Svengoolie

Whether it's a horror classic or a bad one, Svengoolie provides great Saturday night entertainment. The show is full of humor and movie trivia! Go Sven!

My family has a long history with this show. My older brothers used to watch it with my dad a long time ago, until we lost the MeTV channel from our TV. None of us had looked at this for years after that, but recently, when we were able to bring it back. Now, every Saturday night, we watch an episode of the show, and it's nice to have something to look forward to after a long week.

"Svengoolie" is basically a show that resurrects old horror, sci-fi, and mystery films from the thirties, forties, fifties, and so on. The host, 'Sven', credited as the "Man in Hat" on the credits (played by Rich Koz), is conceptually creepy but in execution is portrayed as no more than a laughable, pun-loving persona who presents facts about the films, makes ridiculous jokes, and sings absolutely hilarious songs during the intermissions. The movies are about an hour and a half each; the rest of the two-hours is taken up on commercials and Sven's brief commentaries.

The movies, I would say, are quite good for their time period despite the negativity surrounding how bad some of them are. Personally, I quite enjoy them for what they are and despite poor effects and maybe slower pacing, most of them work very well today. I especially enjoy Sven's ridiculous songs that play upon events from the movies - if you like this kind of humor, the show is for you. Of course, this kind of thing is getting harder and harder for most people to appreciate these days, due to the plethora of more fancy, special-effects-based horror movies audiences indulge in now. But this show has an audience, and I'm all for it.

This is my second favorite horror host show, it really was a welcome surprise because I live in the Seattle, Washington, I honestly never knew about this guy and show until we recently had Me TV and saw his show; let alone I never thought I'd ever see another horror host program as it's became sort of a lost practice, which I think sucks, personally I'd like to see more of these kinds of programs again, with the huge amount of horror films we continue to have now why not, seeing this shows it can still be done.

This kind of program was a real treat for me, what really surprised me was its popularity and how long it's been going on. This show was at first localized in the Chicago area which is why I never heard about it, I don't live there, before it became nationalized. This show had some T-Shirts and some cool goodies, there were fans of all ages, even plenty of celebs are fans like Mark Hamell, Robert England knowing that is awesome. There is even a museum display of his show that was put up in the Chicago Museum of Communications (my favorite kind of museum) to commemorate his years on the air, that is double awesome.

It's not hard to see why this show is great, Rich Koz as Svengholie is just a fun host he's sort of this undead mad scientist, I think. It doesn't matter, really like the coffin he always comes out of which looks like Greatful Dead cover art. Even like his dungeon set which is cool looking as it looks like a science lab but also looks homey like the kind of cave a horror fan would have as there are some relics from the premiering film.

The character Svenghoulie he's funny he's got some of the best jokes and lines, really like that he makes some jokes on the premering film and gives some commentary about it whether the film is good, bad or so bad it's good. I like it whenever he gives some bad joke or two and suddenly rubber chickens just keep flying at him which is better than rotten vegetables flying at you. He sometimes has a brief back and forth with some mutant chicken puppet, which is funny from how strange it is. And near the end of the movie or after there would be a little skit, those are always hit or miss but that's how it is in sketch comedy.

He shows is a bit educational as he actually presents some historical facts about the film and who was involved, so it shows he knows his stuff. I love it when he would sometimes have some special guest appear which is always a surprise because no one expects it, like in one episode it was Vicki Laurence from "Mama's Family" she was playing the Naomi character as she was in costume and putting on the same persona, that was really funny and shows she hasn't lost it. But the best one was seeing Gilbert Godfred which is awesome because here we have two horror movie hosts together. Really liked the back and forth between the two which was funny and genuine. I also really like it whenever Sven goes outside his dungeon and he goes to certain places which tie in with the movie of the week. Like a car museum in one episode and in some others a horror convention or two. And he would collect some comments from fans and non-fans, some more historical facts or just tell a joke or two. It's just fun seeing this guy engaging outside and show us the sights.

So, if you're a horror movie fan or even a casual fan and you seek out horror movies or horror host TV, Svengoole is your guy, Saturday Nights with him are the night of your life.

Rating: 4 stars

The origin of "Svengoolie" is in a show called "Screaming Yellow Theatre" with Jerry Bishop as the Svengoolie character. When this show was cancelled, his young writer Rich Koz took up the mantle and "Son of Svengoolie" began airing on UHF channel WFLD-32 in Chicago. When WFLD became part of the FOX network in 1986, Son of Svengoolie was deemed "not suitable" and promptly discarded.

Finally, in 1993, after 7 years with FOX (with "The Koz Zone" and in other capacities) Koz resurrected the Svengoolie character and found a new home for the series on WCIU (a small local Chicago cable channel). Now simply called "Svengoolie", the show airs to this day, showing a long list of old science fiction and horror movies (mostly low budget) with gags, cheesy effects and skits thrown in during the segue to and from commercial.

Very funny and original idea which was a major influence on things like Mystery Science Theatre 3000.

At one time I wasn't as crazy in love as I am now about the Svengoolie show but times have changed and in case you haven't notice it, there are not many Horror Hosts left on cable TV! I can tell you where to find many though on the internet and that's at OSI 74 (my favorite of those is Cinema Insomnia with HH, Mr. Lobo). If you compare them all Svengoolie has the biggest budget, the best budget films (his show can afford to pay for the airing rights vs. Public domain movies), and the best writers, he's at the top of the Horror Host game in 2022. BTW, I usually prefer shows like MST3K and Rifftrax but those are not (IMO) Horror Hosts, they are talking DURING the film making jokes (which I love), where as a Horror Host talks and does skits preceding the film and the commercial breaks, not during the film. Plus a horror host usually gives out some trivia which I also love, riffing shows generally do not. There are ALWAYS people on IMdb who rate shows with a host a 1 because all they want to do is watch the film. Case in point, there are many 1 star reviews for MeTVs morning cartoon show, "Tune In With Me", which has a humorous host and cast (I rate it a 10 as well!). Just filter those cranky crazies out and enjoy Svengoolie because once this show is done there isn't much left in the way of horror host shows to watch other then the riffing shows. 10 out of 10!