I don't want to scare you...

...but a rock & roll parrot wants to sing to you.

I can't read music, so I'll presume that's an amazing rock tune there...

Cracky was sorta kinda the mascot for Gold Key Comics, presenting their joke pages and "educational" features, and eventually they spun him off to host...

But, like all the parrots who tried to hop onto the mod, mad world of rock 'n' roll, Cracky eventually grew up, and narrowed his focus:

You'd think that if you wanted to sell a magazine of jokes, you'd present an actual joke in your ad, or, you know, make it funny. But maybe that's just me...

Ads from Star Trek #2 (1968) & #10 (1971)

I'm old, so I'm legally obligated to wonder aloud whether kids today even know who this guy is...

Man, Boris Karloff was the bomb. A sickly British child, he decided to become an actor. He went to Hollywood, and played in dozens of silent films.

And then came his big break--he was cast as The Monster in the 1931 Frankenstein. He rapidly followed that up with the role of Imhotep in The Mummy, and more Frankenstein movies, and soon enough he was a bona fide star, largely in horror and mystery films.

He adapted well to the advent of TV, with dozens of appearances on shows in the 50s and 60s. And, the guy was the Narrator in How The Grinch Stole Christmas!!

And, of course, he wrote comic books.

What? You don't believe he wrote them himself? Then explain this:

See--right there!! Karloff had to have written that, right?!? Otherwise, that would be a lie--and comics never lie to us!

Boris Karloff Thriller also starred Boris, as a Rod Serling-type who would narrate the horror-type stories, introducing them...

...and giving us our conclusion:

And yes, I was quite deliberate in the Rod Serling comparison, as the comic was based on NBC's Twilight Zone knockoff...

It ran for two seasons, and was hosted by Karloff.

Unfortunately, Gold Key's timing was off, and Boris Karloff Thriller the comic came out almost simultaneously with Thriller the show being cancelled. So with issue #3, they retitled the joint Boris Karloff Tales Of Mystery:

Same set-up, though--Boris would introduce and conclude our tales of mystery, horror and the macabre:

Boris Karloff Tales Of Mysteries kept chugging along until issue #97 (1980)...

...with Karloff still guiding us...

WAIT A MINUTE!!!! 

Boris Karloff died in 1969!! How can Boris still be showing us these stories in 1980?!?! AAAGGHHHHHHHHHHHHGHGHGGG!!!!!! He's speaking to us from beyond the grave!!

[Editor's note--snell realizes that Karloff didn't actually write these comics, although as the vast majority of these stories have no writer's credit on GCD, well, he likes to pretend Karloff himself was scripting and narrating tales. PROVE IT DIDN'T HAPPEN!!]

Gold Key comic books always had these wonderful/awful feature pages to fill out their issues--bad jokes & riddles reader sent in, fan art, "informational" bits.

And then there was this:

And the best invention sent in this month?

Automatic Wink-A-Dork Tiscillator?

Man, if poor Mike Cosler had had that idea 45 years later and threw the word "cloud" in there somewhere, he could have had an IPO for several billion dollars...

From Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea #15 (1969)