Prologue - Now it can be told! I am an alien from the Crab Nebula. A stranger in a strange land; a microcosm of the universe where there is no room for hate and racism. I am an empath who absorbs other peoples' hurts; a link in the eternal chain of life. I am my brothers' and sisters' keeper. I AM A CREEP! HEAR ME ROAR!!!
Little did I know in growing up that I'd become a Creep and a doctor at that. I had aspirations of being a minister, a marine biologist, an Elvis Presley impersonator, a disc jockey, and an actor doing musicals on Broadway. You should have seen my Elvis impersonation, it was fantastic! My gyrations made ladies swoon.

The character of Dr. Creep was a compilation of several horror hosts whom I had seen around the nation. At the beginning, Dr. Creep was a vampire. For a few shows, he was a skeleton, death warmed over. He finally dropped the fangs and became a friendly, bumbling ghoul who could laugh at himself and keep plugging away no matter what the odds. He became a friend to kids and a champion to those people who were hurting, not afraid to pitch in and help where needed.

I always had an interest in the supernatural, ghosts, monsters, etc. It was inherited from my uncle who, during the days of my youth, had the largest traveling monster show in America. His stage name was Dr. Traboh. His real name is Doug Hobart. I caught the bug from him. Through my formative years, I lived in a haunted house. I, also, became a psychic lecturer and investigator. I became an avid student of the occult psychic sciences and metaphysics, having a large library on the aforementioned subjects.

If you shake my family tree, there are warlocks and witches in the branches. The other side of the family tree persecuted them. The family curse, and I do mean curse! I became quite accomplished in my studies with very special abilities to control my psychic powers. I used to play games with psychics and take on a demon or two.

Shock Theatre was a phenomenon. Starting at 11 PM, January 1, 1972, and running through 1985, it was a parody of all the horror shows and hosts I had seen around the country. It was hosted by my friendly and benevolent ghoul by the name of Dr. Creep.

What follows is a nostalgic look at the life and times of Dr. Creep and the show, Shock Theatre.

Love, Barry Hobart A.K.A. Dr. Creep

This is a sequel to the article "Shock Theatre - Birth of a Legend" which ran in Scary Monsters issue 13. While that article looked at the formation of Shock Theatre and its host Doctor Creep, this article looks at the personal aspects of the series and at the friction that occurred between the team putting on Shock Theatre and its later incarnation Saturday Night Dead; a friction that was not only prevalent during this show which ran for 13 years on Channel 22 WKEF TV in Southwestern Ohio, but typifies the friction that occurred on many horror host shows throughout the country when the management clashed with the artists.
In brief, Shock Theatre started January 1, 1972 and lasted until March 23, 1985. As with many horror host type shows on television across America in the 70s and 80s, Shock Theatre was a format that allowed monster movies and science fiction films to be extended in to a 2 hour and later a 4 hour format by interrupting the movies with the crazy and spooky antics of a horror host. The host was "Dr. Creep" A.K.A. Barry Hobart, nephew of Doug Hobart - traveling spook show host "Dr. Traboh" and make-up/special effects artist on films such as The Death Curse of Tartu, The Weird World of LSD and The Sting of Death amongst others.

Dr. Creep fans, young and old, began to take to the new fashion statement made by their favorite horror hero. Black capes and top hats became the "in" thing. There was even a "Dr. Creep Look-Alike Contest" in the fall or winter of 1973, but no one remembers much about it!

Shock Theatre attracted many talented performers. One of the performers was Kurt McGlocklin who arrived at Channel 22 in 1969 and, along with Mike Martin, was their primary puppeteer. Kurt's first puppet was "Stanley" A.K.A. "Stan the Man" who appeared on Club House 22, an afternoon children's show which developed a cult following among high school and college students. Kurt was invited to create puppets for Shock Theatre and, at his own cost, created the giant, orange character Gorsh who first appeared in the My Old Flame music video.

Kurt went on to create such characters as "The Kooky Spook", "Count Blah", and "Frankenstein's Monster".

"You got to meet a lot of interesting and strange people," remembers Kurt.

In 1975, Dr. Creep held a Shock Queen Contest. Young ladies (and others) crawled out of the woodwork to display their macabre styles for the good doctor. Funny thing is, no one can seem to remember who won the contest!

"We began to have some concern as to what the cast of Shock Theatre was doing in the studio, live, late at night," commented Jim Graham, former Station Manager at WKEF TV.

In the 13 years of Shock Theatre, the show's repertoire of guests included the internationally known comedian Dow Thomas, President Jimmy Carter's son, Chip Carter, and John Reggie, writer on The Gary Shandling Show as well as the big white dog who was aptly named "Duffy the Dog".

In 1980 Dow Thomas was approached by his friend John Higgins, producer and puppeteer for Shock Theatre, to appear on the show and then became a regular mixing his unique blend of stand-up comedy, musical parody, and situation comedy. Dow originally fell in with the ad-lib atmosphere of Shock and then began to present show scripts to the cast and crew.

The original ad-lib sketches met with some resistance by management at WKEF especially with Joe Smith, the second host of Club House 22 and the person responsible for keeping track of the wild antics on Shock Theatre and product quality at WKEF in general.

"Eventually they started saying 'We want scripts.' I think some of the things we said were a little too off color for Joe Smith."

The scripts were actually used as outlines with plenty of room for ad-lib.

"Writing for Barry was a little bit different. He's a lot better if you just wrote out questions for him to ask and then let him go."

Creating such skits as the Duncan Rat, Rodney Mummyfield's Mummy Fashion Show, Hiwereatakitie, the Japanese monster movie producer, the interview with Willard's Agent, and others, Dow and Barry saw Shock Theatre become the number 1 local TV show.

As the show's comedy approached the cutting edge, censorship at WKEF increased. When Dow wrote a comedy script centered around the Hammer Film Production of Dracula, Prince of Darkness which stared Christopher Lee, " . . . that was one we never got to do because Joe Smith didn't like it. We had a Photo Bat studio and I was dressed up as Dracula with Dr. Creep interviewing me. Creep was supposed to ask 'Were there any problems with people sending their film in to be developed to Photo Bat for their Dracula Prints of Darkness?' All of our prints came out dark. That was the whole joke. Then I said 'Yes, a lot of customers have problems with cutting the heads off people they were shooting.' Then I pulled up a mask stuffed with newspaper to make it look like a severed head. Joe Smith thought that was too horrible for children even though the movie featured violence like Christopher Lee getting a stake in the heart and screaming."

When Dow and Barry performed a song titled "50 Ways to Kill Your Mother" for the Mother's Day special, a few calls came in complaining that the song was in bad taste. Barry and Dow were called on the carpet for their "bad taste" in humor and the song was banned from ever being sung again on the show. In 1992, the song would appear uncut on the Best of Shock Theatre Volume 1 video tape. "I think they imagined that kids were writing with their little crayons in front of the Dr. Creep show taking notes on how to kill their mothers," said Dow.

"The station thought of Shock Theatre as a children's show and that's what hurt it the worst. For the movie Son of Frankenstein, we put Duffy the Dog's head on a fake body laying on a table and covered by a white sheet like the Frankenstein monster with us working on him. They didn't want us to do that because the kids would get worried about Duffy. I thought, what kids would get worried about Duffy the Dog when they were watching the show to see Son of Frankenstein in the first place. We weren't watching Bozo the Clown cartoons on this show. You don't watch Fu Manchu decapitating someone in a movie and then complain about singing '50 Ways to Kill Your Mother.' The management stood there, hands on their hips, lips pursed together, Joe Smith staring us down."

"We couldn't even say 'My God!' on the show but then you'd watch the movie and a character would say 'You know what it means to feel like God?' or 'They're playing God again!' and I'd say that's the same line I wrote! They'd use the words a million times in the movie but we couldn't say it."

Dow would use the newsroom copy machines to put the scripts together and would often have fun playing with the old magnetic weather maps. They'd change the positions of the clouds and place tornadoes on the map near Xenia, a near by city that was haunted be a deadly tornado that was very destructive back in the mid 1970's. The station staffers were not amused.

"Some people wanted to keep a close eye on us. I don't know if it was because we were long haired, bearded guys or what."

"No body from the station ever invested any money in the show. It was always Barry and me buying props out of our own pockets and when we messed up they'd hardly ever allow us to do re-takes."

Dow Thomas left the show in 1983 when he moved to Los Angeles. A few years later when he returned to Dayton, the show was cancelled.

In retrospect, Shock Theatre and many other horror host shows were at their bests when allowed to exist in their own, uncontrolled, pocket universes. The creativity of the hosts and guests was usually an offshoot of their interests in horror and science fiction films. When TV began to get more corporate and late night television began to become "profitable", the managers who thought they knew what was best for the audiences, became the shows worst enemies and greatly contributed to the decline and near extinction of the horror host shows.

Now, almost the only way to experience the golden age of horror is by video tapes such as The Best of Shock Theatre and Zacherely's Horrible Horror.