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Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat Part 1

For more information about this program, Click Here

Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat

They call it "the Good War." World War II has the melancholy distinction of being the largest single event in human history. WWII deeply scarred every nation involved in it. Those scars still show today.

"If World War One ended the Victorian Era, introducing the modern age, World War II confirmed the changes, pushing us beyond barriers we barely knew existed. It ended the age of Empires, even for the victors. It introduced us to mass murder on a scale not even seen during WWI. It started the Atomic Age at a time when we barely knew what atomic energy was. There are literally millions of stories that could be told about that period of human history."

This program is something of a watershed for me. My parents spent their late childhood early adolescence during the war years. The shadow of the war has always been present. As much as the sixties represent a special period to a number of us, the WWII period represents a special period to others. My parents have told me the story of hearing about the attack on Pearl Harbor as the news broke on the radio. My uncle went ashore at Normandy on the second day of the invasion. He was wounded on those beaches. He lost his older brother during what is known as Operation Market Garden. One of my late grandmothers worked in a factory during the war in Evansville.

My dad passed his love of history to me. Since I started making these films of mine, I knew I wanted to do something for him. To honor the gift he gave me. He is an avid WWII history buff, so the choice was fairly evident from the beginning.

But, there are literally hundreds of thousands of documentaries on the subject of the Second World War. I really have nothing to add to the history or to the understanding of the period, or even to the controversies of the period. How could I possibly approach this material?

A few years ago, I saw the Al Reinert film, For All Mankind. Al Reinert went through the old NASA footage about the Apollo Missions, using the footage and interviews NASA conducted to tell the story of humans exploration of the moon. I highly recommend everyone see that movie, especially if you doubt humans have ever walked on the moon. I rented the movie through Netflix, you should try there. That movie was inspiring. I knew then how, in outline at any rate, I wanted to handle the material concerning the Second World War.

I used a collection of World War II newsreels, photographs and radio broadcasts to tell the story of the Second World War. What I did was to construct a program showing the war in a manner which my parents, my grandparents, and millions of other people, saw and heard the war. I don't know how well I presented my original idea. I know several people, several of my friends, have told me how much they enjoyed the program, and to them I am grateful for their remarks.

Had I used my head, I would have premiered this program on the first of September, which is the date the Germans invaded Poland to start WWII. At that time, I was more worried about finishing the last part of the program itself. As it turned out, I could have premiered the program on that date and still finished the last part before it would have been broadcasted. However, I decided to wait to be certain that the entire program was finished, then select a date. December 7th, of course, is an important date for we Americans. Since I didn't make the September 1st date, and I didn't want to wait till the next anniversary fo Normandy, December 7th seemed an appropriate date for the premiere. I hope everyone who reads this will watch my program whether online through blip.tv or on Owensboro Public Access or through one of the stations my friends at Open Door TV programs for.

For the Owensboro area, Owensboro Public Access is Time-Warner Channel 72. Tentatively, this is scheduled to premiere on Monday, Dec. 7th @ 4:00 P.M. It will be repeated on Monday @ 8:00 P.M., on Thursday, Dec. 10th @ 4:00 P.M. and again at 8:00 P.M. and on Saturday and Sunday at 8:00 P.M. This schedule hasn't been confirmed by OPA, but, according to the last weekly schedule I have received, there shouldn't be any problem with this schedule. Parts 2, 3 & 4 will follow the same schedule with Part 2 starting on the following Monday, December 14th, Part 3 on Dec. 21 and Part 4 on Dec. 28th. The online version will be made available for public viewing through blip.tv each of those Mondays. For Open Door TV schedule, please contact Open Door itself.

There are several people who I would like to thank for their help and support, too many to name everyone here. However, a special thank you should go to Sonya Kahn, Ruby James and Dave Plesh for taking the time to view the program as I was working on it and for their kind words of encouragement. Additionally, I wish to thank the Internet Archives for providing some of the newsreels and radio clips. Last but certainly not least, a very big, special thank you goes to my friend and erstwhile colleague J. C. Kaelin of MediaOutlet for not only providing the bulk of the newsreels, photographs, and radio clips I used, but for his words of encouragement and allowing me to bounce ideas off of him during his busy, hectic, growing business concern. (Congratulations, James!) Anyone who has any interest in history and historical items, go visit J.C. at MediaOutlet. You will not believe what you can find there.

Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat: The Saga of World War II will be premiering on Dec. 7th, 2009. A Tramp Studios production of a film by Keenan Powell.

Movie Madness

During the mid 1950s there began a local television tradition that has continued in various forms to this day. As televisions became more common in the home, the movies studios, long hesitant to release movies to the small screen, finally relented and made available movies produced post 1948. As a result of this, hundreds of cheaply made mad scientist/werewolf/cheap rip-off Frankenstein monster type movies became late night filler. The relative in expense of the films made them very attractive to local stations looking to fill air time and commercial space. But just running the movie wasn't enough. These were films that couldn't possibly be taken seriously.

The show needed a host. Again to keep costs down, use someone already on staff, add some cheap greasepaint, maybe a small set, and just sit back and watch the fun- during the commercial breaks!

The idea caught on and soon local stations all over the country were airing their own version. In Chicago, it seems like almost every station had some horror movie show on the air at least sometime during their broadcast existence. Many consisted of nothing more than a slide (and maybe some strange music) with the name of the show. WMAQ-TV ran Thrillerama, WSNS had Monster Rally. For a while, WLS-TV ran horror movies during their "The 3:30 Movie" timeslot.

But there are certain shows that to this day are remembered with good times, a lot of laughs, and maybe just a scare or two- though maybe you probably still wouldn't admit it!

There are literally hundreds of horror hosts who deserve to be listed here. Unfortunately, we only have room for a few.

The very first hosted horror show was the Vampira Show is a 1950s Emmy-nominated television show hosted by Vampira. The series aired on the Los Angeles ABC television affiliate KABC-TV from April 30, 1954 through April 2, 1955. The series was produced and created by Hunt Stromberg, Jr. and featured the Vampira character created by Maila Nurmi.

The costume of Nurmi's Vampira character was inspired by the spooky The New Yorker cartoons of Charles Addams, later adapted for the TV series The Addams Family in 1964. As Nurmi told Box office in a 1994 interview, she had dressed as Addams' at-the-time nameless ghoul-woman to attend Lester Horton's annual Hollywood costume ball the Bal Caribe in 1953. Nurmi's ghoul woman beat out over 2,000 attendees to win the evening's prize for best costume, and drew Stromberg's attention. When Stromberg approached Nurmi about doing the character for television, Nurmi then re-imagined the character and costume as a buxom and glamorous single vampire instead of the mother of a family, and she named her creation Vampira. Nurmi told Box office that her intention was to invent a unique creation of her own that was "campier and sexier" than the mute and flat-chested Addams character, in part to avoid plagiarizing Addams' intellectual property.

Vampira's personality was based on elements of several silent film actresses including Theda Bara and Gloria Swanson as well as the Evil Queen from Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. In Vampira: The Movie, Nurmi reveals she appropriated the long cigarette holder and extra-long fingernails from the Dragon Lady character in the Terry and the Pirates comics. The new costume was inspired by the artwork of John Willie featured in the fetish magazine Bizarre. Each show began with the spectral image of the wasp-waist Vampira gliding through knee-deep fog down a dark corridor toward the viewer. At the end of her trance-like walk she would suddenly let out a long, piercing scream as the camera zoomed in on her face. She would then smile and coyly remark, "Screaming relaxes me so." After that Nurmi would sit on a Victorian double-ended sofa decorated with skulls and introduce the movie of the night, sometimes pausing to play with her pet spider Rolo, talk with off-camera ghosts, torment her advertiser, Fletcher Jones in amusing commercials, or drink a Vampira Cocktail at her poison bar. The show's theme music was from the Adagio movement in Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta by Bela Bartok and excerpts from Uranus from The Planets by Gustav Holst.

The show's concept of having a host introduce films was fresh at the time and had never been done before. In later years, stations all over the world would duplicate its format with similar hosts. The Vampira Show was seen in the Los Angeles area only but was featured in articles and photo spreads in Newsweek, TV Guide and Life within weeks of its first broadcast. The show and its bizarre hostess were an instant success and led to Nurmi's appearance on numerous 1950s television shows including The Red Skelton Show and Ed Sullivan's Toast of the Town.

Ghoulardi was portrayed by disc jockey, voice announcer, and actor Ernie Anderson as the horror host of late night Shock Theater at WJW-TV, Channel 8, in Cleveland, Ohio.

Shock Theater featured grade-"B" science fiction films and horror films. Shock Theater was aired in a Friday late-night time slot, but at the peak of Ghoulardi's popularity, Anderson also hosted the Saturday afternoon Masterpiece Theater, and the weekday children's program Laurel, Ghoulardi and Hardy.

His irreverent and influential host character was a hipster, unlike the horror character prototype. Ghoulardi's costume was a long lab coat covered with "slogan" buttons, horn-rimmed sunglasses with a missing lens, a fake Van Dyke beard and moustache, and various messy, awkwardly-perched wigs. Ghoulardi's stage name was devised by Cleveland restaurateur Ralph Gulko, who was making a pun of the word "ghoul," and his own similar last name, with a generic "ethnic" ending.

During breaks in the movies, Anderson addressed the camera live in a part-Beat, part-ethnic accented commentary, peppered with catchphrases: "Hey, group!," "Stay sick, knif" ("fink"), "Cool it," "Turn blue" and "Ova-dey." Anderson improvised because of his difficulty memorizing lines. He played novelty and offbeat rock and roll tunes, plus jazz and rhythm and blues songs under his live performance. He frequently played the Rivingtons' "Papa-Oo-Mow-Mow" over a clip of a toothless old man gumming.

Shock Theater drew both a black and white cult audience, who loved Ghoulardi's beatnik costume, the music, and his hip talk, which was a nod to black jazz and R&B artists. More mainstream viewers enjoyed his broad, unpretentious ethnic humor.

Ghoulardi spared no unhip targets: the bedroom communities Parma, Ohio, ("Par-ma?!") which he often called "Amrap" (Parma backwards) and Oxnard, California, ("Remember...Oxnard!"), bandleader Lawrence Welk and polka music, Cleveland television personalities Mike Douglas and Dorothy Fuldheim ("Dorothy Baby"), plus other public figures. In particular, Ghoulardi unmercifully jeered Parma for its ethnic, working-class, "white socks" sensibility, creating a series of taped skits called Parma Place. He adopted a crow and named him "Oxnard."

He frequently mocked the poor quality films he was hosting: "If you want to watch a movie, don't watch this one," or "This movie is so bad, you should just go to bed." He had his crew comically insert random stock footage or his own image at climactic moments. In movies with chase scenes, for example, they might superimpose a shot of Ghoulardi running away, as if it was Ghoulardi being pursued.

More than 40 years after Ghoulardi signed off, his legacy endures: Residents of Cleveland still associate polka music, white socks, and pink plastic flamingo and yard globe lawn ornaments with Parma, Ohio.

In the mid-1960s, Ghoulardi's irreverence overtook the rarefied Severance Hall, where Cleveland Orchestra conductor George Szell introduced one of his musicians as being from Parma, Ohio. According to Tim Conway, the concert audience replied: "Par-ma?!"

Ron Sweed went on to fame of his own under the name "The Ghoul," which ran in the Cleveland, Detroit areas and had a limited national syndication.

Chicago's first horror show was WBKB's "Shock Theater." Shock Theater was hosted by Marvin, played by WBKB kid show host Terry Bennett. Marvin could best be described as a demented beatnik type, dressed all in black and sporting a pair of thick lensed black horn rim glasses. He spoke with a voice that was a cross between Peter Lorre and Renfield, the hapless sap that unsuccessfully tries to secure a real estate deal with Count Dracula in the 1931 Universal classic "Dracula." Many viewers referred to him as "Mad Marvin."

"Marvin" wasn't alone down there in the cellar. He was kept company by his wife who he only called "Dear." "Dear" was played by Bennett's wife, Joy, who also appeared on Bennett's daytime kid show as "Pamela Puppet." You never saw "Dear's" face as the camera was always behind her or her face would be obscured. One was never sure just who or what "Dear" was as it was common for "Marvin" to ask "Dear" to lend him a hand only to get the entire arm instead!

There were other characters on the show including "Orville" the hunchback servant and "Shorty," who bore more than a passing resemblance to the Frankenstein monster. The show even had its own "shocktale" house band called "The Deadbeats." usually a five piece combo variously consisting of bass fiddle, bongos, guitar, woodwinds, and squeeze box. Dressed all in black, they provided background music while "Marvin" read some offbeat poem or performed hilarious musical parodies.

On the last telecast of "Shock Theatre" viewers finally got to see what "Dear" looked like. The show was being cancelled to make way for ABC-TV's "Fight Of The Week." As the show was winding to a close, "Marvin" turned to his companion and said "Dear, why don't you say good-bye to our friends?" "Dear" then turned around and faced the camera for the first time ever and said "Goodnight! Talk to you soon!" The final half hour, normally the Shocktale segment, featured Terry and Joy, out of character, just chatting about the past shows. Many fans of the show thought it to be the perfect ending. It was August of 1959. Interestingly a similar gimmick would be used on the final telecast of NBC's "Howdy Doody Show" one year later as the always mute Clarabell The Clown said good-bye to all the kids at home and in the Peanut Gallery as that series passed into television history.

The two shows remember the most was Creature Features on WGN and Screaming Yellow Theater.

Creature Features was WGN-TV's entry. Known for it's main title vignettes of Universal Studios classic horror movies set to the haunting guitars of Henry Mancini's theme from the film "Experiment In Terror," and the dark sinister voice of WGN-TV announcer Marty McNeely reading a poem

Creature Features amounted to nothing more than a slide shown between commercials with an off camera voice.

WFLD offered "Screaming Yellow Theater" which in the beginning was very similar to WGN-TV's entry in that it was a slide on air between commercial breaks with off camera announcer Jerry G. Bishop. Instead of Mancini, WFLD had Link Wray's classic "Rumble" (covered by The Dave Clark Five) playing in the background. The addition of a woman belting out a blood curdling scream every 15 seconds added to the "suspense."

Eventually Bishop, ad-libbing, began to add some humor to the commer- cial wrap arounds. The single "Screaming Yellow Theater" slide gave way to still shots of Bishop, now dressed as a burned out 60's-ish hippie named "Svengoolie." The show was slowly becoming a hit and before long, the "Screaming Yellow Theater" concept was dropped and replaced with live action comedy bits performed by Bishop and written by him and staff writer Rich Koz.




During the show's heyday, it was not unusual to hear and see odd things during the movie that were not there originally. This was the kind of humor Bishop and Koz gave their series and it made the show a huge hit. Sven would appear during the commercial breaks hawking products in commercial parodies (through Sven's exclusive distributor S.T.D.- Sham, Trickery, & Deceit- though most of the time the "D" was changed), welcome local guests, sing songs, and tell stories all with a vaguely familiar "Bela Lugosi" accent.

Tramp Studios is pleased to announce its entry into the world of hosted horror shows with its own creation, Movie Madness with Dr. Praxis.



Movie Madness features a host, Dr. Praxis, and two sidekicks Stromboli and Alice. Each episode will feature bad movies and even worse jokes. Movie Madness will be an animated show of a type that, quite frankly, will make South Park look like a classically animated show. It would be better to have live hosts with a show of this type, therefore we could also have guests on our show, but we do what we can with what we have.

Starting Oct. 30th, 2009, Movie Madness will be seen on a bi-weekly basis on Owensboro Public Access, Owensboro Time-Warner Channel 72, through our friends at Open Door TV as well as being online through Watch Evansville and here at trampstudios.blogspot.com. We're hoping to expand that list shortly, but more on that as the situation develops.

Please Stand By Part 2

All four parts of
Please Stand By: The Invention of Television
can be seen on
Watch Evansville
by clicking Here

Please Stand By Part 1

All four parts of
Please Stand By: The Invention of Television
can be seen on
Watch Evansville
by clicking Here

This Weekend from Tramp Studios

Showing this weekend on Owensboro Time-Warner Channel 72

Please Stand By: The Invention of Television Part 2

A Tramp Studios production
of a film by Keenan Powell.

Please Stand By will also be available for viewing through here, http://trampstudios.blogspot.com.

Greetings earthlings

Greetings.  Welcome to the official Tramp Studios blog.  Here, I will do my best to keep you updated with what is going on at Tramp Studios.  For starters, did you know that you can watch the films from Tramp Studios for free, at your convienence?  Simply click this link:  http://watchevansville.com/search/tag/keenan.

Secondly, for the Owensboro, KY, area, this coming Saturday/Sunday and the next three following weekend, Keenan Powell's series, Please Stand By: The Invention of Television, will be shown on Owensboro Time-Warner Public Access Channel 72 starting at 1:00 p.m.  This series is in four parts.  All four parts will be shown, one part per weekend, over the next month.  After this series concludes, plans are to show the sequel to Invasion of the Atomic Government, Return of the Son of the Atomic Goverment Films.  Tramp Studios will show a few movies from the far, far, far (public domain) reaches of film history to fill in the weekends leading up to the first week of December.

December 7th, 2009, will see the premiere of Keenan's latest series, Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat: The Saga of World War II.

Using newsreel footage, photographs and the actual radio broadcasts from the Days of WWII, Keenan has built a series that will present the events of WWII as his parents (possiblty as your parents or your grandparents) would have observed them.  This series has already garnered nice comments from the people lucky enough to view it.
So mark the date on your calenders.  December 7th, "A day that will live in infamy!"  This will be shown on Owensboro TIme-Warner Channel 72, up in the New England area through our friends at Open Door TV and online through WatchEvansville.com
Check back with this blog frequently for other exciting news from Tramp Studios.  Be certain to visit our official store at trampstudios.com to purchase the DVDs of Keenan's films and series.