(From the Tulsa Tribune, November 1982 or '83. Bruce Westbrook now writes for the Houston Chronicle.)
Such humor has survived in an unlikely place -- the national networks. Since "NBC's Saturday Night Live" arose in 1975, it has helped make zany, free-form comedy a late-night TV staple. "Fridays", "SCTV," "Second City" and "Night Flight" have also showcased such humor, which blends a modern irreverence with the spark and spontaneity of TV's early live days. But late-night local lunacy isn't dead yet. On KOKI-23, Oaks has begun hosting Saturday's "Creature Feature," which is a bit like the "Uncanny Film Festival." Oaks introduces science fiction and horror movies and appears at commercial breaks to make ridiculous remarks and demonstrate things like finger puppet mud wrestling.
He is joined by Jeanne Summers (aka Jeanne Tripplehorn), a KMOD fm 97.5 announcer, who portrays the Mingo Valley Girl, Hollywood gossip reporter Mona Garret and Nina K-Tel of "Commercial TV -- all commercials, all the time." (Was that prophetic or what!) It's not exactly the old days, Oaks admits, but it's a step in the right direction. "This isn't Mazeppa," he said. "then, we had guests and bands and the movie was just an excuse to do the other stuff. We used to do 20-minute breaks, and here we come in for only a minute or two. "But this is local comedy, and that's something." Why have such shows almost disappeared? "At one time, every place had a little locally-produced dance party and monster movie show for the kids," Oaks said. "But now it's easier just to buy 'Solid Gold' to fill the time slot. "Stations used to have a lot of 'down time' for people on salary," he said. "They produced local shows because they had the time to do it in the studio. Now, more people are using the studios for local ads, and studio time costs much more." But with some ingenuity, it's not costing too much to make "Creature Feature" prohibitive. KOKI advertising manager Dick Enderwood said the show costs $400 to $500 to produce in the studio. "The whole idea is for it to be good enough to be entertaining, but also to look kind of campy and cheap," he said. That's the aim of Oaks' show this Saturday at 9 p.m., when he'll appear to be cruising Tulsa in a 1960 Nash Metropolitan.
With Hobson jiggling the camera, Oaks appeared to be driving through scenes shot the night before from the back of a van. Oaks recently made a Halloween special with Sartain, who now appears in movies and on "Hee Haw." He said Sartain will appear on "Creature Feature," as will Gary Busey, another "Uncanny Film Festival" star who went on to film fame. "Gailard is going to blast himself out of a Lazy Boy recliner with dynamite," Oaks said. Oaks wrote Mazeppa material and has written for Shields and Yarnell and Roy Clark on TV. But "Creature Feature" is largely improvised. It's all a throwback to live TV, "and what people like is there's always some surprise," Oaks said. "You never know what's going to happen next."
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Gone is the crazy comedy of Mazeppa
Pompazoidi (Gailard Sartain) and Sherman Oaks (Jim
Millaway, at left), whose off-the-wall humor on the late-night movie
program attracted a cult following.
Actually,
the car was stationary in the studio. Cameraman Jack Hobson shot Oaks and
the car against a blue screen, which enabled Steve
Pickle, directing the action in a control room, to superimpose them
against another background. It's a technique often used in moviemaking.
