Dr. Gruesome's
Movie Morgue

From his castle somewhere in the Richmond tri-cities area, the kindly Dr. Gruesome (Mark Bartholomew) welcomes viewers to watch his collection of outstanding horror, monster and science fiction motion pictures . . . and enjoy the pleasures of fringe science and hunchback torture.

Unfortunately Skeeter (Matt Pak), Doc's half-witted hunchback assistant with the eye-patch and rainbow colored hair, always seems to interrupt  him and make a shambles of his presentation.  However, Skeeter's TV  contract (written on a roll of toilet paper) gives Doc the right to use Skeeter's body in any number of informative, entertaining and extremely painful experiments for the home audience's edification.   But sometimes Dr. Gruesome has to moonlight as a TV game show host, because while torturing the hunchback is all fine and good, it doesn't pay the bills.

From January of 1988 through the summer of 1995, Dr. Gruesome's Movie Morgue was a fixture of Richmond television.  In a time when most of the nation's horror hosts were off the air due to changes in TV via syndications, infomercials and the explosion of cable, Richmond's new channel 35, had room to open up the programming and needed a show to support its movie package.  After a few "Bad Movie Weekends," featuring Mark Bartholomew and Matt Pak, a kid friendly show was developed around the horror movie package.  With enough in the budget for two cans of paint, Dr. Gruesome's Movie Morgue was born.

The show was exceedingly successful by any standard during it's seven year run on two different channels.  At one point it held a 49% share of its timeslot of its midnight Saturday time slot . . . in other words, basically half of Richmond's TV audience was watching Dr. Gruesome cut up with (and often cut up on) Skeeter.  The show also developed several different recurring characters over the years including Mr. Psycho (seen in the photo to the right), Barney the Bat, Devil Duck, Swinging Count Dave, Jacques Talbeaux, The Lovely Jennelle, Nurse Gnarla, Verner and Mogo the Gorilla.

The show became very fan oriented with lots of opportunities to interact with the Doc and Skeeter.  In fact, for a while, the show was actually done LIVE on Richmond's Blab TV, once again a throw back to the early days of television.  Now and then, there was a live audience and occaisionally, fans could call in and participate.  As the show developed, fans looked forward to some top notch entertainment with Dr. Gruesome's World of Science viewers wrote in with suggestions for experiments for Doc to perform on Skeeter and Wheel of
Torture  in which Skeeter would play against such formidable opponents such as a balloon on a stick and a chocolate cake,  and the loser would have to "pay the penalty."  Guess who always lost . . .

After 1995, the show returned now and then with Halloween, Christmas and Summer specials.  In fact, as this article is being composed in the early summer of 2008, the Doc and his hapless assistant are preparing a special for Fox 35 and MyNetwork TV viewers in the Richmond area.  Could this be the beginning of a return to good old fashioned torment on the airwaves?

Dr. Gruesome's Show History

Dr. Gruesome's Movie Morgue
Saturday Noon-2 p.m. and 11 p.m.-1 a.m.,
then Friday, midnight-2 a.m.
then Saturday 1 a.m.-3 a.m.
WRLH-TV, Fox 35 (Richmond, Virginia)
January 1988-April 1990

Dr. Gruesome's Movie Morgue
Friday 8-10 p.m.
BLAB-TV, commercial cable-only station (Richmond, Virginia)
August 1990 - May 1992
Most shows aired live

Dr. Gruesome's Movie Morgue
Saturday 1-3 a.m.
WRLH-TV Fox Richmond (Richmond, Virginia)
June 1993 - August 1995
June 1996 (Summer special)
October 1996 (Halloween special)

2007 - Present
WRLH-TV Fox Richmond and WRLH-2 My TV Richmond (Richmond, Virginia)
October 2007 (Halloween special)
December 2007 (Christmas special)

© 2008, Horse Archer Productions, LLC  All Rights Reserved.