Ron Sweed

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Ron Sweed as "The Ghoul"

This article is about the person known as The Ghoul. For the film, see The Ghoul (film).

Ron Sweed, (born 1950, Cleveland, Ohio), is an American entertainer best known for his late-night television horror host character The Ghoul.

In 1963, 13-year-old Sweed wore a gorilla suit to a live appearance by Ghoulardi, a popular Cleveland television personality played by Ernie Anderson on WJW-TV. Ghoulardi took note of the costume and brought Sweed on stage, and over the next few weeks, Sweed became Anderson's production assistant.

After Anderson left Cleveland for Los Angeles in 1966, Sweed left for Bowling Green State University, but continued to help with the production of the Hoolihan and Big Chuck show, Ghoulardi's replacement.

In 1970, Anderson returned to Cleveland to film a television special, and Sweed approached him with a proposal to revive the Ghoulardi character. Anderson was not interested, but gave Sweed his blessing to revive the character on his own. With Anderson's permission, and a name change to protect himself from the legal wrath of WJW, Sweed took "The Ghoul" to Kaiser station WKBF in 1971. Though it started as a tribute to Ghoulardi, Sweed soon found his own eye-catching gags and energetic style. Known for his zany, early-adolescent humor (particularly surrounding his abuse of a rubber frog named "Froggy" and his well-known penchant for blowing up model ships and aircraft with firecrackers), late night monster movies were a unique experience for Cleveland viewers in the 1970s.

Kaiser Broadcasting soon syndicated The Ghoul Show to Detroit, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Los Angeles. It bombed in Boston and Chicago (where Sweed had the thankless task of replacing the popular Svengoolie), but was huge in Detroit, and enjoyed varying degrees of success in the other markets. Kaiser eventually canceled the show in 1975, but Sweed has since been on and off the air in Cleveland and Detroit for over three decades, at times even branching out into radio.

The Ghoul is still well known enough in those markets that some of his catch phrases ("Overdey!", "Hey group!", "Stay sick", "turn blue", "scratch glass climb walls", and Froggy's "Hiya gang, hiya hiya hiya") are still widely recognized among the children of the 1970s.

Sweed eventually inspired another horror host. Keven Scarpino won a Ghoul look-alike contest on The Ghoul Show and was dubbed the "Son of Ghoul" by Sweed. Scarpino set up his show on WOAC in Canton, Ohio in 1986. Sweed sued Scarpino in 1987 for infringing upon his character, but eventually lost the case. The judge ruled that no infringement occurred, as most horror show hosts portrayed the same basic character, a ghoulish individual who pranced about in costume, performed comedy routines, and showed horror movies.

In 1998, The Ghoul returned to the Cleveland TV airwaves on WBNX Channel 55 where he remained for the next 6 years airing on Friday, then later Sunday nights. He also did a Saturday night request show on WNCX FM 98.5 during the same time period.

The same year, Sweed co-authored (with Mike Olszewski) The Ghoul (S)crapbook (ISBN 1-886228-22-1), a book collecting memories, on-set photographs, transcripts, correspondence, and memos from his years on the air.