Hazel Witch appeared a few
months after
Ghoulda (Geri Chronowit Roberts) left
WRVA's Shock! Theater in 1959 to get married. For a few weeks,
there was a fill in named "Destiny," who was not very compelling and
then a period without a host until Anna Inge stepped up to plate and
created a very different, very wild, over the top character.
Whereas Ghoulda had been
understated and dark, Hazel billed herself as the "Last of the Red Hot
Mamas," claiming a long line of iconoclastic witches in her family tree.
She had a butler named Jeeves and a son named Franklin who appeared on the set
with her, and she frequently drove around in a 1913 Ford provided by a
local dealership for the show and appearances.
Of course, for personal
transportation, she was a modern witch and had traded in her broom for a
vacuum cleaner.
With oddly garish makeup and
outlandish custom-made hats from Thalheimers (including a New Year's Eve
hat that included a live mouse), she would cackle and throw out her
catch phrase, "Hi precious!" with and exaggerated wink to people
everywhere. According to Anna, as the show caught on, she would
commonly find herself out on a date and people would come up to her and
say, "Hi precious!"
She did a tremendous number
of personal appearances from ball games to restaurants to store
openings. Her autograph was very much in demand and the station
kept her incredibly busy. She attributes a good deal of the
success to the engagement with the community and it was common for her
to come on at night and begin with commentary about the day's news
before launching into what had been planned.
Initially, they just did
an intro for the film, but soon they began working on elaborate skits in
between segments of the movies. She scripted her own shows and
brought on guests like the mayor of Richmond and her own mother who
removed her teeth on camera and scolded her for abandoning the broom.
Her shows were taped week
to week (though no footage is known to survive), and included an opening
that featured her flying over the city on the vacuum. She also
tried to make some connection to the movie each weekend, claiming most
of the subjects of the films were former boyfriends.
In the end, the show
exhausted Anna. She was the producer and director of women's show
as well and like many people at the time, she did many jobs as needed.
However, as a woman, she was getting paid exactly half of her male
counterparts and she found it was wearing her down beyond the
compensation.
In 1961, she moved to
Dayton, Ohio, to live with relatives while she saved enough money to
move back to New York to return to musical comedy. However, there
she met Gordon Jump of (WKRP in Cincinnati fame) and moved to
California where she lives today.
Feed your Need
. . .
Why should you have
to go one more weekend without your favorite ghoul? You
don't live in Communist China! (And if you do, then all the
more reason to get the film!)
Order your copy of Virginia Creepers for just $20!
Get
VA Creepers AND the groovy lobby card shown at the right for just
$25