Svengoolie – Page 5 – Go Retire Psychiatrist

I wrote about Svengoolie a couple of years ago and just for old times’ sake, I watched the 1960 horror film 13 Ghosts on the Svengoolie broadcast by MeTV a few days ago. It had been a while since I watched Svengoolie and I thought I would have the usual experience of being able to sit through the opening credits and then being unable to watch more than 5 minutes of one of the cheesy movies for which Svengoolie is well known.

In fact, I watched and even enjoyed 13 Ghosts which I suppose makes me a hopeless case. The movie is about a family down on their luck and about to become homeless but a rich uncle leaves them a haunted house. It turns out to be haunted by a dozen ghosts, and the surprise ending reveals who the 13^th ghost turns out to be.

Back in the day, William Castle, the maker of the film, had a knack for coming up with neat gimmicks for his films. The gimmick for this one was a set of special glasses for the audience, which allowed them to see the ghosts or not, depending on which part of the glasses you looked through.

I recognized a couple of the actors in the movie. One of them was really well known to me and thousands of others. It was Margaret Hamilton as the housekeeper, who played the Wicked Witch of the West in the Wizard of Oz (1939). The other was Martin Milner, who was in the TV crime drama, Adam-12, which ran from the late 1960s to the mid-1970s. Hamilton obviously teased viewers by holding up a broom and smiling broadly in one scene.

I really didn’t get a lot of nostalgia from watching 13 Ghosts since I was too young to see it when it first opened. But I watched it from start to finish, something I could never do in the past when watching Svengoolie. Don’t get me wrong; I actually got more of a kick out of Svengoolie’s cornball jokes and gags complete with rubber chicken firing squads.

One thing I am still amazed about is the popularity of the Svengoolie show. There were over 3500 comments about 13 Ghosts the last time I looked, which was days after the movie. There were over 2,000 just during the show!

Another thought about Svengoolie and his rubber chickens. I looked all over the web for a free picture of a rubber chicken. I found only one. Why is that?

Have you ever wondered if anyone ever made a movie about an attack on planet earth by fried rubber chicken livers? Boy, am I glad I’m not the only one. I suppose I could check the MeTV channel to see if any such film was ever aired by Svengoolie.

What do you mean you never heard of Svengoolie?

I used to watch Svengoolie a long time ago. It’s this guy called Svengoolie, played by Rich Koz, who hosts really awful horror movies. I could watch them for about 10 minutes before I had to switch to something which wouldn’t bore me or make me gag—which I realize often can’t be done nowadays.

Svengoolie would make corny jokes and get rubber chickens thrown at him. That was actually the best part of the show.

Part of what made me think about this was reminiscing about the early 1970s when I lived at the YMCA and worked for a consulting engineer company called WHKS & Co.

You got a single sleeping room at the YMCA and there was no kitchen. Frankly, it was for old guys who had no place else to go and for young guys trying to find out how to go somewhere else.

I ate in cafes a lot. I also picked up a lot of Kentucky Fried Chicken take out. I realize it’s called KFC nowadays. But back in the 1970s you could openly buy a box of fried chicken livers as a side dish at KFC. I think I began eating them because they’re actually a pretty healthy food item if you prepare them right. You could get a generous serving of them. They were occasionally a little tough to chew—a little on the rubbery side.

You can’t get any franchise owners to admit they sell them now. You’ll see web articles that mention you can still get them at what they call certain “regional” stores. You can also maybe still get KFC chicken gizzards. Neither is on any official menu.

The connection here is fried tough chicken livers and bad old horror movies hosted by Svengoolie who makes corny jokes and dodges rubber chickens. I can easily imagine somebody making a throwback classic B Horror movie called “Attack of the Giant Fried Rubber Chicken Livers.”

Wouldn’t that be great?

Try watching Svengoolie sometime. You might not like the movie, but you’ll get a big kick out of Svengoolie.