House of Frankenstein . . . Saturday night . . . a Halloween special!

It was 1975 and I was a 10 year old monster kid.  My friend, Ricky, told me there was going to be this big special on WAVY TV10, a late night horror film with all the great monsters and a crazy doctor hosting the movie.  I have no idea how he found out about it, but we decided this would be the night.  THE NIGHT!  The night we stayed up until dawn, faced all the monsters . . . the night we became men, damn it . . . or at least full fledged upper pre-teens.

As fate would have it--and it was a fateful evening indeed--it was the second big event for me in developing my love of horror and sci-fi (the first bing a theater showing of the original King Kong).  In fact, without that special, I doubt if there would be a Virginia Creepers movie at all . . .

Dr. Madblood's Movie (the original title of the show) has run off and on for more than 30 years on the airwaves around the Tidewater region of Virginia, though it is currently on a broadcast hiatus.  It's first run, from 1975-1982, was incredibly successful.  When the show first aired, Jerry was told no one would be watching, but nearly 150 viewers called in at 2:45 AM to answer the trivia question:  "who is the woman who plays the gypsy girl, Ilonka,  in House of Frankenstein?"  (Elena Verdugo, by the way).   And many of them got it right . . . and remember, this is waaaaay before IMDB.  It was a great indicator of how successful the first show was and how successful it would become.

Originally, the show had just three characters--Dr. Madblood, retired Viennese mad scientist; Volly, a strangely tall dwarven henchman with the communication acumen of Harpo Marx; and "The Brain," a cranial incarnation of a sardonic stand-up comedian floating in a fish bowl and made available through the Green Stamps catalog.  Mark Young played Volly, but soon he had to give up the role to accept other responsibilities at WAVY.

The gap left was a catalyst, however, for the development of a number of remarkable characters, starting with Count Lacudra, a dapper vampire, played by DJ Mike Arlo.   Arlo has also given life to Kid Exorcist (a boxing priest), Taloose Latrine (an impressionist painter) and my personal favorite, Dusty the Crop Duster.  Dusty always seemed to be making runs to distant places, but to my knowledge he never dusted any crops.  Hmmmm . . . .

Other folks, particularly a bevy of evocative female characters played by Donna Garris, Susie Weston, Sheree Bernardi and Sooze Refo rotated in and out of the castle madness.  And then in 1980, Craig T. Adams joined the cast playing many characters, most significantly The Brain and Max Madblood's time traveling uncle,  Felonious Madblood.  But that is hardly the limit--Steve Abrahmson and Jim Stanley were frequent contributors as well at Joe Penque who played everything from a mild mannered local druggist, Elmo Hummer, to the evil Dr. Rader, Madblood's nemisis.  The show even inspired a fan club whose president, Carter Perry became an integral part of the Madblood gang.

It is no wonder that at one point it commanded two different timeslots on the weekend and came in second only to college football on Saturday afternoons with as many as 52,000 viewers.  With Old Dominion University and William & Mary College, a local population starving for some homegrown (ahem) entertainment and a good portion of the U.S. Navy stationed in Norfolk, it found wide and devoted audience.

In 1982, Dr. Madblood's Night Visions was introduced on statewide PBS stations and syndicated briefly in New England, but the show was limited to public domain features and only lasted about a year.

After a couple of Halloween specials, including a fondly remembered showing of Brides of Dracula, Dr. Madblood began a run on WTVZ 33 that lasted from 1989-2002 with a few breaks and lots of schedule changes.  New characters emerged, most notably Nurse Patience Dream (Penny Palen) and Sybil of the Swamp (Jewell Willis).   While the timeslot went from the sublime to the silly, still Madblood had some great Fox titles to show including Godzilla 1985, Arachnophobia, and Planet of the Apes.

When the Fox show had run its course, Dr. Madblood immediately found his way to SKY TV 4 in prime time, where "Friday Night Frights" and "Madblood Presents" began showing various films, episodes of Boris Karloff's Thriller, Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Rod Serling's Night Gallery.  This show, which aired from 2002 until 2007, was very popular and the gang even got to film in the beautiful Heritage Museum.  More and more characters began to emerge and the show took on a new life and shape around the new digs.

Dr. Madblood currently (2008) resides in cyberspace at www.madblood.net in one of the most amazing websites you will ever see.  You can enter his mansion and explore many rooms of artifacts and clips from 30 odd years of television.  And given the doctor's resilience, can another show be far behind?

FAN CONTRIBUTIONS

I do want to say my brothers and I grew up watching Dr. Madblood. Before camcorders, we thought we were high tech when we got a tape recorder. Of course the first thing we did was record the Madblood episodes so we could listen to them again the next day. I wish we still had those tapes.

It saddens me that they don't have shows like this around anymore. The movies were tame and corny and hooky but the "hosts" made it all better! Whenever I go home to Norfolk I try to catch Dr Madblood specials whenever they are scheduled to come on. I also enjoy going to the Chesapeake Library for the monster movies.

Well that is my two cents worth. I miss Dr Madblood and have wonderful memories of me and my brother's staying up late on a Saturday night and getting scared out of our wits. Thanks for listening and I can't wait for the movie.