Creature Feature hosted by Sir Cecil Creape

No… this is not a goth punk band… but I will post a song from Han’s draft at 11 CST today.

This morning I wanted to share this memory of this fun local horror host. When I was a kid I thought Sir Cecil Creape was a little scary but a lot of fun. It was a gentle way for kids to be introduced to older horror movies.

If you didn’t grow up in Nashville in the 70s you will be thinking… who? I’m sure local stations in other areas had someone like this or maybe not. This was before cable, DVD’s, VHS, or personal computers.

Sir Cecil Creape was actually Russ McCown (film editor) playing the host that featured a  B horror movie from the 40s and 50s. The show was called Creature Feature and it was originally on between 1971-1973. They would rerun it through the seventies and that is when I caught him. It was on the NBC afflilate Channel 4 in Nashville. It would come on late at night. Creape would do different skits with a corny sense of humor and it worked. I thought the set was absolutely the coolest set I’d ever seen.

WSM (Channel 4) even created a Sir Cecil Creape Fan Club, which offered a poster and a cardboard mask perfect for terrorizing younger brothers and sisters, and the Boy Scouts of America Middle Tennessee Council issued a special “Sir Cecil’s Ghoul Patrol” patch.

They aimed the show at high schoolers and college students but soon children would want to stay up past their bedtime to watch it. I do remember t-shirts and buttons of Creape…and occasionally I still see a few around Nashville. Pat Sajak, long before hosting the Wheel of Fortune, assisted in the scripts.

In 1983 Russ McCown revisited Sir Cecil in the Phantom of the Opry on TNN for 13 episodes. I read where someone said he sounded like a Southern-fried Boris Karloff. That sounds right!

Dr. Gangrene's Mad Blog: Sir Cecil Creape T-shirt UpdatedDr. Gangrene's Mad Blog: Sir Cecil Creape - 1970s Nashville Horror Host

He was elected into the The official Horror Host Hall of Fame in 2015! Russ McCown passed away in 1998.

Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player.

21 thoughts on “Creature Feature hosted by Sir Cecil Creape”

  1. I never thought much about it- because I was never really into these type of movies- even as a kid–but I wonder if every city had a similar character on television? In Pittsburgh late on Saturday nights it was Chiller Theater with Chilly Billy- and a cast of odd characters. I’d watch it now and then but a lot of my friends were more into it than I was.

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    1. I thought about that. Was he a syndicated character? I looked in that Horror Host Hall of Fame and like you said…not the same character but the same idea probably all over. I think it was movies like The Mummy and things like that.
      I didn’t know Pat Sajack worked on it.

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  4. Is that patch you included from your personal collection? No idea who he was , besides what you’ve said here, but it was cool when even TV had local personalities that were beloved, much like local radio. I wasn’t a horror movie fan but I do remember Elvira in the 80s having a show like that…but I guess that was a nation-wide, or multi-national show.

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    1. No I found that patch on the internet BUT I’m ordering a shirt! It’s funny that Pat Sajak worked on it long before Vanna came into his life lol.
      Yea I remember Elvira very well…very well!
      I think a lot of towns had a horror host like Creape…just not Creape.

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  6. Chicago had “Screaming Yellow Theater” on WFLD with the original Svengoolie, WCFL disk jockey Jerry G. Bishop. The current Svengoolie, Rich Koz, started as “Son of Svengoolie” in the ’80’s when he was on WFLD, then when Koz moved to WCIU (owned and operated by Weigel Broadcasting, which owns MeTV as well) they dropped the “son of” and he was Svengoolie again.

    A series with the same general concept was “Creature Features,” carried by WGN. The host was just a voiceover speaking in a diabolical accent (usually provided by either Carl Greyson or Marty McNeely, newsreader on WGN’s “Night Beat” news broadcast which usually followed the movie) accompanied by Henry Mancini’s great song, “Experiment In Terror.”

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  8. I love this shit Max. We had a guy up here from Seattle that had a vampire gig. He did the same thing on Friday nights. Then there was Count Floyd on SCTV. My Gal and I still watcha Friday night horror film. Last week ‘Pit And the Pendulum’ Vinny Price is a fixture at our pad. Great post fella.

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    1. I’m glad people enjoyed this post….I thought shit…only people from Nashville will like this…that is cool that most people had someone they watched introducing horror movies.
      Thanks CB

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