Horror hosting began in the Commonwealth of Virginia on February 6, 1958.  The show, Nightmare Theater was hosted by "Jonathan," a.k.a John Willett and it appeared on Roanoke's WSLS, Channel 10 on Saturday AND Sunday nights at 11:05 . . . after the traditional 5 minute news round up was concluded. 

 In a familiar story, WSLS acquired the Shock Theater package and the station staff wanted to do something special with the format.

Dick Burton who produced and directed Nightmare Theater, said in our interviews that as far as they knew, they were the only show of their kind in the country, having never heard of Vampira or Zacherle or the like.  "Everything we did, we dreamed up," said Burton.  "We had nothing to copy."

Burton, Willett and station artist, Scotty Doyle got together to design the set and create the tone of the series and drawing vaguely from the Addams Family cartoons, they put together a show that would go out live on Saturday evenings.  A few hours before the show, Willet and Burton would dream up ideas and put them into action, including two camera special effects.  And there was no oversight, so they could do whatever they could put together.

Using a pan of water and an overlapping camera trick, they created a wavy ripple effect for their viewers.  On another occasion, using Burton as a body double, they separated Jonathan's head from his body, floating it around the room for an astounded audience.

Jonathan's character was something of a "dignified," manor squire with a deference for dear old "Mother," who is seen in the picture on the wall.  She never made an appearance, but asserted her influence routinely.  There were very few commercials and the program was allowed to run with few interruptions other than the bumpers.  

The show was very popular, but ended after one year.  This may have been partly because the entire catalog of films was exhausted quickly with showings on Saturday and Sunday (though no hosting was done Sunday.)  In those days, it was common for shows to run one year and then be replaced, and for some reason, in February of 1959, the station began running westerns in that timeslot.