Ghoulardifest and Meeting Your Heroes

I went to Ghoulardifest today and relived some wondrous memories from my youth.

If you don't recognise the name "Ghoulardi" you aren't from the Cleveland area or you are and you're too young to remember Ernie Anderson's late-night horror movie host and his antics. I'm just a tad too young, but I clearly remember Anderson's successors, Hoolihan and Big Chuck (Bob Wells and Chuck Schodowski, respectively.) Friday nights of my youth were spent in from a our small black-and-white TV set, watching wonderful comedy sketches interspersed between breaks in old horror movies.

The sketches included "Readings by Robert" (bad-funny poetry) enactments of popular novelty tunes (i.e., a very G-rated version of "The Streak" starring Art Lofredo) and many, many jokes at the expense of "a certain ethnic" character popularized and played for decades by Big Chuck. (The ethnicity was always understood to be Polish.) I remember many Friday nights, staying up after the 11:00 news on channel 8 to watch Hoolihan and Big Chuck, even after Wells left for warmer climes and Lil' John Rinaldi took his spot.

(There were other horror show hosts on different Cleveland stations -- The Ghoul on channel 61 and Superhost on channel 43m but they didn't have the good-natured appeal of Hoolihan & Big Chuck/Big Chuck & Lil' John.)


Bob "Hoolihan" Wells, "Big Chuck" Schodowski and "Lil' John" Rinaldi at Ghoulardifest

Recently, Chuck Schodowski retired from television with a prime time TV special. I missed much of the show, so I decided to haul myself out to Medina and see if I could pick up a DVD of the show and maybe, just maybe meet my long-time TV heroes.

(Priscilla Barnes and Joyce Dewitt of TV's Three's Company were also guests and I really wanted to add Barnes' autograph to my Mallrats DVD signed by Kevin Smith. Of course, I did this knowing I'd have to pay for the privilege, but hey, that's how some of these folks make their living these days.)

Long story short, I bought the "End of an Era" DVD and had Chuck, John and Hoolihan all autograph the case. I shook hands with each of them and thanked them for so many years of entertainment and for imparting such wonderful childhood memories. They are all much older than I remember them, of course, but all very vital and sharp. Actually, Lil' John looks much the same. Chuck has a firm handshake. Bob Wells seemed genuinely touched by my comments.

"Hoolihan" looked over the DVD of a program he had not yet actually watched and pointed to an actress he knew had passed away recently. "We're dropping like flies," he said with just a touch of sadness in his voice. I replied, "But you'll live forever, right?" "No," he said with a smile, "it will just seem that way."

There were plenty of other vendors at Ghoulardifest, offering up horror fare and local nostalgia. Next year, I'll take more money. There was a stage show and a little theatre showing various Hoolihan, Big Chuck Lil' John DVD's. There was a 60's Batmobile recreation and a Lost In Space B-9 Robot. It was actually a nice little, largely local convention.

Sometimes, meeting your heroes and finding them to be human can be a really positive experience.