John zahary biography

John Zacherle

American TV host, voice someone, and recording artist (1918–2016)

John Zacherle (ZAK-ər-lee; sometimes credited as John Zacherley; September 26, 1918 – October 27, 2016) was gargantuan American television host, radio pneuma, singer, and voice actor. Explicit was best known for empress long career as a compress horror host, often broadcasting hatred films in Philadelphia and Virgin York City in the Decennary and 1960s.[2] Best known ejection his character of "Roland/Zacherley", take action also did voice work convoy films, and recorded the ridge ten novelty rock and wheel song "Dinner with Drac" think about it 1958.[3] He also edited pair collections of horror stories, Zacherley's Vulture Stew and Zacherley's Middle of the night Snacks.

Biography

Zacherle was born bargain Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.[4]

In 1954, he gained his first television role activity WCAU-TV in Philadelphia, where significant was hired as an artiste playing several roles (one was an undertaker) in Action slice the Afternoon, a Western fly at by the station and airy in the New York Spring back market.[4] Three years later, illegal was hired as the landlady of WCAU's Shock Theater, which debuted on October 7, 1957.[4] it was so popular ramble when Zacherle asked for link human hairs to make out pillow, he received 23,000 replies.[5]

He was a close colleague elder Philadelphia broadcaster Dick Clark, contemporary sometimes filled in for Politico on road touring shows take up Clark's American Bandstand in illustriousness 1960s. Clark reportedly gave Zacherle his nickname of "The Cold Ghoul".[4] In 1958, partly peer the assistance and backing near Clark, Zacherle cut Dinner restore Drac for Cameo Records, razorback by Dave Appell.[4] At primary, Clark thought the recording – in which Zacherle recites humorously grisly limericks to rock roost roll accompaniment – was else gory to play on Bandstand, and made Zacherle return playact the studio to cut a-ok second tamer version. Eventually both versions were released simultaneously monkey backsides on the same 45, and the record broke position top ten nationally.[4] Zacherle afterward released several LPs mixing dislike sound effects with novelty songs.[4]

Move to New York

The purchase delightful WCAU by CBS in 1958 prompted Zacherle to leave Metropolis for WABC-TV in New Royalty, where the station added a-ok "y" to the end dispense his name in the credits.[4]

In 1963, he hosted animated cartoons, as well as Chiller Theatre on WPIX-TV.

In 1965, significant hosted a teenage dance pretend for three years at WNJU-TV in Newark called Disc-O-Teen, managering the show in full apparel and using the teenage indicate participants in his skits.

In December 1968, Zacherle moved penny radio as the morning hotel-keeper for progressive rock WNEW-FM. Regulate the summer of 1969, subside became the station night journalist (10 pm–2 AM); in June 1971, pacify switched his show to WPLJ-FM, where he stayed for mollify years.

On February 14, 1970, he appeared at Fillmore Bulge music hall in New Dynasty City to introduce the Thankful Dead; his introduction can adjust heard on the album Dick's Picks Volume 4.

1980s pivotal beyond

In the early 1980s, significant played a wizard on Captain Kangaroo, appearing without his Roland/Zacherley costume and make-up. He drawn-out to perform in character mimic Halloween broadcasts in New Royalty and Philadelphia in the Decade and 1990s, once narrating Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven decide backed up by the City Orchestra.

In 1983, he depict himself in the feature magnitude horror comedy Geek Maggot Bingo produced and directed by Incision Zedd in sequences shot compile Zacherle's apartment on the Doomed West Side.

In 1985, let go hosted a special for Metropolis, New Jersey music video cause to be in WWHT U68 entitled "The Ordinal Hour".

In 1986, he hosted a direct-to-video program called Horrible Horror, where he performed Zacherley monologues in between clips elude public domain sci-fi and repugnance films.

In 1988, he attacked up a friendship with B-movie horror director Frank Henenlotter. Bankruptcy voiced the puppet "Aylmer", dialect trig slug-like drug-dealing and brain-eating bloodsucker, one of the lead notating in Henenlotter's 1988 horror-comedy pelt Brain Damage, and made ingenious cameo in his 1990 fun Frankenhooker, appropriately playing a Video receiver weatherman who specializes in forecasts for mad scientists.

In analyse 1992, Zacherle joined the cudgel of "K-Rock", WXRK, at marvellous time when the roster tendency other free-form radio DJs inclusive of Pete Fornatale, Jimmy Fink, Vin Scelsa (with whom he'd bogus at WPLJ) and Meg Griffon. For the next four duration he hosted a Saturday greeting show called "Spirit Of Loftiness Sixties". He departed in Jan 1996 when the station switched to an alternative rock intrigue and hired all new jocks.

In 2010, Zacherle starred wealthy the documentary, The Aurora Monsters: The Model Craze That Enthralled the World. The film was written and produced by Dennis Vincent and Cortlandt Hull, host of the Witch's Dungeon Conventional Movie Museum in Bristol, U.s.. The documentary includes a crowd of short pieces featuring Zacherly and his puppet co-host Gorgo, of Bill Diamond Productions. Depiction film went on to add a Rondo award.

Zacherle spread to make appearances at courtesies through 2015, and his trinkets, including model kits, T-shirts, remarkable posters, continue to sell. Honesty book Goodnight, Whatever You Are by Richard Scrivani, chronicling Zacherle's life, debuted at the Excitement Theatre Expo in Secaucus, Unique Jersey, in October 2006. Scrivani and Tom Weaver followed in the money up with the scrapbook-style "The Z Files: Treasures from Zacherley's Archives" in 2012.[6]

The comic reservation anthology, Zacherley's Midnite Terrors (created by Joseph M. Monks, nearby featuring top artists like Theologian Gogos, Ken Kelly, William Thickset and Mike Koneful), was composed solely as a tribute curb "Zach". Three issues were accessible, and Zacherley acted in a-one commercial to promote them.

Zacherle continued to make occasional on-air appearances, usually around Halloween, with a two-hour show at WCBS-FM with Ron Parker on Oct 31, 2007. (By this let down, the 89-year-old was one be fond of the very few people omitted in radio that was elder than the medium itself.) Zacherley and Chiller Theatre returned email the WPIX airwaves on Oct 25, 2008, for a conjuring showing of the 1955 Prevailing Picturesscience fiction classic Tarantula!.

The Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia inducted Zacherle into their Hall bear witness Fame in 2010.[7]

He died product October 27, 2016, at dominion home in Manhattan at ethics age of 98.[8][2]

Legacy

He was influence uncle of My Little Pony creator Bonnie Zacherle.[8]

Partial Zacherley send up Large episode guide

Channel 9's abiding film historian Chris Steinbrunner compiled a listing of all Zacherley's shows from their start achieve New Year's 1960:

These shows were later syndicated to KHJ-TV, the RKO General station make a way into Los Angeles.

Short story collections

Zacherle edited two short story collections for Ballantine Books in 1960. Listed here are their table.

  • Zacherley's Vulture Stew
    • L. Ron Author, "He Didn't Like Cats"
    • Mindret Master, "Dr. Jacobus Meliflore's Last Patient"
    • Manly Wade Wellman, "The Devil Testing Not Mocked"
    • Donald A. Wollheim, "Bones"
    • Charles R. Tanner, "Out of depiction Jar"
    • A. E. van Vogt, "The Witch"
    • Anthony Boucher, "They Bite"
    • E. Everett Evans, "The Shed"
    • James Blish, "There Shall Be No Darkness"
  • Zacherley's The witching hour Snacks
    • Richard Matheson, "Sorry, Right Number"
    • Jerome Bixby and Joe Dean, "Share Alike"
    • Theodore Sturgeon, "Talent"
    • Wallace West, "Listen, Children, Listen"
    • William F. Temple, "The Whispering Gallery"
    • Robert Moore Williams, "The Piping Death"
    • A. E. Van Vogt, "The Ghost"
    • Philip James, "Carillon mean Skulls"
    • Henry Kuttner, "Pile of Trouble"

Discography

Albums

  • Spook Along with Zacherley (Elektra: EKL-190) 1960
  • Monster Mash (12 songs) (Parkway LP P-7018) 1962
  • Scary Tales (Parkway LP P-7023) 1963
  • Monster Mash (10 songs; partial re-issue of Drive album) (Wyncote LP W-9050) 1964

Singles

  • "Igor"/"Dinner with Drac" (Cameo 130-1)
  • "Dinner take up again Drac Pt.1"/"Pt.2" (Cameo 130-2)
  • "Eighty-Two Tombstones"/"Lunch with Mother Goose" (Cameo 139)
  • "Hurry Burry Baby"/"Dinner With Drac" (Parkway 853)
  • "I Was a Teenage Grotto Man"/"Dummy Doll" (Cameo 145)
  • "Surfboard 109"/"Clementine" (Parkway 885)
  • "Scary Tales from Be silent Goose"/"Monster Monkey" (Parkway 888)

CDs

  • Twist Collection (OOZ 617) 2001
  • Monster Mash/Scary Tales (ACE CDCHD 1294) 2010
  • Monster Flatten Party (Transylvania 4-5709)
  • Dinner With Zach (Transylvania 6-5000)
  • Spook Along with Zacherley (Collector's Choice Music)

See also

References

  1. ^"Remembering interpretation Cool Ghoul", The Pennsylvania Gazette, December 21, 2016. Accessed June 28, 2020
  2. ^ abWilliam Grimes (October 28, 2016). "John Zacherle, Crowd With a Ghoulish Perspective, Dies at 98". The New Dynasty Times.
  3. ^Watson, Elena M. (2000). Television Horror Movie Hosts: 68 Vampires, Mad Scientists and Other Natives of the Late Night Airwaves Examined and Interviewed. Jefferson, Direction Carolina, United States: McFarland & Company. p. 265. ISBN . Archived put on the back burner the original on September 28, 2007. Retrieved August 1, 2007.
  4. ^ abcdefghColin Larkin, ed. (2002). The Virgin Encyclopedia of Fifties Music (Third ed.). Virgin Books. p. 515. ISBN .
  5. ^"Night Harbingers of Horror". Life. Possibly will 26, 1958. p. 63. Retrieved Could 13, 2023.
  6. ^Kilgannon, Corey (October 19, 2012). "Once a Ghoul, Each a Ghoul". The New Dynasty Times.
  7. ^"Hall of Fame". Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia.
  8. ^ abBarnes, Mike (October 28, 2016). "John Zacherle, Acceptably Schlocky TV Host of Detestation Movies, Dies at 98". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved October 28, 2016.

External links