Ghoulardi

"Ghoulardi" from a WJW-TV publicity shot

Ghoulardi (played by Ernie Anderson) was the irreverent TV horror-movie host of "Shock Theater" on WJW-TV in Cleveland, Ohio from 1963 to 1966. Frequent targets of Ghoulardi's mockery included other Cleveland TV personalities, as well as the cities of Parma and Oxnard, and he encouraged viewers to "Stay Sick!" The show and its host were immensely popular, and helped launch a series of spin-off movie hosts still going to this day.

Anderson's son, film director Paul Thomas Anderson, named his production company Ghoulardi Films after the character.

External links

• Ghoulardi Archive fan site
• Screen captures
• Archived page on Ernie Anderson and Ghoulardi from the Paul Thomas Anderson fan site Cigarettes & Coffee
• HorrorHosts.com

Ghoulardi, played by disk-jockey, voice announcer and actor Ernie Anderson, was the host of late night “Shock Theatre” at WJW-TV, Channel 8, in Cleveland, Ohio from 1963 through 1966. “Shock Theatre” featured grade-“B” science fiction and horror movies, and is best remembered for its Friday night time slot.

Anderson was a big band and jazz enthusiast. This irreverent and influential movie host was strictly hipster, unlike the more common horror character prototype. Ghoulardi’s costume included a long lab coat covered with “slogan” buttons, horn-rimmed sunglasses with the right lens missing, fake Van Dyke beard, and various messy, awkwardly-perched wigs.

During breaks from the movies, Anderson addressed the camera with a part-Beat, part-ethnic accented commentary: “Hey, group!,” “Stay sick, knif” (“fink”), “Cool it,” “Turn blue” and “Oveh deh.” Anderson improvised frequently, perhaps because of his difficulty memorizing lines. He played a number of novelty and offbeat rock tunes, plus jazz and R & B songs, under his live performance, attracting both cult and mainstream viewers. Moreover, he surreally inserted wildly inappropriate film clips, or clips of himself reacting to the actors, into the movie he was hosting.

Ghoulardi spared no unhip targets: the inhabitants of Parma, Ohio and Oxnard, California, bandleader Lawrence Welk and polka music, Cleveland TV personalities Mike Douglas and Dorothy Fuldheim, other public figures and the movie being played. In particular, Ghoulardi unmercifully mocked Parma, a working-class bedroom community near Cleveland, for its ethnic “white socks” sensibility, creating a series of taped skits called “Parma Place.” He adopted a crow he named “Oxnard.”

Ghoulardi used friends and members of his talented Channel 8 crew as supporting cast: cameraman “Big Chuck” Schodowski, film editor Bob Soinski and writer Tim Conway (later of Carol Burnett and “Dorf” fame) and teenage intern Ron Sweed. Sweed boarded a cross-town bus to a Ghoulardi appearance, clad in a gorilla suit. Anderson invited Sweed on stage; to the crowd’s delight, Sweed stumbled into the audience, sealing his post as Anderson’s right-hand man.

Channel 8 capitalized on Ghoulardi’s wide audience with a comprehensive merchandising program, giving Anderson a percentage. Anderson also formed “Ghoulardi All-Stars” sports teams, which played as many as 100 charity contests a year, which, reflecting his popularity, frequently attracted thousands of fans.

Anderson openly battled Channel 8 management. In spite of the show’s popularity, they worried that Ghoulardi was pushing too many boundaries too quickly, and tried to reign in the character.

Anderson would have none of this. He provoked his bosses by detonating plastic action figures and model cars with firecrackers and bombs provided by viewers, once nearly setting his studio on fire (“Cool it with the boom-booms”). Induced by Conway, who had already left town, and greater career promise, Anderson retired Ghoulardi in 1966 and moved to Los Angeles, California ostensibly to act in film and TV. He made a successful career doing voice work, including for the ABC TV network.

In the early 1970's, Sweed took over the Ghoulardi character and costume with Anderson’s blessing and became known as movie host “The Ghoul” on another channel. Channel 8’s Bob Wells (“Hoolihan the Weatherman”) and “Big Chuck” Schodowski took over Ghoulardi’s Friday night movie time slot as “Hoolihan and Big Chuck,” becoming Anderson’s tamer but familiar successors. Cleveland native Drew Carey has paid tribute to Ghoulardi in his television show as have the punk-billy band, the Cramps, by their 1990 album, “Stay Sick.” Anderson died in California in 1997.

More than 40 years after Ghoulardi retired, his humor endures: polka music, white socks, chrome lawn ornaments and pink plastic flamingoes are the things that made Parma famous. Anderson's son, film director Paul Thomas Anderson, named his production company “Ghoulardi Films” in his father’s honor. Fans hope for a film biography.

Source: Ghoulardi: Inside Cleveland TV’s Wildest Ride, Tom Feran and R.D. Heldenfels, Gray and Company (1997).