REVENGE OF THE CREATURE'S TEACHER!

Will the Thrill interviews Bob Wilkins - FROM OCTOBER 1999

Everybody who grew up in the Bay Area and Northern California in the last thirty-five years knows and loves Bob Wilkins, legendary host of Channel 2's sadly defunct Creature Features show that ran for well over a decade, starting in 1971 after he'd already won a large cult following in Sacramento. Since I grew up across country in South Jersey, I was introduced to the horrors of B monster madness via Doc Shock, out of Philly's Channel 17. I loved Doc, but I have to say, after hearing all about Bob Wilkins for the past fifteen or so years, I miss his cigar-smoking, deadpan diatribes as much as everyone else does, and I wasn't even here to appreciate his reign. His astonishing appeal ranges across all social barriers: EVERYONE I talk to loves Bob, regardless of age, race, creed, sex, or even taste in movies. He is the only icon besides Bugs Bunny that everyone, of all generations, agrees on. He practiced a lost art: hosting the late night horror movie, with style and personality. Around here he is as famous and beloved as LA's Vampira (and later Elvira) and New York's Zacherley, but with an important difference: Bob Wilkins is shockingly normal. He's also very nice. Witty and irreverent, but also friendly and unassuming. In short, worthy of his mantle as a Bay Area celebrity favorite, who achieved his status purely through chance, as he explained to me in a recent interview from his present home in Reno, Nevada:

WILL:

Have you ever been to the Parkway?

WILKINS:

Oh yes, we used to go there, in better times. I lived in Oakland for a long time.

WILL:

Well, better times are back!

WILKINS:

Really?

WILL (after explaining what the theater has become, with sofas and food and beer:):

WILKINS: I started out as a writer and producer of television commercials, in Sacramento. I saw the power of television. We'd have an ad on the air and next thing you know I'd go to the grocery store and there it was, they were selling it. This was the early days of color television (the early 60s), and we had the first color camera in the country!

WILL:

What station was that?

WILKINS:

Channel 3, the NBC station in Sacramento. Two young guys, the Kelly brothers - one was actually younger than me - they were very innovative, and they made that station one of the top stations in the country. I saw the power of television there. All of a sudden they wanted me to host this late night show. This is the early 60s, and after the eleven o'clock news, there were three network stations in town, they would play the "Star Spangled Banner" and then go to black. We were the first ones to have a show in that slot. They gave me a 16mm projector to take home, and they said, why don't you think this over before you do it. And it was our first movie, Attack of the Mushroom People. I'd seen the old classics like The Wolf Man and Dracula like everyone else, and after I watched the first reel of this one it didn't make any sense at all. I kept watching and wondered, did I get the reels mixed up? This thing is terrible! I didn't know they were making movies like that. And that became the format of the show: I'd be honest and tell people not to watch it if it was bad.

WILL:

But it was kinda reverse psychology, because then everyone wanted to stay up and watch it.

WILKINS:

For the most part, yes. That's the history of the show.

WILL:

The show in Sacramento was called Seven Arts Theater. Did you do all kinds of movies then?

WILKINS:

No, just horror and science fiction.

WILL:

I know in the 50s there was a package distributed to all the network affiliates called Shock Theater, which contained all the Universal classics. That's what Vampira showed in LA. Did you get the Shock Theater package?

WILKINS:

Yes, I did that show for four or five years, and did every package available. They were very inexpensive for the station, I know that.

WILL:

What people tell me they most fondly remember from your show are the Hammer films.

WILKINS:

For a lot of young people, it was the first time they were seeing these, not in the theaters, but on TV.

WILL:

I've also heard your real pride and joy was interviewing the celebrity guests. You had almost a variety show, because you did your bit and had guests as well as showing a movie. I know you interviewed among many others Christopher Lee and George Lucas, who I heard asked to be on your show after Star Wars came out.

WILKINS:

George was a very shy individual. He used to watch the show in Modesto. Later I met him and he wanted me to go to work for him. I was surprised that he even went on national television recently to promote his film. He's an introvert. I started to get a lot fan mail early on, and I heard from young experts correcting me on various things, because I was not an expert. All of a sudden I got amateur films that kids were making, in those days it was 8mm. In fact, in Stockton they had a film festival every year and showed the films these kids were making and by God, they were just unbelievable! My show became a showcase and opportunity for young people to come on, make-up experts I still hear from today, working in Hollywood. It was very refreshing to be able to showcase these kids, and they went on to bigger and better things.

WILL:

You perfected the format in Sacramento before your eventual move to Oakland. How long were you in Sacramento?

WILKINS:

I was there four or five years. I got an offer to do the show in the Oakland market from a gentleman named Tom Breen, who used to work for Channel 3 in Sacramento, who hired me. So Channel 2, which was a Cox station then, invited me up to do a movie there, so I would cut one show, jump in the car and cut the other one.

WILL:

So for a while you appeared concurrently in both markets. You pretty much had Northern California covered. (NOTE: After Bob's Bay Area show took off, Channel 3 dropped his original Sacramento show, but it was quickly picked up by Sacto's Channel 40 and ran twelve years.)

WILKINS:

Yea, pretty much. And in those days you didn't have a lot of independents around and so forth. Bob Shaw was one of the first people to write me a fan letter. He was about twelve years old, suggesting films for the show or correcting some of the mistakes I made. I couldn't get over that these young people were experts on this stuff! Later Bob worked for me on the show, and I couldn't have done it without him. He's responsible for its success, really.

WILL:

There's something about whatever fascinated you as a kid, it sticks with you. It goes so deep it just stays with you. I'm 36, and you get a group of guys around my age or older in a room and they start talking Creature Features, trivia and memories, they're all ten years old again, except they can drink beer. You were on the air throughout the 70s, correct?

WILKINS:

I retired in the early 80s.

WILL:

And then John Stanley took over.

WILKINS:

Right. John Stanley wrote for the San Francisco Chronicle, and he was one of the first people to promote my show. He could pick up Sacramento, and all of a sudden in the Chronicle, which was another market, he started to write little blurbs about me, so we corresponded, and then when I did get the job at Channel 2, John was one of the first people to interview me. John was really an expert on this stuff. He was really a horror movie fan, and of course he later came out with the books (the Creature Features movie guides, in various updated editions). When I decided to leave the program, John was the man I wanted to take over. He did a great job and the show lasted another five years.

WILL:

But people missed you, and still do. Why did you retire?

WILKINS:

My goal was to have my own advertising agency; that was my background. I had a degree in Marketing from Indiana University. After I graduated, I worked for an ad agency for about two and half years. So I envisioned one day having my own agency. I knew because I had been on television so long, it would open a lot of doors for me. So I retired from the television business and opened the agency in Oakland, and it was very successful mainly because people knew who I was.

WILL:

You've been in Reno a while now?

WILKINS:

My wife had an offer for a school-teaching job in Reno, and we've been here four or five years.

WILL:

Do you miss the Bay Area? Because the Bay Area misses you!

WILKINS:

I don't miss the traffic and things of that nature, but I go back once in a while, probably to Sacramento much more than the Bay Area.

WILL:

My girlfriend Monica, Tiki Goddess grew up around here in Union City, and she watched your shows, not because she's a fan of horror movies - she gets scared even if Abbott and Costello are in it - but she remembers your bits. She liked that part. Even people who weren't fans of the genre watched Creature Features. So there must have been something about you personally that made it a hit. I think it was your personality and irreverent take on the whole thing, that was part of the whole appeal.

WILKINS:

Well, I think many people could associate with me maybe in that, I didn't have the deep announcer's voice or handsome looks that most people have on television. I'm an average man from Indiana, you know, a Herb Shriner type. When I had people on like Christopher Lee, I tried to ask him questions the fans might like to ask. I think it was that simple. John Stanley had much of the same attitude.

WILL:

You could show a lot more than I can, because I can only show what I can get in 35mm. This month I'm showing movies people probably remember seeing on your show, like The Amazing Colossal Man and I Was A Teenage Frankenstein. If you didn't show these, you showed movies like 'em.

WILKINS:

Oh, yes.

WILL:

And like you, I get facts mixed up on stage or in my column and the audience corrects me. And I love these movies! Even the bad ones! Especially the bad ones! Anyone who grew up around here and is a fan of the genre remembers and worships you as much as Forry Ackerman (publisher of Famous Monsters of Filmland). But you were never a particular horror fan, so this was like an accidental celebrity?

WILKINS:

That's right. Although I never announced that to the fans.

WILL:

Did you develop a kind of affection for these movies over the years, though?

WILKINS:

Oh sure, I like all movies. If the movie was good, we told them; if it was bad, we told them. (NOTE: Fans recalled to me that Wilkins used to actually go through the TV Guide and tell the viewers what was on the rival station and suggest they turn the channel! No one I talked to ever did.)

WILL:

I'm showing a new 35mm print of Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein, which is a classic -

WILKINS:

Oh, good!

WILL:

And I also wanted to do a Hammer flick, partly in your honor, and out of the few available I picked The Vampire Lovers, which is pretty explicit and never played on TV, not on your show anyway. This is one of the advantages of showing 'em in a movie theater - nothing gets cut out. But I'm frustrated by what I just can't get anymore. Out of the movies you showed, do you have any particular favorites?

WILKINS:

I always thought that Night of the Living Dead was a great one.

WILL:

Yea! I'd love to show that if I could find it!

WILKINS:

Actually, that gentleman, George Romero, he flew out (from Pittsburgh) when I played it for the third or fourth time and was on the show because he had a new movie out.

WILL:

Was that Dawn of the Dead (1979)?

WILKINS:

It might have been. I don't remember.

WILL:

That's proof of the power of your show, that you could get all these cool people on it. (NOTE: Other guests included William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, George Takei, Maud Adams, Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Kerwin Matthews and Kathryn Crosby (for the mid-70s re-release of 7^th Voyage of Sinbad), Bela Lugosi Jr., Ray Harryhausen, William Marshall (Blacula), Robby the Robot from Forbidden Planet and many others.)

WILKINS:

Well, television is powerful.

WILL:

That's true, but in the 70s, every urban market had its own TV horror movie host, but not all of them had the pull to get the guests you did.

WILKINS:

We had all the Star Trek people on at time or another, and then Star Wars, when that came out. Of course the Bay Area is a major area for talent to pass through. When Star Wars came out, they flew us to Hollywood to interview the stars. After that movie came out all the stations including Channel 2 tried to get their hands on anything "outer space," so 2 came up with a lot of Japanese stuff, animation…

WILL:

Like Astro Boy, Marine Boy….

WILKINS:

Yea. They called me in and said, we want you to think of some ideas for an afternoon show. And they completely gave it to me, that was the only direction I had. So I showed some stuff to my two young kids at home and of course they enjoyed it, and we eventually wound up with Captain Cosmic. I found a robot in Sacramento that was in some guy's garage, that was a high school project, and we brought that up to the Bay Area and had a car dealer spray it silver, and we put Channel 2's logo on it and called it 2-T-2.

WILL:

Wait - did you show Space Giants?

WILKINS:

Yes!

WILL:

Oh, wow, Monica talks about that show all the time! Now that was one she loved! She used to say, I watched this show hosted by a space guy and he showed a thing about a robot family with silver skin and hair. She was talking about you!

WILKINS:

It became the number one kids show in the Bay Area. I mean no one was near it. And it was Monday through Friday. And I dressed up as the mysterious Captain Cosmic. You couldn't see my face, and I said, We've taken this voice from a Bay Area celebrity, but I'm from another planet! Anyway, that show had outstanding ratings and was on for two years, but we finally ran out of product. We started to re-show stuff over and over again, and we finally went off the air. We stopped doing Japanese stuff and went to the old Flash Gordon serials, which the kids would not buy. It was too hokey for them. It died not because of the idea, we just ran out of product.

WILL:

Do you miss your TV days?

WILKINS:

Yea, I miss television in general. It's so powerful. It's the only medium that has ratings points, so you know just how well you're doing, or how poorly you're doing. If you come up with an idea and it works, it'll last a while. It was challenging, and fun.

WILL:

Well, like I said, you're fondly remembered, and sorely missed.

WILKINS:

(laughs humbly) Well, thank you.

There you have it, the inspiring saga of a local hero. I could relate on at least one level: Bob's story about wondering if he got the reels mixed up while watching Attack of the Mushroom People reminded me of the time in the Midnight Lounge when I showed the 1957 AIP drive-in classic Blood of Dracula, and the reels WERE mixed up. Nobody but me even noticed the lapse in continuity.