Creature Double Feature
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| Creature Double Feature | |
|---|---|
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| Genre | Movie showcase |
| Creator(s) | Kaiser Broadcasting (1972-1977) Field Communications (1977-1983) Tribune Broadcasting (2006) |
| Starring | various Ernie Boch Jr. (2006-) |
| Country of origin | USA |
| No. of episodes | unknown |
| Production | |
| Running time | 3 hours (1972-1983) 4 hours (2006-) |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | WLVI |
| Original run | 1972 (first run) 2006 (second run) – 1983 (first run) ongoing (second run) |
Creature Double Feature and shows like it were staples of local television markets through the 1970s and early 1980s; sometimes also aired under names like Sci-Fi Flix and Creature Feature. The movies broadcast on the various shows were taken from the classic Universal Horror movies of the 1930s to 1950s, the Hammer Studios and American International Pictures films of the 1950s, Roger Corman's horror films of the 1960s, and Toho Studio's "giant monster" (known in Japanese as either kaiju or tokusatsu) movies of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s.
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[edit] Air times
Creature Double Feature usually aired on Saturday afternoons. Because it aired after the traditional Saturday morning cartoon time block, it introduced many younger viewers to classic (and not-so-classic) monster movies. In other cities it aired either on Friday night or Saturday night.
[edit] Later history
TV horror shows of this sort started becoming more scarce during the early and mid-1980s; partly because acquiring broadcast rights for these films became considerably more expensive in the wake of a wave of studio mergers during that decade.
However, as more and more television stations become owned by these same corporate entities, this matter has become somewhat rectified. The return of the show to the Boston TV market (albeit on a currently limited basis) is a sign of this.
[edit] Boston
Beginning in 1972 a station in the Kaiser Broadcasting (later Field Communications) chain, WKBG (Channel 56; WLVI after the Boston Globe sold their share back to Kaiser in 1975) aired its collection of Godzilla movies - one per week at 4 pm on Saturday under the title, The 4 O'Clock Movie. They cycled through their collection twice, noticing that the broadcasts were especially popular with youngsters. Then, they started showing the film at midnight, calling it Creature Feature. The ratings became so popular that the show was moved to noon to increase its ratings. However, it was in direct competition with WCVB-TV's Candlepin Bowling and was moved to the 2 pm time slot. Its popularity grew and they tweaked the title to Creature Double Feature and changed its start time to 1 pm. The show quickly became a staple of the station's Saturday programming schedule during the '70s and early '80s. Although the exact date of the final show is currently unknown, it seems to have petered out sometime in 1983.
To this day WLVI staffers report that they still receive more e-mail and phone calls about Creature Double Feature than anything else. In 2006, channel 56's Steve Ratner was quoted in the Boston Globe as saying "I'm amazed at the following the show continues to have. It's just insane how many people come up to us and ask after the Creature Double Feature. Every day we get e-mails from people all over the country." However, the station is unlikely to revive the show on their own since that timeslot is usually used now for infomercials, from which the station makes a considerable amount of income.
In June 2006, The Boston Herald reported that Boston-area car dealership owner Ernie Boch, Jr. would be bringing the show back to WLVI - at its original timeslot - on an occasional basis. The first program of the new series aired on June 24, 2006. The two films shown on this occasion were Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster and The Giant Gila Monster. Boch himself hosted the show in full makeup as The Ghoul, though the original show never had a host - only announcers. A second episode aired on October 28, 2006, featuring 1973's Horror Express followed by the original 1968 Night of the Living Dead.
The show's original announcers were reportedly Ron Dwyer and Tom Evans. During most of its run, however, the show's announcer was Dale Dorman, a Boston radio personality at WRKO who also frequently did voice work for 56's children's programming. Although Dorman's voice was perfect for this kind of work, it was never well-suited to an afternoon of horror movies.
The intro/outro music used for Creature Double Feature throughout its run was Emerson, Lake & Palmer's "Toccata" from Brain Salad Surgery. WLVI has kept the song as the theme of the 2006 revival. It is not yet known if current WLVI owners Sunbeam Television will continue to air the revival.
[edit] Philadelphia
In the Philadelphia area, another Kaiser/Field station, WKBS Channel 48, aired this program between 1976 and 1979 after the success the show had in Boston. Two of the most popular films included Attack of the Mushroom People and Tourist Trap.
