiction & horror roles on TV, such as the two stellar Outer Limits episodes he starred in: The Sixth Finger and The Forms of Things Unknown, an atmospheric Night Gallery entitled The Phantom Farmhouse, a short-lived 1975 NBC series, The Invisible Man, and—years after its original run ended on British TV—I enjoyed MaCallum's pairing with Joanna Lumley in their proto X-Files show, Sapphire and Steel.

     In the YouTube video embedded above, you can listen to Henry Mancini's classy theme to NBC's The Invisible Man, which starred McCallum, Melinda Fee, and Craig Stevens.

     David McCallum (1933-2023) R.I.P.

     "Closing Channel D..."

     There's more to come in the next dispatch.

     ©2023 SummitCityScribe

Dispatch #270: Allan Asherman

 

The Star Trek Compendium (first edition, 1981)

     Some sad news in today's dispatch: according to a post over at Mark Evanier's blog, writer Allan Asherman has died. Mike Glyer posted a reminiscence about Asherman here. 

     Over the years, Asherman wrote for Castle of Frankenstein, The Monster Times, and DC Comics, but it was his work on the Star Trek Compendium that I remember him for most fondly.

     Long before the internet enabled anyone to instantly summon production credits on any film or TV show, that information wasn't easily available to those outside the entertainment business.

     That's why I cheered the arrival of Mr. Asherman's Star Trek Compendium in bookstores back in 1981. It not only offered detailed credits for all three seasons of the original Star Trek series and The Motion Picture but also lots of fascinating behind-the-scenes production trivia. 

     Asherman's Compendium was reprinted and expanded by Simon & Schuster's Pocket Books multiple times, but I can still remember my excitement at picking up the first edition at the Waldenbooks inside Fort Wayne's Southtown Mall back in 1981. 

    Along with Bjo Trimble's Star Trek Concordance, Mr. Asherman's Star Trek Compendium was an invaluable resource for Trek fans in the pre-internet era. 

     Allan Asherman (1947—2023) R.I.P.

There's more to come in the next dispatch.

©2023 SummitCityScribe

     

Dispatch #259: The Hoosier Plagiarist

     On most mornings, I usually enjoy reading the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, but that routine is occasionally soured for me by an unhinged rant from some right-wing crackpot on the letters page or the appearance of an editorial by Tim Goeglein.

     You'd think the Journal would know better than to publish someone who in 2008 was found to have plagiarized material in at least 20 pieces he wrote for their former rival newspaper, the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel. 

     Nancy Nall Derringer was the first to uncover Timmy's poaching back then. You can read all about it here. 

     So far, no one's come forth with evidence that Goeglein's been up to his old tricks in his latest material, but shame on the JG for giving him a platform in the first place given his past actions. 

     Journalistic integrity aside, the JG would be better to remember that old proverb, "fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me."

     There's more to come in the next dispatch.

     ©2023 SummitCityScribe

Dispatch #258: Hulk Smash!

 

Marvel Treasury Edition #5, April 1975

   In the in spring of 1975, my mother gave me a Commemorative Bicentennial Coin Set consisting of one penny, nickel, dime, quarter, half-dollar, and dollar coins minted to celebrate the 200th birthday of the United States.

     The sets had been advertised in newspapers and magazines back in December 1974, and my mom had seen one of these adverts and ordered me one, which arrived around St. Patrick's Day, 1975.

The U.S. Bicentennial Coin Set

     "Hang onto these," my mother advised me as she handed me the coin set, "they might be worth something someday."

     

     While I certainly appreciated the gift, I really was not much of a numismatist at that young age. I was, however, a die-hard Marvel maniac, collecting as many of the company's comic books as I could within the constraints of my $5.00 weekly allowance.

     It should come as no surprise, then, that I rather quickly disregarded my mother's advice regarding those shiny commemorative coins. 

     In fact, just a few weeks after Easter, on a Saturday trip to the Scott's Grocery on Decatur Road, I stumbled across an item which meant certain doom for that coin set: Marvel Treasury Edition #5: The Hulk on the Rampage!

     Understand, this was no ordinary comic—it was a tabloid-sized 10'' x 14" full-color reprinting of 6 classic stories featuring Marvel's Jade Giant, the Incredible Hulk, and all for only $1.50! From the moment that I saw it peeking out of a pocket in the magazine section at Scott's, I simply knew that I had to possess it.

     Unfortunately, as I'd already spent the majority of my allowance on other things, I didn't possess the buck-fifty required to purchase the glorious, oversized issue. Or did I?

     Driven to extremes by my desire to clutch that tabloid comic in my hot little hands, barely an hour after I returned home from the store, I took my Bicentennial Coin Set out into the back yard and cracked open its clear plastic protective case with a ball-pein hammer. Not the most subtle tactic, to be sure, but one I imagined Dr. Banner's gamma-ray infused alter ego might approve ("Hulk Smash!").

     With state sales tax included, the purchase price for Marvel Treasury Edition #5 came to a grand total of $1.54. Now that I had $1.91 in gleaming Bicentennial coinage in my sweaty palm, I knew had enough to purchase it, but would the comic still be there when I returned to the store? What if some other Marvel Maniac got there before me and took that Hulk Treasury Edition home? 

     Fortunately, when I returned to the grocery on Sunday afternoon, the Marvel tabloid was still peeking out of that pocket in the magazine section. I wasted no time in taking it up to the nearest checkout and carefully placing it on the rubber conveyor mat before the cashier.

     When I handed the shiny, uncirculated coins (consisting of a silver dollar, half-dollar, and nickel) over to her, she took a moment to inspect them before asking, "honey, are you sure you want to spend these?"

     "Oh, yeah!" I replied, with nearly the same enthusiasm as she'd asked if I wanted some chocolate cake.

     The cashier shrugged and processed the sale, although as I left the cash wrap with the oversized comic book clutched in my hands, I observed her place $1.50 of her own money in the till and claim the Bicentennial dollar & half-dollar for herself. Much like my mother, she seemed certain of those commemorative coins' future value.

     Now, 48 years later, I wondered just how wise my trade of coinage for comic book had been back then. Of course, it's all purely academic now—I sold my entire comic book collection (including Marvel Treasury Edition #5) back in 1991—but I was curious just the same.

     In my online research, I found the Bicentennial Coin Set could be found for anywhere from 6 to 25 dollars, while the incredible Hulk tabloid ranged $35 to as much as $192. 

     As a kid, I did feel a momentary twinge of regret as I hammered open the coin set my mother had given me (a feeling which was forgotten the instant I purchased that over-sized Hulk comic book).

     Now, almost fifty years later, it's comforting to know that—despite my mother's belief those coins might be worth something someday—the Hulk comic that I bought with them is actually worth more. Hulk Smash, indeed!

There's more to come in the next dispatch.

©2023 SummitCityScribe

Dispatch #257: Kryptonite Rocks!

 

     Ever since I was a little kid, I've always loved things that glowed in the dark, an affection likely spawned by drifting off to sleep in my childhood bedroom under the comforting glow of my Aurora Monster Model Kits.

     In 1978, I added a new bit of glow kitsch to my collection with the addition of a pair of green-hued rocks—advertised as pieces of Kryptonite to tie in with the recently released Superman film starring Christopher Reeve.

     In that film, Gene Hackman's Lex Luthor sardonically describes Kryptonite (which is lethal to all Kryptonians) as a "little souvenir from the old hometown" before cruelly wrapping a necklace adorned with a Kryptonite bauble around the Man of Steel's neck.

     Fun Fact: Kryptonite made its first appearance in the Superman radio show before becoming a staple of the hero's comic book lore.

     I must have seen that first Chris Reeve Superman film a half-dozen times over the harsh winter of 1978 (its score by John Williams remains one of my favorites). At some point around that same time, I stopped into the Keltsch Pharmacy at the Rogers Market shopping center in the 5500 block of South Anthony Blvd near Paulding Road in Fort Wayne.

     The items stocked around the drugstore's checkout area are designed to influence impulse purchases, and the display featuring Kryptonite rocks certainly worked its magic on me. I headed home that day with two pieces of phosphorescent Kryptonian rubble, which, during playtime, I would often place in close proximity to my Mego Superman action figure.

    45 years later, I no longer have that Mego Superman, but I do still have those two "little souvenirs" from Kal-El's hometown. They rest on the corner of the nightstand in my bedroom, where each night I sleep under their comforting glow.

     There's more to come in the next dispatch.

     ©2023 SummitCityScribe  

Dispatch #253: Censorship, Orwell, and a Kindly Librarian

 

     Not long ago, while reading an interesting opinion piece by Emory Earl Troops in the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette on George Orwell's 1984 and efforts to restrict the books available to students, I was reminded of an experience I had 45 years ago. 

     Back in the 1970s, I was an avid viewer of the NBC's Weekend, a Saturday evening program hosted by journalists Lloyd Dobyns and Linda Ellerbee. Weekend was a newsmagazine, but unlike the staid, establishment demeanor of 60 Minutes over on CBS, Weekend could be funky and irreverent. 

     For example, the show opened with the guitar riff from the Rolling Stones' Jumpin' Jack Flash and at the end of each episode, the anchors signed off with "...and so it goes..." a phrase from Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five.

     One particular Saturday in 1978, Weekend profiled the attempt by General Electric (then NBC's parent company) to patent an oil-eating bacterium. Host Lloyd Dobyns said something along the lines of: if you thought the idea of corporate patents on microorganisms sounds like something out of George Orwell's classic novel 1984, you're not alone.

     As a science-fiction fan, that wry, off-hand comment by Dobyns piqued my curiosity, and so early the following week I stopped by the main branch library in downtown Fort Wayne, pulled a copy of Mr. Orwell's book from the shelf, and took it up to the front desk to check it out. 

     There was no self-serve scanning of library books back then—you handed your selections to a library employee, and they stamped the return date on the little cards tucked into the manila pockets glued inside the books' front covers before handing them back to you. 

     On that day back in 1978, however, when I handed the grey buckram-covered copy of 1984 over to the librarian behind the desk, she examined me very closely before asking a couple of a questions. 

     This had never happened before, as most of the books I had checked out at the library up to that point had been light-weight juvenile tales such as Robert Arthur's The Three Investigators mystery series or Isaac Asimov's Lucky Starr space adventures. 1984 was the first book from the adult section of the library that I'd ever attempted to check out.

     First, the lady librarian asked me if I knew what 1984 was about, and I replied with a vague statement about authoritarianism that I'd cribbed from Lloyd Dobyns—even if I wasn't entirely sure what he meant at the time. 

     Next, she asked me if I thought I was old enough to understand Mr. Orwell's book, and I replied with great pride that I was one of the most advanced readers in my class (as I'd recently been told by one of my English teachers).

     The librarian, who, like many of her peers back then, seemed to be of indeterminate age—not quite young but not really old, either—paused for what seemed like an eternity while peering at me through her cat's eye-framed eyeglasses before, apparently satisfied by my answers, finally processing the book and handing it over to me.

     At the time, I was simply happy to have successfully checked out a book I'd been curious about, and only later would I come to appreciate how George Orwell's cautionary tale helped prod me to move beyond books offering simple escapism and explore more challenging narratives. 

     Don't get me wrong—As a teen I still loved reading about John Carter of Mars and Doc Savage, but not long after reading Orwell's 1984, I was inspired to check out novels by Joseph Conrad and Theodore Dreiser from the library, books I may not have discovered until much later if not for that nameless (but perceptive) librarian downtown.

     For that reason, I agree with Mr. Troops, the author of that opinion piece in the Journal Gazette—kids are smarter and more resilient than we give them credit for, so censoring the books they have access to does them a great disservice.

     I often think about how my life would have been different if that librarian had decided 1984 was unsuitable for me back in 1978. Sure, I would have eventually read Orwell's book in high school (which I did—and it was one of the easiest assignments ever thanks to my previous familiarity), but I would have missed out on all the great adult fiction I'd read in the interim—slowing my advancement both as a reader and a critical thinker.

     By trusting me to handle Orwell early on, that anonymous librarian opened the door to a whole new world of more challenging fiction, for which I'll always be grateful. 

     There's more to come in the next dispatch.

     ©2023 SummitCityScribe

249: Misguided Monument

 

Fort Wayne's Civil War Monument in Lawton Park.

 Allen County has had a monument to its Civil War dead since October 1894, when the one pictured above was dedicated in what is now Fort Wayne's Lawton Park. A plaque on that monument identifies it as a "Tribute for the patriotic citizens of Allen County who fell in defense of the Union 1861-1865". You can read more about the memorial here and here.

Of the over 4,000 soldiers Allen County sent into battle to defend the Union, 489 were lost. Two members of my own family served in Indiana's 85th Infantry Regiment (Company C) and lived to return home. A third Midwestern ancestor was not so lucky—captured by the Confederates, he died in their notorious Andersonville prison.

Because of that family connection, I was angered by the recent unveiling of a brand-new memorial at the Veterans National Memorial Shrine and Museum on O'Day Road in Fort Wayne.

The new "War Between the States" memorial

Rather than simply honor those who from Indiana who served in defense of the Union, this new monument stands for all veterans in The War Between the States—a term, by the way, which originated in the American South. 

An online article over at fwbusiness.com even states the monument was designed "to honor soldiers who fought and died in that conflict on both sides". In addition, the slab displays a map highlighting both the Union States and the Confederate States as well as blue and grey soldier's caps.

To me, this smacks of the very fine people on both sides comment made about Charlottesville back in 2017. The U.S. Civil War was a conflict between the States loyal to President Abraham Lincoln and the Union versus the rebel Confederate States who seceded from the Union and took up arms against it. Those Confederates—traitors who fought against the U.S. Army—were responsible for the deaths of over 300,000 Union soldiers (including my Midwest ancestor who died in Andersonville). 

The idea that there is now a memorial honoring Confederate soldiers in my hometown of Fort Wayne, in the historically Union-supporting state of Indiana, is outrageous to me. Any Civil War memorial in Indiana should only honor the brave soldiers who left their Hoosier homes to defend the Union, not the Confederate traitors who killed nearly 500 of those same men. 

There's more to come in the next dispatch.

©2023 SummitCityScribe