"I wouldn't be the movie fan I am today without Bob Wilkins, At school, we'd all talk all week long about the movies he was going to show; he instructed you on how to appreciate these films, without talking down to you as a kid."
Vampira, Svengoolie, Elvira, Morgus the Magnificent, Chilly Billy Cardille, When you think of classic horror hosts there is definitely a preconceived notion. You probably think of some middle aged man covered in grease paint and using that classic Lugosi Hungarian accent to introduce horror movies in some basement decorated to look like an old castle dungeon. Or perhaps a big boobed young lady with vampirically white skin dressed in all black surrounded by candles cracking a seemingly endless array of bad puns. The general rule of thumb for most media (then and now) is that people want to believe that everyone is totally care free and more of a concept than a real human being. Its a format that's as comforting to me as my Nana's favorite quilt, but Bob Wilkins is the exact opposite type of host.
For a generation of science fiction and B-movie enthusiasts, Mr. Wilkins was the bespectacled TV host who drolly introduced underground flicks with titles such as Attack of the Mushroom People.
Wilkins started his on-camera television career in 1963 at KCRA-TV Channel 3 in Sacramento, California. He was writing and producing commercials for the station when he was tapped to be a fill-in host for an afternoon movie show in 1964. Wilkins was given his own time slot, hosting horror films on Seven Arts Theater (later advertised as Bob Wilkins Presents and The Bob Wilkins Show), which followed the station's 11 p.m. newscast.
When he started hosting films for the first time he went by his real name, and for the rest of his career he stuck with his own name. No face paint, no plastic bats hanging from the ceiling, no attempt to change himself in any way. From start to finish he was simply a life long horror fan named Bob, and its that total authenticity that makes me love Bob and his hosting style so much. a lot of horror host seem larger than life, Bob was just simply life. He would joke about working in his family's carwash is the whole horror host thing didn't work out, His families support for his career, and all of the minutia that comes with being a horror host. He never took anything to seriously, but still had massive intellect on the subject of horror movies. or at least he made it seem like he did. Wilkins' selections (he previewed the films before airing them) suggested an aficionado's taste for genre cinema, but he held no special attachment to the movies, said his longtime friend and sometime co-host John Stanley.
"Bob had no passion for horror," laughed Stanley, who described the Indiana native as bemused by the subject. "I'm sure he enjoyed it, but he didn't take it seriously."
"Don't stay up tonight," Mr. Wilkins sometimes told viewers. "It's not worth it."
On Saturday, January 9, 1971, Creature Features debuted on KTVU Channel 2 with The Horror of Party Beach, and immediately became a tremendous ratings winner. In response, the show expanded to a double feature format within its first year of broadcast. Another benchmark was when Creature Features ran the world television premiere of the already infamous 1968 horror film, Night of the Living Dead, on January 1, 1972. So popular was Bob Wilkins' Creature Features that it would often beat network programming, such as Saturday Night Live, in the local Nielsen ratings.
At the height of his popularity, Wilkins decided to retire from television and go back into advertising. On February 24, 1979, after offering the job to several of his researchers, he relinquished the Creature Features hosting duties to San Francisco Chronicle film critic John Stanley. On August 14, 2007, John Stanley, Wilkins' replacement on Creature Features, reported in an interview on the radio program Coast to Coast, that Wilkins had Alzheimer's disease and was then living in Sacramento. At age 76, Bob Wilkins died on January 7, 2009 from complications of Alzheimer's disease in Reno, Nevada.
Perhaps the biggest bummer of all is the lack of horror hosts on the scene today. no matter how hard you try and how successful you become, it is impossible to recapture the Magic pioneers like Bob Wilkins crafted so effortlessly.
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