"A one-man comedy network": Kovacs
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Producing a full-fledged spy show in the cramped Walnut Street confines of WPTZ seems a modest ambition compared to mounting an hour-long Western each day at WCAU's City Line studio, where the back lot was also the employee parking lot. But Charlie Vanda, the station's think-big president, did it anyway. Vanda had pitched "Action in the Afternoon" ad lib to CBS's New York brass after his earlier ideas had been torpedoed. He said the Western would be set in 1884 in the Montana town of Huberle (which Vanda invented by combining the names of network execs Hubbell Robinson and Harry Ommerlee). CBS gave Vanda a few weeks and $7,000 to create the pilot and the first five shows. "Action," whose main director was Bill Bode, starred singing cowboy Jack Valentine, who would ride off into the early sunset of suburban Bala Cynwyd.
Remember that there was no videotape, and "Action" didn't use film. So the goof- ups went national. Outdoor scenes of the Old West could be anachronized by the view of a plane overhead or the rumble of a motorcycle. (Lester's challenge as musical director was to find themes loud enough to drown out the sound of modern mechanical intruders.) Actors spoke into microphones hidden in tree stumps and hitching posts; if one mike went dead, the actor had to skedaddle over to one that worked. One day, the audio was rent by a horrible noise, whose source remained a mystery until the camera panned to reveal a horse trying to eat one of the mikes. Another day, live TV almost became dead TV. During a hanging scene, something startled the horse on which the condemned man was sitting. The beast bolted off and the actor nearly was strangled. The director cut away to another shot and the crew freed the poor fellow before he could become the star of television's first real execution.
One member of the "Action in the Afternoon" stock company was John Zacherle, who played the Huberle undertaker. The show was canceled in early 1954, after a year's run, but Zach's personality and performance lingered in Vanda's mind like, oh, the stench of death. Three years later, when WCAU bought the rights to Universal Pictures' "Shock" package of vintage horror movies ("Frankenstein," "Dracula," "The Mummy's Tomb," etc.), Vanda had the notion to air the films two nights a week and have them hosted by a cadaver in a long coat. He hired Zacherle, who wore his old undertaker costume from the Western series but now was called Roland — pronounced Ro-LAND. "Shock Theater" premiered on October 7, 1957. And thus was born (if that is the word) Philadelphia's first TV mania of the teen generation.
Roland would walk down a spiral staircase into the elegantly macabre crypt and introduce the evening's feature attraction. But in this show, as developed by writer-producer Ed White, the true attraction was the host and his post-nuclear, post-mortem family. Roland's wife, known only as "My Dear," was kept just out of camera range; he would often curl up in their double coffin to watch the movie or, for diversion, drive a stake through My Dear's heart "just to make her happy." Their son, Gasport, hung in a large sack attached to the wall; his frequent moans were provided by crew members whenever Roland would whack the sack with a stick. At times during the films, Roland would be cut into a scene, making a face at the proceedings or uttering a snide aside, "Mystery Science Theater" style (but 30 years before). These "jump-ins" became the show's signature bits.
"Shock Theater" was soon so popular with kids as well as adults that its slot was moved from Mondays and Tuesdays to Fridays and Saturdays. To promote the switch, WCAU thought to host an open house at its City Line facility, expecting perhaps a thousand people to show up. Instead, the crowd was more like 15,000, clogging traffic for hours and making mischief. (I know; I was there.) The incident got Zacherle an article in the Saturday Evening Post. Soon after, he demanded a raise in his weekly pay, from $90 to $100. (Heck, my mother earned that much at the time, and she was a first-grade teacher in the Philadelphia public school system.) The station refused, and he walked. For two shows he was replaced by an actress playing My Dear. The public expressed its outrage, and Zach returned the following week.
Thanks to the encouragement of Dick Clark (who dubbed Roland "the cool ghoul") and his partner at Cameo Records Bernie Lowe, Zach would enjoy a Top 10 hit: "Dinner With Drac," a novelty rocker with limerick lyrics ("For dessert there was batwing confetti/ And the veins of a mummy named Betty/ I first frowned upon it/ But with ketchup on it/ It tasted very much like spaghetti"). Now he was too big for the likes of Philly. New York soon wooed him, and for the next few years he graced WABC and WOR with similar shows, under his own name (now spelled Zacherley). Two short story collections appeared under his aegis. After the fad passed like a winter chill, he had long stints as a radio host in New York. Once in a while, for special Philadelphia events, Zach, now 82, stills puts the old mourning coat out of the closet.
At least Zacherle survived his brush with fame. Kovacs died in a car crash in
1962, ten days before his 41st birthday. He had gone to New York, where his
comedy shows not only expanded the young medium but stretched it to the snapping
point. ("It's appropriate that television is considered a medium," he famously
said, "since it's neither rare nor well-done"). Then Kovacs made the inevitable
journey to Hollywood, where he made just enough money in middling movies to feed
his gambling addiction and fall deeply in debt. But for those of us who remember
— or think we remember — his work in Philadelphia, from 1950 to '53, Ernie was at his best when he was breaking the rules faster than anyone else could make them
up.