NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — With it being nice and cool out, some might say this is a perfect fall week to take in some scary movies. There's a long history in Nashville of people who know all about scary movies and things that go bump in the night. In this Halloween season special, we take a look back on those who brought us so many fright nights.
There's this very exclusive club in Nashville. Larry Underwood's part of it.
"Native Nashvillian, lived here my whole life," Larry said.
So, what's the club?
"Come this way," Larry said, motioning down his hallway to a back room in his home. "I'll show you my studio/dungeon."
Larry is a horror host.
"My alter ego is Dr. Gangrene, the Physician of Fright," he smiled. "It's this character who introduces these movies and lives in a creepy old house, does weird experiments. Here I am 23 years later, and I'm still at it. I love a good monster movie."
You know what a horror host is, right? Among the most famous TV hosts of fright nights, monster fests, and chiller theaters is Vampira, Elvira, Svengoolie, and Joe Bob Briggs.
"The host introduces the movie and really becomes a friend to the viewers," Larry said. "If the movie's scary, he or she's there to make the movie a little less scary. If it's not that great of a movie, the host is there for entertainment factor, to liven it up."
In Nashville, Larry's part of a horror host tradition bringing unpleasant dreams since the 1950s.
"The original was Dr. Lucifer, who was played by a guy named Ken Bramming," Larry explained. "He was a Transylvanian gentleman, a dapper horror host."
The early '70s brought new blood.
"Sir Cecil Creape was played by Russ McCown," Larry continued. "He was a film editor. [The character was] a cross between the Hunchback of Notre Dame and Oliver Hardy."
"In the '90s, there was a horror host named Humphrey the Hunchback played by Barry McAlister. To me, there was something really wholesome and charming about those horror hosts of those past years."
There was one more horror host of Nashville, one you'd find when you turned your dial to 5.
"Good evening and welcome to Movies and Madness!" Bob McGehee said, mimicking the voice of a character from long ago.
Bob is the Count of 5.
His story at NewsChannel 5 starts a bit before the Count.
"Channel 5 hired me in '73 to be the associate producer for a live morning show," Bob remembered.
When the station bought a monster movie package to show by around 1978, they saw producer Bob as the right guy to host those late popcorn nights.
"It started out as Suspense Theater," Bob said. "We went from Suspense Theater to Movies and Madness. You had vampires and headless horsemen, little kids that were evil, zombies, aliens popping out of your chest. People are scared silly by what's going on."
"I'm at a store buying groceries early on a Saturday morning, and this little kid's hiding behind his dad's pants," Bob continued. "His dad looks at me and says, 'you're the guy who keeps me up every weekend!'"
The Count went off the air in the early '80s, and Bob eventually left 5 and worked years for Nissan. His life's now taken on a new chapter.
"I had been a regular donor to the Red Cross," he explained. "I was deferred as a donor because Agent Orange finally popped up. When I came out of service, I'd been wounded. I was in Vietnam. The result, I found three years ago, was blood cancer. I'm taking a blood cancer pill every morning, but I'm also trying to stay active if I can. Racquetball three days a week — I'm trying to stay healthy."
Through these sometimes difficult days, Bob enjoys the memories of his years as the Count, the people he met, and knowing he was part of a Nashville tradition so unusual, so fun.
On a Saturday night at the NECAT network studio, Larry got ready to do a show in front of a live audience as Dr. Gangrene. Gangrene continues a tradition set more than 60 years ago of hosts who rose from their tombs to scare Nashville. Some still walk among us.
"Nobody could find a stake at the time, so you never know when the count may be back!" said Bob, showing his fangs.
"I'm happy to keep the horror host legacy alive in Nashville, Tennessee," said Larry. "It's something that I'm very proud of."
