Dr. Shock was magician Joseph Zawislak who created the persona based on Roland, (with John Zacherle’s permission), and hit the Philadelphia airwaves on WPHL-TV (Channel 17) in 1969. His first Saturday afternoon horror show lasted only 13 weeks, but protests brought him back and a cult had begun. He was on three different shows during his reign: Scream-In, Mad Theater and Horror Theater. American Artists Entertainment represented Dr.Shock in the seventies and recorded him on “East Coast Records”. His sign-off each week was “Let there be fright!”. Joe Zawislak died of heart failure at the age of 42. Many cities in America has these local tv show monster hosts. In Cleveland we had “The Ghoul.”
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December 3, 2007 at 4:43 am
Rob Young
In Australia we had “Aweful Movie with Deadly Earnest”
December 5, 2007 at 9:39 pm
BenT
I grew up within range of WPHL’s ttransmitter, and spent many Saturday afternoons in the early 70s being thrilled by Dr. Shock. The other kiddie host on WPHL at the time was Wee Willie Weber. I used to rush home from school on weekday afternoons to catch re-runs of “milton The Monster’ on Wee Willie Weber’s program. (There’s a pretty nice 4-disc DVD collection of Milton The Monster out now. Of particular interest to Bizarre Music fans, as much of the voicework was by Bob McFadden of “I’m a Mummy” fame)
I can remember sending away to WPHL once for this set of little metal pop-up buttons featuring Weber and Dr. Shock’s faces. you’d depress the buttons in the center, and when the metal sprang back, the button would jump four or five feet into the air. I wish I still had those.
December 5, 2007 at 9:42 pm
BenT
does anybody have an MP3 file of this record?