Tag: movies

Happy Halloween, BOC Style!

The YouTube caption written by David Simkins about this 1975 sketch reads, “This is a parody of a hellaciously cheesy locally produced late-night monster movie show that aired briefly in South Bend. The original was called “Klara Kackle’s Kreepy Kauldron” and it was produced by a small time religious station. What you’ll see here is as close to the real thing as we could manage. We managed very well.” Simkins portrayed the titular host, Hanna Hag, and what he was parodying is described by Paul Gerard Kennedy on IMDb as “John Michaels as ‘Klara Kackel’ present[ing] movies on [WMSH]-TV Channel 46, South Bend, Indiana between 1974-1976. Klara was a man dressed up as a witch with a high-pitched gruff voice. She welcomed her ‘little dearies’ to the show tending a smoking, bubbling cauldron with rubber chickens sticking out of it. She stirred it with her broomstick while occasional rubber bats flew by.” As the thumbnail image here indicates in catching Simkins in the process of transforming into a werewolf (triggered by a particularly bright street lamp), the segment includes a few parodies of classic horror movies. See the Invisible Man eat dinner! (Only you won’t see him, of course.)

For more info about Klara Kackle’s Kreepy Kauldron, check out this post from the Classic Film and TV CafĂ© blog. You can also read about one boy’s brief in-person interaction with Klara Kackle here: “I must have been 4 or 5, and she was greeting fans at the local Goldblatt’s department store. When it was my turn in line, she looked me in the eye and laughed diabolically. I jumped back several feet and ran, never to come back.”