Dr. Shock
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.”
(26 votes, average: 3.15 out of 5)
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December 3rd, 2007 at 4:43 am
In Australia we had “Aweful Movie with Deadly Earnest”
December 5th, 2007 at 9:39 pm
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 5th, 2007 at 9:42 pm
does anybody have an MP3 file of this record?
May 26th, 2008 at 6:49 pm
I also watched Dr. Shock avidly throughout his entire career… I was too young to understand what had actually happened when he was no longer on the air. Sobering to realize I’m now several years older than he was when he died.
In 1970 or ’71 or thereabouts I went out for Halloween dressed, sort of, as Dr. Shock.
September 29th, 2008 at 11:33 am
I HAVE THIS VINYL RECORDED ON CD-R.
secretcinemadvd@yahoo.com
April 12th, 2009 at 8:09 am
What a great looking cover! If I had this album I would frame it and put it on display!
August 28th, 2009 at 11:37 am
My father went to the same grade school as Joe Z. but he was 2 years behind him.
I used to watch Dr. Shock when he had the late night scream-in. It was the first summer I had a TV in my room and I used to stay up all night watching stuff till the stations shut down for the night.
Sad to say I have no idea whatever happened to this record as I remember having it.
Wonderful to see it again after all this time.
Mark