| John Zacherle | |
| Birth Date: | 26 September 1918 |
| Birth Place: | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Death Place: | Manhattan, New York, U.S. |
| Other Names: | John Zacherley |
| Alma Mater: | University of Pennsylvania (B.A., English Literature, 1940) "Remembering the Cool Ghoul", The Pennsylvania Gazette, December 21, 2016. Accessed June 28, 2020 |
| Show: | Shock Theater (1957–58) Zacherley at Large (1959–60) |
| Station: | WCAU-TV (1957–58) WABC-TV (1958–60) |
| Years Active: | 1954–2015 |
| Country: | United States |
John Zacherle (; sometimes credited as John Zacherley; September 26, 1918 – October 27, 2016) was an American television host, radio personality, singer, and voice actor. He was best known for his long career as a television horror host, often broadcasting horror films in Philadelphia and New York City in the 1950s and 1960s. Best known for his character of "Roland/Zacherley", he also did voice work for films, and recorded the top ten novelty rock and roll song "Dinner With Drac" in 1958.[1] He also edited two collections of horror stories, Zacherley's Vulture Stew and Zacherley's Midnight Snacks.
Zacherle was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.[2]
In 1954, he gained his first television role at WCAU-TV in Philadelphia, where he was hired as an actor playing several roles (one was an undertaker) in Action in the Afternoon, a Western produced by the station and aired in the New York City market.[2] Three years later, he was hired as the host of WCAU's Shock Theater, which debuted on October 7, 1957.[2] it was so popular that when Zacherle asked for three human hairs to make a pillow, he received 23,000 replies.[3]
He was a close colleague of Philadelphia broadcaster Dick Clark, and sometimes filled in for Clark on road touring shows of Clark's American Bandstand in the 1960s. Clark reportedly gave Zacherle his nickname of "The Cool Ghoul".[2] In 1958, partly with the assistance and backing of Clark, Zacherle cut "Dinner with Drac" for Cameo Records, backed by Dave Appell.[2] At first, Clark thought the recording – in which Zacherle recites humorously grisly limericks to rock and roll accompaniment – was too gory to play on Bandstand, and made Zacherle return to the studio to cut a second tamer version. Eventually both versions were released simultaneously as backsides on the same 45, and the record broke the top ten nationally.[2] Zacherle later released several LPs mixing horror sound effects with novelty songs.[2]
The purchase of WCAU by CBS in 1958 prompted Zacherle to leave Philadelphia for WABC-TV in New York, where the station added a "y" to the end of his name in the credits.[2]
In 1963, he hosted animated cartoons, as well as Chiller Theatre on WPIX-TV.
In 1965, he hosted a teenage dance show for three years at WNJU-TV in Newark called Disc-O-Teen, hosting the show in full costume and using the teenage show participants in his skits.
In December 1968, Zacherle moved to radio as the morning host for progressive rock WNEW-FM. In the summer of 1969, he became the station night broadcaster (10 pm - 2 AM); in June 1971, he switched his show to WPLJ-FM, where he stayed for ten years.
On February 14, 1970, he appeared at Fillmore East music hall in New York City to introduce the Grateful Dead; his introduction can be heard on the album Dick's Picks Volume 4.
In the early 1980s, he played a wizard on Captain Kangaroo, appearing without his Roland/Zacherley costume and make-up. He continued to perform in character at Halloween broadcasts in New York and Philadelphia in the 1980s and 1990s, once narrating Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven while backed up by the Philadelphia Orchestra.
In 1983, he portrayed himself in the feature length horror comedy Geek Maggot Bingo produced and directed by Nick Zedd in sequences shot in Zacherle's apartment on the Upper West Side. In 1985, he hosted a special for Newark, New Jersey music video station WWHT U68 entitled "The Thirteenth Hour".
In 1986, he hosted a direct-to-video program called Horrible Horror, where he performed Zacherley monologues in between clips from public domain sci-fi and horror films.
In 1988, he struck up a friendship with B-movie horror director Frank Henenlotter. He voiced the puppet "Aylmer", a slug-like drug-dealing and brain-eating parasite, one of the lead characters in Henenlotter's 1988 horror-comedy film Brain Damage, and made a cameo in his 1990 comedy Frankenhooker, appropriately playing a TV weatherman who specializes in forecasts for mad scientists.
In late 1992, Zacherle joined the staff of "K-Rock", WXRK, at a time when the roster included other free-form radio DJs including Pete Fornatale, Jimmy Fink, Vin Scelsa (with whom he'd worked at WPLJ) and Meg Griffin. For the next four years he hosted a Saturday morning show called "Spirit Of The Sixties". He departed in January 1996 when the station switched to an alternative rock format and hired all new jocks.
In 2010, Zacherle starred in the documentary, The Aurora Monsters: The Model Craze That Gripped the World. The film was written and produced by Dennis Vincent and Cortlandt Hull, owner of the Witch's Dungeon Classic Movie Museum in Bristol, Connecticut. The documentary includes a number of short pieces featuring Zacherly and his puppet co-host Gorgo, of Bill Diamond Productions. The film went on to win a Rondo award.
Zacherle continued to make appearances at conventions through 2015, and his collectibles, including model kits, T-shirts, and posters, continue to sell. The book Goodnight, Whatever You Are by Richard Scrivani, chronicling the life and times of The Cool Ghoul, debuted at the Chiller Theatre Expo in Secaucus, New Jersey, in October 2006. Scrivani and Tom Weaver followed it up with the scrapbook-style "The Z Files: Treasures from Zacherley's Archives" in 2012.[4]
The comic book anthology, Zacherley's Midnite Terrors (created by Joseph M. Monks, and featuring top artists like Basil Gogos, Ken Kelly, William Stout and Mike Koneful), was created solely as a tribute to "Zach". Three issues were published, and Zacherley acted in a commercial to promote them.
Zacherle continued to make occasional on-air appearances, usually around Halloween, including a two-hour show at WCBS-FM with Ron Parker on October 31, 2007. (By this point, the 89-year-old was one of the very few people left in radio that was older than the medium itself.) Zacherley and Chiller Theatre returned to the WPIX airwaves on October 25, 2008, for a special showing of the 1955 Universal Pictures science fiction classic Tarantula!.
The Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia inducted Zacherle into their Hall of Fame in 2010.[5]
He died on October 27, 2016, at his home in Manhattan at the age of 98.[6]
He was the uncle of My Little Pony creator Bonnie Zacherle.[7]
Channel 9's resident film historian Chris Steinbrunner compiled a listing of all Zacherley's shows from their start to New Year's 1960:
These shows were later syndicated to KHJ-TV, the RKO General station in Los Angeles.
Zacherle edited two short story collections for Ballantine Books in 1960. Listed here are their contents.
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