Showing posts with label Creature Feature. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Creature Feature. Show all posts

Monday, October 11, 2010

Igor's not allowed


Because you just don't get quality local TV like Dr. San Guinary and Creature Feature anymore, you just don't get quality outtakes like this one anymore, either.

In this clip from 1977, Doc explains why Igor is not allowed to associate with certain horror-movie monsters. It would be untoward,
at a minimum.

Friday, September 24, 2010

Sick of Suttle? Vote for the San with the plan


Omaha always has loved a good joke.

Take the court jesters trying to recall Mayor Jim Suttle, for example. About a third of the steering committee doesn't even live in Omaha, couldn't vote for the mayor and certainly can't vote to recall him.

But they can tell you to. Now,
that's funny.

Almost as funny as a bunch of slumlords property owners and greasy-spoon hash slingers
restaurateurs trying to oust a mayor 14 months into his term, all because he's raising taxes, all because the city's broke. Oh . . . and because he hasn't gone beyond the past two years of budget cutting to decimate city services in ways the recall folks thus far have failed to specify.

Folks, that's comedy.


BUT WAIT . . . there's more. If the "concerned citizens" garner enough signatures, the recall election will cost $250,000 to $300,000 Omaha doesn't have.

And if voters give Suttle the ol' heave-ho, taxpayers could be on the hook for
another $300 grand -- $600 grand if there's a runoff. Like I said, Omahans love a good joke.

Sometimes we elect them. Other times, they ride in to tickle our funny bones unbidden.

Undoubtedly, recalling a mayor a year and a half into his term -- barring some high crime or misdemeanor -- is funny.

That non-Omahans are leading the charge is even funnier.

Racking up huge deficits to recall a mayor because he allegedly is taxing and spending too much . . . by God, that's getting pretty near pee-your-pants hilarious.

BUT IT'S ALL missing a certain something -- a coup de grace of ridiculous hilarity, so to speak.

That why, if the prairie Jacobins manage to oust Jim Suttle, I say we throw out the unintentional comics and let the professionals take over.

If Suttle's not our man, let's dig up San.

I'm talking about Dr. San Guinary, the late host of Creature Feature, the late-night horror movie on Channel 3 back in the day. That's the great thing about green-ghoul mad scientists -- being dead since 1988 is no obstacle to getting the job done.

Or undone, as the case may be.

Besides, it all makes sense. First, a funny mayor is a definite plus when something funny is definitely going on.

And second, this wouldn't be San Guinary's first time at the rodeo -- the Green One ran a spirited campaign for Omaha mayor in 1976 when Ed Zorinsky resigned to become Nebraska's junior U.S. senator. After drawing major celebrity endorsements in his bid to be interim mayor, he was unfortunately edged out by Robert Cunningham under, I am told, questionable circumstances.

FINALLY, San is just the man to bring stability to city hall in unsettled political times. There will be no attempt to scupper a San Guinary administration; there will be no flak from the City Council; there will be no recall attempts.

The new chief of staff, Igor, would make sure of it.

Sunday, August 01, 2010

Dinner and a (horror) movie


They don't do restaurant reviews like they used to.

For that matter, they don't make muscatel like they used to. And they damn sure don't make local television like they used to.

Where's Dr. San Guinary when you need him?

The ratings game, explained


Look at the television -- and radio -- biz as the Hundred Years' War.

Back when broadcasters were first itching for a fight, back when a radio was a big wooden box with glowing tubes inside, the War Between the Stations was a glorious cause, and Brand X was a dastardly foe worthy of one's best shot. We note above the enthusiasm which Dr. San Guinary enters the fray for
KMTV on the Omaha battlefield of the 1970s.

Yes, the combatants were full of piss and vinegar and, by God, Brand X would be finished off in a few months at worst. Think of the barbecue at Twelve Oaks at the start of
Gone With the Wind

BUT THE WAR drags on. And war is expensive. And you get politicians corporate execs who figure the ratings war can be fought on the cheap -- a calculated strategy for reducing taxpayers' burden increasing shareholder value.

The troops become weary, and morale flags. Then, on stage at an industry gathering, open dissent:


NOW, DECADES later, radio is all but dead. Local television is but a shell of its former self.

Dr. San Guinary was canceled in 1980 and, sadly, departed this mortal coil in 1988.

And today,
Channel 7 is hanging on, Channel 6 is known as Channel Sux, while the once-proud army for which the good doctor fought so . . . er . . . for which the good doctor fought so, is known simply by the results of its ratingskampf:

Channel Third.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

And you don't think Omaha's warped?




A couple of '70s classic bits from Doctor San Guinary and Creature Feature on Omaha's KMTV, Channel 3.

It's easy to see that the Doctor must have been wildly popular among adolescent males in particular. And the first bit -- with the Bible-story lady, Miss Jean, playing brilliantly against her straitlaced image -- is memorable.

Creature Feature meets Miss Jean's Storytime? With Miss Jean and her puppet getting in all the zingers?
Classic.

And, in the second bit . . . nothing more needs to be said about using a speculum to stop the bleeding of a severed head.

So, the next time you see a "staid" and "laconic" Midwesterner, remember there's likely a warped and disturbed individual lurking beneath the stereotype.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

What Mrs. San Guinary didn't know. . . .




What do kids today do without a local horror-movie host?

When I was growing up in Baton Rouge, we had Dr. Shock and Shock Theater on Channel 33, starting in 1971 or so. In Omaha, about the same time, there was Dr. San Guinary and Creature Feature on KMTV, Channel 3.

In both places, the sidekick's name was Igor.

Unfortunately for Baton Rouge, we did not have then-KMTV weathercaster Carol Scott as a special guest modeling a T-shirt. If Scott has a daughter, Omaha's now-Channel Third needs to hire her immediately.

I'm just sayin'.