(from Guestbook 1) Steve L. said: I am a little older than most of the people posting here so my early memories of Tulsa TV will be a bit farther back than some of you. Does anyone remember "Shock Theatre" with Igor...(it) was on KOTV in the late 50s, if memory serves. It featured sci-fi movies from the 40s and 50s. Lots of old horror movies.
The host was Bob Mills, who also worked the "Sun Up" program. Bob worked for me in San Diego and, sadly, passed away last year.
Until the last few years I had always heard that "Sun Up" originator Bob Mills "discovered" Raquel Welch when he took himself and the "Sun-Up" show to San Diego. Lately two or three others have claimed to have been her "discoverer," and, of course, Bob is now dead and can't dispute this. I don't claim to know "the truth" on this, but I DO know that Bob scoured Tulsa for good-looking girls to come in and read temperatures on Sun-Up while he was here...and he came up with some nifties!
On Shock Theater, Bob Mills featured people who would paint false eyes on their lower chin along with a beard just above the upper lip etc. and then the engineers would electronically turn this image upside down and the person would either talk or sing a song. It could be pretty amusing depending on the makeup. I don't know who started this idea?
We know a bit about KOTV's "Shock Theatre". It signed on in October 1957, was on at 10:30 p.m. Saturday nights and lasted a couple of years; Bob Mills (real name: Robert A. Millisor) played "Igor, Your Ghost Host"; cameraman Leon Meier, Lee Woodward and others played Igor's assistant, "Hornstaff", outfitted in rubber masks from Ehrle's Party Barn...
That is the one, the only, Hornstaff! I can't imagine that it is still around; amazing. The only difference was that there was some fake hair glued to the top. It was originally supposed to be a "Neanderthal." But they are one and the same.
"Bob had this wire thing that ran from the corner of his mouth and hooked around his ear, so that it looked like a scar. We lit him from underneath, and everything was dark behind him, so it made him look ghostly. That's how he'd introduce the movie."
A year after the release of "Shock!" and "Son of Shock!", Karloff found himself in demand again as an actor. In the 1960s, he worked in such disparate movies as "Die, Monster, Die!" (starring Nick Adams), "Bikini Beach", and a movie that bridged classic horror with the modern, "Targets" (directed by Peter Bogdanovich). He appeared on many 60s TV series, including "I Spy", "The Wild, Wild West" and "The Girl From U.N.C.L.E." One episode of "Route 66" spoofed horror films and co-starred Peter Lorre and Lon Chaney, Jr. The Shock!-wave of late night horror spawned several horror/fantasy series, including the early-60s NBC "Thriller" anthology series, hosted by Karloff. Here is a KVOO-TV billboard promoting it:
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