Other Articles:
11/14/01 - Omaha World-Herald
DANIEL FINNEY

10/06/01 - Council Bluffs Nonpariel
GREG JERRETT

After 20 years, 'Creature Feature' is Back
Published Saturday October 6,2001 - Council Bluffs Nonpariel
GREG JERRETT Staff Writer
Remember when you were a child, trying to stay up late? Really late? Like 10:30? On the floor, under a blanket with a fresh bowl of popcorn - not the microwave stuff - and a can of Shasta to watch the late night monster movie show?

It was a challenge. You either had to fight the urge to run to bed scared or pry your eyes open to stave off sleep.

In the metro area there was one man who made all this effort worthwhile on a Saturday night in the early 1970s: Dr. San Guinary, a bloodied corpse of a mad scientist whose rough voice, green make-up crusted face, cackling laugh and cornball horror schtick made him a bizarre cult hero for children within the broadcast area. He held the reigns of KMTV's "Creature Feature" from 1971 until health problems sidelined him in 1981.

Most viewers had no idea KMTV producer and director John Jones was Dr. San Guinary. The anonymity was at least half the fun because when you are a child, not knowing just made it all the more real.

Under it all, we knew he was a good guy. Dr. San Guinary was a local spokesman raising money for muscular dystrophy research and helping with the Jerry Lewis Telethon.

Back in the lab, Dr. San Guinary's sidekick Igor was just a single hand reaching out from behind a cage door most of the time. Igor misbehaved, frequently attacked the host and grunted, growled and groaned with as much rhyme and reason as could be mustered from a sound effects reel.

The duo provided a television oasis before Saturday Night Live and even before cable.

Every Saturday night was a ritual. It had to be watched on air, no one you knew had even heard of a VCR at the time. Children of all ages watched with anticipation as the final human interest story ran on KMTV, the bright lights of the big news room would fade to black and the scariest model of an abandoned house ever to grace TV screens appeared accompanied by the sound of the wind, a wolf howl, a scream and the words "Creature Feature" in a scrawling script.

The truth is, "Creature Feature" never was as scary as it seemed to be, it was really more of a parody of horror than true horror. The set was as cheap as anything Ed Wood ever imagined.

Pointing out that the bars on Igor's cage were "fake" was just asking to get a pillow in the face. Of course it was fake, it's all fake, so why go the extra mile when it was so much funnier to be fake and cheap.

And we ate it up. At the height of its popularity in 1975, "Creature Feature," under the freaky and funny control of Dr. San Guinary, held 52 percent of the viewing audience in its time slot. Not bad for a show with next to no budget, a few shoddy props and, sometimes, no script.

Times change. The locally-produced late night horror market dried up a bit when SNL came along and pushed "Creature Feature" back to midnight. By the time cable was a staple in homes across America, "Creature Feature" was all but a memory.

It seemed reasonable at the time. Who wanted old 1950s B-movies when they could get "Halloween" and "Friday the 13th" only 6-months out of the theater?

Some remember the thrill of low-budget horror.

Fredd Gorham grew up in Council Bluffs. This 36-year-old illustrator and Web designer grew up like most Generation Xers in the area - woefully deprived of entertainment.

He is a science fiction fan and a self-described San Guinary fanatic. His Web site, "The Dr. San Guinary Weblab" (http://cx26314-a.omhas1.ne.home.com/sanguinary/drsang.html), is a loving tribute to the show Gorham credits with a good deal of his early inspiration as an artist.

"What I remember was the excitement I had for the show, because it was my one chance during the week to watch horror movies and science fiction," Gorham said.

"Being an artist, you always look for sources of inspiration and that was one that always got me. I was telling my fiance that Saturdays were like this one long day of pure enjoyment and the end result was that I would get to watch "Creature Feature." "

Times change and if you wait long enough, they change back.

In September, KMTV revived "Creature Feature" after 20 years. Though John Jones died of pancreatic cancer in 1988 taking Dr. San Guinary with him, a new San Guinary, Son of San Guinary (how perfect is that?), would rise to not simply take his place but to perform an homage, a tribute to Dr. Sanguinary every Saturday night at 10:30 on KMTV.

It has everything the original had, cheap sets, hammy acting, a glove called Igor and Rich "Willard" Wooster, floor director.

Wooster works on the news today, but he was with the original show in its heyday and was the perfect choice to produce the new one.

"I started work here in "75 as a film editor on the show," he said. "John Jones was a director here. After directing, he'd dream up scripts and film them on Saturday. We try to stick to the old format as much as possible, but we didn't want to steal from John either because we were just gonna pale in comparison."

Wooster said Son of Sanguinary is pretty new right now and after a few weeks, if the ratings make it worthwhile, the show will go on and maybe break out into some new areas.

"It's like a pilot. We do five or six and see if there's any response," he said. "I'd like to make the character a little tougher, we might politicize it - eventually go after people who make fools of themselves at city council meeting. Right now, we?re keeping it pretty vanilla."

And who IS Son of San Guinary?

"Right now, we're keeping it a secret," Wooster said.

Exactly. It would be the easiest thing in the world to tell you who Son of San Guinary is, but what fun would that be? One does not even wish to know at this point.

Fredd Gorham is a lucky guy. Wednesday night, he made one of his lifelong dreams come true by watching the taping of "Creature Feature" or at least the Son of San Guinary segments of "Werewolf in a Girl's Dormitory."

"This is exactly what I expected it to be," Gorham said with all the glee of a childhood memory revisited bigger and better than ever.

For a behind the scenes look at "Creature Feature" visit http://24.3.242.142/misc/KMTV10_04_01/index.htm.

For more information on Dr. San Guinary and Son of San Guinary, visit http://cx26314-a.omhas1.ne.home.com/sanguinary/drsang.html and http://www.drsanguinary.com/son/.