Svengoolie

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.

This nightmare theater is fun. I enjoy everything about that this show. Every part of it is pure entertainment! Reminds me of the fun Friday nights watching Nightmare Theater in the 1970's when I was a kid!

When Screaming Yellow Threatre was on the air in the early 70's, the identity of Svengoolie was a thinly veiled Secret. Many viewers knew that the part was played by WFLD's main announcer, Jerry G. Bishop. I enjoyed watching the segues into and out of the movies and the commercials. There were loads of cheesy props and rubber chickens and cries of Berwyn! (a Chicago suburb) Once a plywood coffin collapsed amidst the laughter of Svengoolie and stage hands alike and they cut right back to the movie. I ran into Mr. Bishop at a social gathering in the mid-70's, several years after Screaming Yellow Theatre was off the air. I expressed my admiration for his character Svengoolie. He responded, "He's dead, man! Let him Rest in Peace." Berwyn!

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.

I'm surprised there aren't more comments here, since probably every horror fan in the suburbs of Chicago grew up aware of Svengoolie. Host Richard Koz employs every trick in the horror host book (and invents a few along the way) to assault the viewer's comic sensibilities between commercial breaks. The humor is terrible and falls along the lines of bad puns, corny song parodies, and rubber chickens catapulted by mysterious off-screen forces. Like all horror hosts worth their salt, Svengoolie seems more satisfied to elicit groans than laughs, but if you're watching movies like Attack of the Puppet People or House of Dracula, you probably don't have enough discretion or self-respect to care anyway. By which I mean, it's all part of the campy charm.

I'm not much a fan of so-bad-they're-good movies, so I tend to watch Svengoolie in thirty-minute increments before losing patience and changing the channel, or leave it on as background ambiance while doing other things, but every so often I get caught up in a film and wind up watching the whole thing. You'd be surprised how good some bad movies actually are, and the movies chosen for the show tend to fall into the category of "misguided" rather than "incompetently made."

My only real complaint about Svengoolie's approach is his extensive use of sound effects (usually audio clips from shows like Animaniacs or The Simpsons) during the film. I find them distracting rather than funny, especially in cases where it takes a moment to determine that they aren't actually part of the film itself. Sometimes the sound effects are kept to a minimum (or not used at all) while in other episodes they splash across the audio landscape with irritating frequency.

But that's a minor complaint. Svengoolie is an interesting Chicagoland curio that keeps alive the schlocky spirit of TV hosts past. Fans of B-grade horror thrills will want to keep an eye on this one.