As a teenager I remember occasionally watching a late night show on a Madison, Wisconsin TV station that showed mostly “B” grade horror movies.
We had lived in Madison until I was 12 years old, then we moved to a city about an hour and a half away in northwest Illinois. The only broadcast stations we could receive there were ones from Madison and Rockford, Illinois.
Those were the days before Cable TV, when TV signals were actually broadcast over the airwaves. At the end of their programming day (usually somewhere around midnight to 2 AM) most stations would show an American flag or other patriotic montage set to music before shutting down for the night. (Here’s the closest type of thing I could find on YouTube that I remember.)
Cable TV was deregulated in 1972, and I’m thinking my parents must have had access and subscribed to Cable TV sometime in the mid to late 1970′s.
Cable brought the ongoing after-hours Infomercials and the Superstations (like WGN from Chicago and WTBS from Atlanta) that had continuous 24 hour programming. (From late-night WGN, anyone remember the frequent, “588-2300 Empire” song?)
And then my dad used to be able to say, “Now we have 80 TV channels and there’s still nothing worth watching!”
But before cable TV, there were these late night shows made by local stations on shoestring budgets that had a character that is lacking in today’s television.
Late night horror shows usually started late at night; this one started Friday at midnight on channel 15 (WMTV), and was sponsored by Crazy TV Lenny of American TV and Appliance located in Madison. It was called “Lenny’s Inferno.”
The opening of the show had an painting of a castle they slowly zoomed in on to the red lit window while Night on Bald Mountain (by Mussorgsky) played.
Some online searches resulted in a couple of sites that had information about the show. The most detailed information was on this site, but there are several photos of the show here. This is the first site I found with information about Lenny’s Inferno, which was apparently originally called “Ferdie’s Inferno”.
The host was a weird dude named Mr. Mephisto with what I thought was white face makeup (it looks pale blue in this photo though) with lots of black around his eyes, a stovepipe hat, and a black mustache and goatee. His desk had this talking box (seen on the photo in the right), and he had this creepy baby doll.
The movies themselves were usually pretty horrible but I liked Mr. Mephisto’s bits, even though admittedly a lot of time the ad-libbed dialog was pretty lame. A large part of his shtick of course, was pimping deals at American TV.
American TV and Appliance grew pretty rapidly during that time; I remember a smaller building that was eventually replaced by a new huge building. (My parents bought a stereo from them somewhere along the line.)
But with the growth and success of American TV eventually they no longer felt the show was necessary and canceled it in 1982.
It all reminded me there is an entire generation coming to adulthood that really never knew a world without Cable TV, the Internet and cell phones.
…Or cheesy late night broadcast television…
It makes me feel old…
