Zacherley

Zacherley as portrayed by John Zacherle

In 1957 John was hired as the host of WCAU's Shock Theater, which debuted on October 7, 1957. As the host, Zacherle appeared wearing a long black undertaker's coat as the character "Roland", who lived in a crypt with his wife "My Dear" and his lab assistant Igor. The hosting of the black-and-white show involved numerous stylized horror-comedy gags that have become standard on television. In the opening sequence, Zacherle as Roland would descend a long round staircase to the crypt. The producers erred on the side of goriness, showing fake severed heads with blood simulated with Hershey's chocolate syrup. The show sometimes featured live "cut-ins" during the movie in which the soundtrack continued to play on the air, while the visual feed switched briefly to a shot of Zacherle as Roland in the middle of a humorous stunt, such as riding a tombstone. The show ran for 92 broadcasts through 1958.

The purchase of WCAU by CBS in 1958 prompted Zacherle to leave Philadelphia for WABC-TV in New York, where the station added a "y" to the end of his name in the credits. He continued the format of the "Shock Theater", after March 1959 titled "Zacherley at Large", with "Roland" becoming "Zacherley" and his wife "My Dear" becoming "Isobel". He also began appearing in motion pictures, including Key to Murder alongside several of his former Action in the Afternoon colleagues.
In a 1960 promotional stunt for his move to WOR-TV, Zacherley staged a Presidential campaign. His "platform" recording can be found on the album Spook Along with Zacherley, which originally included a Zacherley for President book and poster set which is highly collectible today.

Zacherle continues to make appearances at conventions, and to this day, Zacherle collectibles are still selling, including model kits, T-shirts, and posters. The book "Goodnight, Whatever You Are" by Richard Scrivani, chronicling the life and times of The Cool Ghoul, debuted at the Chiller Theatre expo in Secaucus, New Jersey, in October 2006.

Be sure to stop by Zacherley's website.

And as always, you can buy this print, or any of my prints for a mere $25.00 by visiting the store, or simply by clicking the button below.

Gollum

As portrayed by Andy Serkis in Peter Jackson's "The Lord of the Rings."

Gollum was barely glimpsed in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), but he becomes a central character in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003). The CGI character was built around Serkis' facial features, voice and acting choices. Using a digital puppet created by Jason Schleifer and Bay Raitt at Weta Digital, animators created Gollum's performance using a mixture of motion capture data recorded from Serkis and a process called keyframing. The laborious process of digitally "painting out" Serkis' image and replacing it with the digital Gollum's required large numbers of digital artists. Including all the lighting, composition and rendering, each frame of Gollum's performance took four hours to compute.

A minor controversy arose when Serkis was judged ineligible to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Serkis' supporters claimed that since he performed both the voice and the presence of the character through motion capture, he should be eligible of a nomination.

In The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Serkis himself appears in a flashback scene as Sméagol before his degeneration into Gollum. This scene was originally earmarked for The Two Towers, but was held back because it was felt that audiences would relate better to the original Sméagol once they were more familiar with who he became. The decision to include this scene meant that Raitt and Jamie Beswarick had to redesign Gollum's face for the second and third movies so that it would more closely resemble Serkis'. (The brief glimpses in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring are of an earlier model of Gollum.)

While Gollum's split personality was strongly implied in the original novels, it was made explicit in Jackson's films; screenwriters Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens included scenes in the Two Towers and Return of the King in which "Gollum" and "Sméagol" argue, with Serkis clearly altering his voice and body language to play the two as separate entities.
These adaptations have varied in how they depicted Gollum visually. In Bakshi's film, Gollum is dark, bald and gangly. The Jackson films depicted Gollum quite similarly, though pale. In contrast, in the Rankin/Bass adaptations, he is a pale green, frog-like creature with huge, pupil-less eyes.

As always, you can order this, or any of my prints for a mere $25.00, by visiting the store or simply clicking the button bellow.

The Colossal Beast

Dean Parkin as Lt. Col. Glenn Manning from Bert I. Gordon's 1958 AIP release "War of the Colossal Beast."

Here is another rendition of the Colossal Beast, I was never happy with the version that appeared in Scarry Monsters #59, so I found myself revisiting it today, and here it is.

I'm much happier with this one.

Enjoy!

R

As always, you can order this, or any of my limited edition signed and numbered prints, by visiting the store, or simply clicking the button bellow.

Be sure to order soon to take adavantage of the Buy 1 Get 1 Free Sale!

Rondo Hatton + Buy 1 Get 1 Free Sale!

Rondo Hatton (April 22, 1894 – February 2, 1946)

In honor of this years Rondo Awards (Be sure to vote befor March 10th!) here's my portrait of Rondo Hatton.

Hatton was born Davis Elkins in Hagerstown, Maryland. Interestingly, Hatton was reputedly voted most handsome student in high school before his face was disfigured by acromegaly. He worked as a journalist until after World War I when the symptoms of acromegaly (a disorder of the pituitary gland) begun to show.

Universal Studios attempted to exploit Hatton's unusual features to promote him as a horror star after he played the part of henchman Hoxton Creeper in their sixth Sherlock Holmes film, Pearl of Death (1944), but he died of a heart attack (a direct result of his acromegalic condition) in 1946 before getting a chance to really make his mark.

His famous face has become an icon of Hollywood cinema. His legacy lives on through such tributes as a character in The Rocketeer (1991) and The Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards.

For a limited time, you can buy this, or any of my prints and get another print free! After you make you selection just send a email to rob@scottra.com and let me know what print(s) you'd like for free.

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