Chiller

[Jeff]

Any "Chiller Theater" fan will remember Sinister Seymour, the host. As the theme music played, the high-pitched voice of his unseen foil, "Herkimer Eugenski," would welcome us by saying, "Good Evening, Fringies! Welcome to Seymour Presents! ... and here he is, the Master of the Macabre, the Epitome of Evil, THE MOST SINSTER MAN TO CRAWL THE FACE OF THE EARTH ... Seymour!" SS then made his appearance from behind a moss-covered brick wall, seemingly from a cloud of fog, always elegantly attired in wide-brimmed fedora, ruffled shirt and an undertaker’s suit. Seymour introduced the movies and made sarcastic comments about them. One of his gimmicks involved him trying to crash an ongoing party while another saw him trying to scam a pizza. It was classic TV for sure.

[Dave]

I remember when "Chiller" was broadcast on both Friday And Saturday nights sponsored by some used car dealership on Adams Avenue. The films were introduced by some frightening masked characters whom I assume were WHTN employees. At that time WHTN was showing the AIP classics as well as obscure titles like "The Lost Missile," "The Pharaoh's Curse," "The Vampire Bat," and "Supernatural" with Carole Lombard. I don't remember when they cut the Friday night broadcast, but the format on the Saturday night broadcast changed to "Triple Chiller," and they began to show the old Universal classics. What great memories you've brought back to me! Did you ever go to the movies at the old Beverly Theater?

[Monster Fan]

"Chiller Theater" is one of the more common names given to Horror Host shows. There are dozens of "Chiller Theaters" that aired in various places at various times across the country! Many northern West Virginians automatically think "Chilly Billy Cardille" when they hear the name. Then, of course, there was the Sinister Seymour version. Produced out of state and syndicated across the country, the Sinister Seymour version has fans in many states. During the ’60s, WHTN aired a home-grown "Chiller Theater" without a host for years as well as showing the later syndicated Seymour show. The station also had a hosted show produced in their own studio for some time during the late ’60s, but I haven’t been able to find any details.

[Sixties TV]

WSAZ aired "Shockwatch.” Rival station WHTN picked up the horror audience with "Chiller" on Friday nights and "Chiller Theater" on Saturday nights. The latter aired until around 1967. These shows were, according to the memories of those still working at the station, routine movie shows with voice-over announcing. Viewers remember that WHTN did have a horror host sometime during the ‘60s. Dan Terango has been mentioned as being connected with that show.
"Shock!" came to West Virginia in 1959. The first local station to acquire the package was Huntington’s WSAZ, Channel 3. The station’s regular 11:15 p.m. movie show, "Nitewatch," began mutating into something more sinister than the suspense, thriller and war pictures that generally aired in that time slot. Newspaper ads warned "faint hearts" NOT to watch "The Neanderthal Man." The next week’s ad warned, "If you thought ‘The Neanderthal Man’ was gruesome, wait ‘til you see ‘The Creeping Unknown’!" The next two months brought films like "The Beast with 5 Fingers," "UFO" and "Sabaka" (featuring Boris Karloff), with the steady stream of horror movies culminating in the Fourth of July presentation of "Frankenstein," the flagship of the "Shock!" package.
Along with the introduction of the "Shock!" movies, WSAZ also unveiled the host of its new show, a ghoulish figure with sunken black eyes in a craggy white face, dressed in black cape and top hat, named "Gaylord." The Saturday night show was dubbed "Shockwatch" and a new weekend ritual for Huntington horror fans was born. The highpoint of "Shockwatch" was its first Halloween special - a double feature of "House of Horror" and "Dracula." Costume contests and a Halloween celebration ran into the wee hours.
"Gaylord" was played by WSAZ news announcer Fred Briggs. His character, like many of the early horror hosts, was grimly sardonic and deliberately ghoulish. He played the keyboards and cracked bad puns with gravelly sincerity. His motto was "Have Casket, Will Travel!" He was WV’s first homegrown horror host but his reign didn’t last long. In addition to portraying Gaylord, Briggs was a talented newsman. In less than two years, he left WSAZ to work as a reporter and anchorman for WSB-TV in Atlanta. He went on to be a correspondent for NBC and won an Emmy in 1969 for his reporting on black lung disease. Gaylord lived up to his motto and traveled with his casket to WBFF in Baltimore. While working for that station, he revived his ghoulish alter ego during the early ‘70s. This new Gaylord show was produced by George Lewis, who would go on to create his own horror host character in the very popular "Ghost Host" show. Briggs had a long and distinguished career as a news correspondent, appearing on NBC broadcasts up until the late ‘80s. He died of cancer in 1995 at the age of 67.
WSAZ dropped "Shockwatch" when Briggs departed. Rival station WHTN picked up the horror audience with "Chiller" on Friday nights and "Chiller Theater" on Saturday nights. The latter aired until around 1967. These shows were, according to the memories of those still working at the station, routine movie shows with voice-over announcing.

[Chiller Fan]

Does any remember when Barnabas Collins (Johnathan Frid)did the opening for Chiller on WHTN (now WOWK) in Hunginton, West Virginia? Wouldn't it be great if that tape survived? I called the station but they acted as if they had never heard of Chiller since it went way back to the 1980s. I guess everyone there wasn't born in the '80s.

[Jeff Easley]

People posting on these forums might enjoy the book"TV Horror Hosts",published by McFarland books.As I recall,little if any info on Ky. area hosts but a fun read nontheless....

[Hoosier Daddy]

Dan Terrango probably did the opening of Chiller on WHTN in the 1960s. Last I heard, Dan was working in the Clarksburg WV area, but I'm not sure if he's still in TV or radio. WHTN (and later - WSAZ - weather man) Tom Riley did some V/O work for WHTN in the 70s, but his voice was way too mellow for Chiller.

Louie Mueller did some stuff for WHTN back in the day. He's best remembered as longtime Big 80 KEE morning man and chief engineer "Jimmy Mack". What a set of pipes! I believe Louie passed away several years ago.

JB Miller didn't start doing voice over work for Channel 13 until probably the late 70s or early 80s. He is now the morning man/program director at Magic 97.9 in Huntington.

[Ornithomimus Rhamphoryncus]

Old guy posting, with strong memories. Strong, but damaged from the wear of years.

In the early 1960s to the early 1970s, WHTN's CHILLER had interstitials with a story line, told over the course of the movie presentation. These bracketed the commercials. They featured performers wearing off-the-shelf generic Uncle Creepy-style monster masks: witchy faces, big poofy shocks of white hair. In the early years, there were new weekly sketches, but as the 60s wore on and blanched into the 70s, the number of different sets of sketches was reduced, and old ones retired. Eventually, there were only a very few sets of these light-hearted homegrown horror dramas that were regularly rotated.

Among the sketches I remember:
A monster-masked guy walking home, finding the severed head of his friend, played by a monster mask on the ground.

A romantic young monster-headed couple on a park bench at night in what appeared to be a graveyard. I think one of them was dead.

A guy wearing a suit made of christmas-tree lights, photographed out of focus, moaning that he was lost in extradimensional space. This was the last of the interstitials used on WHTN's CHILLER, and was eventually used EVERY DAMN WEEK until these segments were dropped entirely in the early 70s.

For several years after that, the CHILLER movies aired with no introduction or interstitals. The special super fun was gone. In the late 1970s, the Elvira and Seymour syndicated packages were broadcast in the CHILLER slot, until CHILLER went away forever in the 80s or 90s.

It would be a treat to see any of those vintage CHILLER interstitials again, or at least find out more about them. Who wore the masks, who wrote and produced, etc. The old movies themselves that served as the basis for CHILLER are easily available on DVD, sometimes in packs of fifty for $10. The host segments, which to me are the most fondly-remembered parts of the show, seem to be lost to history.

[announcer type]

The Chiller "characters" in the mid 60's, when I was there,were floor crew members. Cameramen, primarily. They came up with many of the themes. One which was not popular with management at the time, was the station's black janitor lying in a casket. A ghoul limps by and the janitor arises and looks wide-eyed into the camera. At that instant the picture was changed to "negative," so the black guy turned white. It was a great bit, but only aired one time.

[Greg]

I remember when whtn (now wowk) played Chiller. I couldn't wait for the weekend to watch it. Some of the movies that they played were stupid, but for the time period they were made, wouldn't to bad.

I liked when they played Boris Karloff, Lon Channey, and Vincent Price movies.

Not like today, after Chiller, you'd have the airing of the same 11:00 news at 1:30 AM and the playing of the National Anthem and then those almighty words; this concludes our regularly scheduled broadcast day.

[bassman]

Someone else remembers the show on WSAZ 3. I grew up watching it there. Thanks for the memories of childhood and home! Fell right behind Shirley Love and wrestling!!

[Phil From Philly]

Hey, I keep remembering a very cool commercial for Chiller Theater in my local area of the northeastern Philly suburbs. It was a bunch of B&W clips(one, the hand coming up out of the lake from Carnival Of Souls) and and unusually upbeat little electronic ditty. Do any of you remember or (MIRACLE OF MIRACLES) know where I might find that clip? Our local UHF channel started to run the ad in the late Summer of the mid to late 60's. It was haunting.

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