Saturday Night Dead

Saturday Night Dead cite book
last =Watson
first =Elena M.
authorlink =
coauthors =
title =Television Horror Movie Hosts: 68 Vampires, Mad Scientists and Other Denizens of the Late Night Airwaves Examined and Interviewed
publisher =McFarland & Company
date =2000
location =Jefferson, North Carolina, United States
pages =265
url =http://www.mcfarlandpub.com/book-2.php?id=978-0-7864-0940-2
doi =
id =
isbn =0786409401] was a television program that hosted B horror films from 1984-1990 on KYW-TV, Channel 3, which at that time was the NBC affiliate in Philadelphia, PA. The program ran after the network's late-night program "Saturday Night Live" (hence the title playing off from the program) at 1 am, and was a cult favorite.

tella

The program was hosted by Stella, dubbed "the man-eater from Manayunk" (a section near the Schuylkill River, a working class neighborhood) or the "Daughter of Desire," Stella delighted in half-clad gorgeous young men and often had one or two hanging in her dungeon awaiting her pleasure. According to her biography, Stella was "born in North Libido, New Jersey, a small village outside of Atlantic City. She is the only child of traveling hecklers. Her parents dropped her in a plastic basket at Fifth and Shunk in front of Guido's Hair Weaving and Plumbing Supplies, but for all intents and purposes she was raised by a flock of pigeons". Reincarnated 37 times, Stella was just your typical "ghoul" next door.

In real life she was Karen Scioli, a South Philadelphia born actress and homemaker who weekly donned a push-up bra, slinky black dress, feather boa, false eyelashes and a mole on her right cheek to become the female vampiress.

Other regulars on the program were Stella's canopied-bed called "Beda Lugosi" which talked and vibrated; Skeeves the Butler (Bill Brown) who left the show and was replaced by Hives the Butler (Bob Billbrough); Cousin Mel (Glenn Davish), who was nerdy and was told everyone (in a tribute to a character on The Dick Van Dyke Show played by Richard Deacon) to "Shut up, Mel." Davish (who was in the movie Mannequin with Andrew McCarthy, Kim Catrall and Estelle Getty) also played a whacked out mad scientist named Dr. Schuylkill (a play off the Schuylkill River and the Schuylkill Expressway) and voiced a faceless dungeon monster named Iggy who ate anybody Stella didn't like as well as a portrait that gave sarcastic responses to whatever Stella was wise-cracking about. Two other actresses - Donna Ryan, who played the whacked out psychic "Madame Tofutti" and Kathy Robinson - were regulars on the show.

Saturday Night Dead was produced by KYW-TV and often featured the talent from their local news production, Eyewitness News, including Howard Joffe.

The Duke Ellington Orchestra's recording of "The Mooche" was used as the show's theme song.

Featured Films

* directed by Noriaki Yuasa
*Night Fright directed by James A. Sullivan
*Shivers (a/k/a "They Came From Within") directed by David Cronenberg (shown in a "Christmas in July" episode)
*The Tomb of Ligeia directed by Roger Corman
*Zombies of Sugar Hill directed by Paul Maslansky
*Zombie Lake directed by Jean Rollin
*Bluebeard
*Dracula vs. Frankenstein, directed by Al Atkinson

References