The shows I was seeing at the time were unhosted, but most had a menacing voice announcer introducing the film and setting the mood. This was back when you only had three stations, four stations tops, to choose from. Sometime in 1969, my mother bought portable TV that had additional UHF stations, and there I discovered KEMO CH 20, which had a program called Shock It To Me Theater — and this show had a host called Asmodeus. Shock It To Me had the Universal package, so I finally got a chance to see the classic Frankenstein, Dracula, Mummy and Wolf Man [characters and] movies I had been seeing in Famous Monsters of Filmland. So it was pretty exciting time. Shock It To Me was also where I first saw Carnival of Souls, which really popped the top off my skull and spanked my brain.

And of course there was Asmodeus. Afternoon kid's shows had hosts, so the concept was familiar. But having that type of character transposed to the dark hours was startling and intriguing, to say the least. Asmodeus was an imperious, sarcastic character. His garb was macabre mod, he smoked a cigarette and had a fairly elaborate castle set.

A year, year and half later, Creature Features debuted on KTVU CH 2, hosted by Bob Wilkins. Wilkins was the absolute antithesis of Asmodeus. He was a mild, slightly built guy with glasses and a cigar. And in contrast to the Shock It To Me top class film library, Creature Features came out of the gate with Horror of Party Beach, followed in quick succession by Curse of the Living Corpse and the immortal The Vulture, with Akim Tamiroff in a turkey suit.

Somewhat incredibly, Creature Features flattened Shock It To Me. Wilkins was an appealing presence, a bit like a cornball Bob Newhart. The ratings went through the roof. Creature Features soon became a twice weekly double bill on Friday and Saturday and knocked Shock It To Me off the air.

The program's popularity led other stations to launch their own hosted horror movie shows. KBHK CH 44 tried first by syndicating The Ghoul from Cleveland in 1973, and again a decade later with Son of Svengoolie from Chicago. In the meantime, KEMO rather peevishly ran an unhosted show called The Original Creature Feature.

Another huge influence was the Carlos Clarens book, An Illustrated History of Horror and Science-Fiction Films, which took these movies out of the gee whiz world of Famous Monsters and placed them in the larger context of cinema. It was the first book that led me to look at horror films critically.

What circumstances led to local stations creating their own horror movie series/hosts?

DG: Although Vampira initially appeared back in 1954, the horror host genre officially followed the release of the Universal SHOCK! package of horror movies in 1957. It's difficult to conceive now, but this was the first time this type of thing was being seen on television (Vampira was a localized Los Angeles phenomenon), and to an audience in the late 50s and early 60s, this was pretty strong stuff. This is also the best explanation for why so many of the hosts were comic in their approach. Humor further softened the experience.