The Lesser Known Geek Hall Of Fame Geekville Radio

The month of Halloween continues here at Geekville Radio and we are inducting our Halloween-themed entry into The Lesser-Known Geek Hall Of Fame.







There were many Horror Hosts over the years. Not only too many to name, but some that became way too popular to be considered “lesser-known”. A certain well-endowed beehive hairdo-wearing hostess comes to mind… But the pop-culture icons of today wouldn’t have existed without many of the names we list below.















The Early Years







Perhaps the earliest late-night horror host was Vampira, who had a show in Los Angeles in the mid-1950s. After that show ended, Shock! was sent to TV stations around the country with a collection of old horror and sci-fi movies. These stations then hired their own local hosts who filmed wraparound segments that aired throughout the movie run.







Pittsburgh had Chilly Billy, New York had Zacherley, LA had Sinister Seymore, New Orleans had Morgus The Magnificent, and Chicago had Svengoolie. Actually TWO of them!







The Later Years







Those local hosts inspired what would become national cable TV in the 80s and 90s with the most popular probably being Elvira. Others included Grandpa Munster himself Al Lewis, Rhonda Shear, and Joe Bob Briggs. Even Mystery Science Theater 3000 writers have given credit to these past hosts for inspiration.







Today, the world has social media, YouTube, Roku, and countless other mediums where people can share their love of old and new horror schlock with the world. The art is not likely to go away anytime soon!

Lesser-Known Geek Hall Of Fame Inductee #10: Mandrake The Magician















1:30 – Real World History







Mandrake The Magician was created by Lee Falk, who also famously created The Phantom. Like The Shadow, Mandrake’s main power is the ability to hypnotize (The Shadow would call it “cloud minds”). But Mandrake has shown true magic abilities that defy physics.







While Mandrake officially first appeared in newspaper strips in 1934, Falk actually created the character a few years earlier as a teenager. Since The Phantom debuted in 1936, many historians consider Mandrake to be the first superhero.







Like The Phantom, the bulk of Mandrake’s adventures were told by Falk in daily comic strips by King Features Syndicate. Falk wrote all the stories up until his death in 1999. Artist Fred Fredericks took over writing and did double-duty until his retirement in 2013.







Mandrake’s strips were reprinted in Magic Comics, an anthology comic book title published by David McKay Company. That title would also feature Dagwood of Blondie fame on the cover







11:40 – The Origin







Mandrake’s origin has been retconned several times over the years. Mainly to add details or layers to his history. For the longest time, the story was that Mandrake and his brother had attended The College Of Magic in Tibet under the tutelage of Theron, a powerful magician and that Mandrake was sent there by his father, Basil The Great.







In reality, Theron was his father, and Basil The Great was thought to be his father. Theron handed Mandrake and Derek to Basil shortly after birth because their mother had died. Theron only revealed this when he was on his believed deathbed.







21:45 – Leon Mandrake (1911-1993)







A real-life stage musician also went by the name Mandrake. His appearance strongly resembled the comic strip counterpart, so much so some believed Falk based the character on him. Others believed he merely adopted the look after the character was published. Unfortunately, little, if any, evidence conclusively shows which came first. But since copyright laws and intellectual property







27:45 – The Heroes







Mandrake – The title character has had his origin rewritten a few times. But through it all, he trained in a College of Magic in Tibet for several years (between 7-10). By day he is an in-demand practicing stage magician who uses illusions and hypnosis. He keeps his most powerful magic a secret as he uses it to combat evil. While his stage shows have the usual “Hide the bird in the hat” type illusions, his crime-fighting tricks are much stronger. He has been able to make himself invisible, project visions of events, and made people see monsters and giant serpents.







Lothar – Mandrake’s trusted friend Lothar is an African Prince, originally prince of Seven Nations (later Twelve Nations) in Africa. He has been called The Strongest Man In The World. He has shown feats of strength such as lifting large animals. Lothar is one of, if not THE first black superheroes. His stature as an African prince/King is also the link between Mandrake and Falk’s other major creation, The Phantom!







Narda – A European princess and Mandrake’s love interest. Her beauty has led to her being the object of many vi...

TLKGHOF #9







Our latest induction into The Lesser-Known Geek Hall of Fame is also our first induction of a movie studio. Amicus Productions existed from 1962-1977 as an English production studio, despite being formed by two American producers Milton Subotsky and Max Rosenberg.















FORMATION







Subotsky and Rosenberg had collaborated on film projects before. In fact, Rosenberg had submitted a pitch for a Frankenstein revival that wound up being given to Hammer Films which became Curse Of Frankenstein. They formed Amicus Productions shortly after. Rosenberg handled the money and funding while Subotsky had more of a hand in the creative process.







MOVIE GENRES







While Hammer Films focused mainly on horror projects, Amicus tried to other genres ranging from horror to sci-fi to thrillers. They may be most famous for making the two standalone Dr. Who movies, Dr. Who And The Daleks and Daleks Invasion Of Earth 2150 A.D. Both films starred Peter Cushing. We did more extensive coverage of these two films in a past episode of Examining The Doctor.







Over the years, many of the Amicus movies would be mistaken for Hammer Films productions due to many of the same cast being used (Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Michael Gough).







Most of the movies are summarized, and you can see a pretty extensive list here.







There are books available online and GoodReads if you want to learn more about Amicus Productions.







Crazy Train does have a Halloween Playlist with over 10 hours of Scary Tunes for your Halloween Party.

Geekville Radio Halloween Sampler







It’s October, which means for many fellow geeks it’s Halloween Season! We love Halloween here at Geekville Radio and have a slew of special shows and programming in store for you in the coming weeks.















Examining The Dead, our Horror-themed podcast will review two Western films with horror elements. First up, the original Westworld with the iconic performance by Yul Brynner as The Gunman. Next up, the more recent Kurt Russell film Bone Tomahawk. And if you haven’t seen it, it is NOT for the squeamish.







Finally, we’ll talk about horror characters and where they might stand on the classic D&D Alignment descriptions.







Over on The Lesser Known Geek Hall Of Fame, we are inducting the first movie studio, Amicus Productions. They have made many a horror film over the years, to the p[oint where some titles got mistaken for the much better-known Hammer Films company. Whovians may recognize Amicus as the company that produced the two Peter Cushing Dr. Who feature films in the mid-1960s.







In our Classic Wrestling Memories podcast, we will review the oft-referenced WCW Halloween Havoc from 1991. While it actually had a pretty good main event with then WCW World Champion defending the title against Ron Simmons, it is perhaps best-known for having the laughable opening match called “The Chamber Of Horrors Match”. That match ended with the “electrocution” of Abdullah The Butcher. Future Hall Of Famers Sting, Mick Foley, and Scott Hall were also part of the match.







Meanwhile, for Geekville Radio’s Nostalgia Trip, we will be looking at the classic 1960s TV Sitcom The Munsters.







On this very website, we will provide one trailer a day for all 31 days of October.







For our Doctor Who commentary podcast, Examining The Doctor, we will take a look at the Patrick Troughton story The Macra Terror, which sees giant crabs wreaking havoc on an otherwise peaceful city.







As always, we are open to suggestions. Let us know below what you would like to hear when it comes to Halloween themed entertainment from us!

Seth and Crazy Train return for the latest induction into the Lesser Known Geek Hall Of Fame. As longtime fans may know, inductees are not limited to just characters or people. Superheroes, literary characters, heroes, villains, real people, etc… For the first time, we are inducting a feature film. And there is no better inaugural movie inductee that 1979’s The Black Hole.



5:30 – Early Concepts

The 1970s were rife with disaster films such as The Poseidon Adventure, Earthquake, and of course the Airport series. The reason why they were so plentiful is that many of them drew big at the box office. The Poseidon Adventure alone earned $125 million in 1972, which translates to over $700 million in 2020 dollars. So the idea of a science-fiction disaster movie didn’t seem too out of place.



8:05 – Rewrites, Rewrites, Rewrites

Over the next few years, the film was constantly rewritten by multiple writers. The title would also change over time to names like Probe One and Space Probe One before finally landing The Black Hole as its name.



13:30 – Enter Star Wars

The entire film industry was rocked in May of 1977 when a certain independent film called Star Wars was released. Suddenly, science-fiction was a mainstream genre. Interest in the film, then still called Space Station One, was renewed. Yet another outline was submitted, but this version added emphasis on the black hole itself.



19:00 – The Characters and Premise

As stated before, the premise changed from a straight-up disaster film to one with a villain, Dr. Hans Reinhardt. This new premise saw explorers find Reinhardt’s ship, the USS Cygnus, in deep space. At first, all seems well until Reinhardt’s true insidious history is discovered.



39:30 – Defending The Ending

One of the problems with the film was there was never a firm ending written before production. Even the cast didn’t know the ending until seeing the film at the premiere. The ending has been generally interpreted as Heaven and Hell. But it is worth noting that the Disney producers were hoping for the film to become a franchise with multiple sequels. It’s a pretty safe bet that had the film been a bigger success, the ending would have been a setup for the next story.



46:45 – Windup

The Black Hole deserves credit for helping bridge the gap from traditional sci-fi to modern mainstream sci-fi. And as stated before, it helped usher in a new era for Disney that appealed to adults as well as children. Those precedents alone make it worthy of being the latest entry into The Lesser Known Geek Hall Of Fame.

Inductee #7: Adam Strange







The latest inductee into The Lesser Known Geek Hall Of Fame is DC Comics’ rocket pack-wearing scientist Adam Strange. First appearing in Showcase #17 in 1958, Strange was hardly the first hero to don a rocket backpack. However, unlike his movie serial predecessors, Strange is still around today.















Creating a Sci-Fi Hero







In the 1950s, Superheroes were not a major selling genre in comics. Most comics focused on gritter stories, westerns, horror stories, crime dramas, etc. The only DC superheroes to survive these last days of The Golden Age were Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and Superboy. That’s it. Four heroes (or three, if you count Superboy and Superman as the same character).







Jet engines were the wave of the future. Humans were also in the infancy of space travel. This was a boom period for science fiction, so it only made sense that comic publishers would try to capitalize on the popularity.







In 1957 DC Comics editor Irwin Donnenfeld asked two writers, Jack Schiff and Julius Schwartz, to each create a new sci-fi hero. One from the future and one from the present. Schiff got the first pick and chose the future hero. Schwartz was happy with this because he felt it would be easier to make a present-day character relatable.







Schwartz got inspired by space travel and decided his hero would be the first man in space. Thus, he gave him the name Adam from The Bible. Artist Murphy Anderson created Adam’s look and gave him a rocket pack like those seen in sci-fi serials such as Commando Cody and Rocket Man. A few details added and Adam Strange was born!







Origin







Adam Strange was an archeologist who accidentally found the Zeta-Beam, which instantly transported him to the planet Rann. There he met Alanna, whose father explained the Zeta-Beam was placed on Earth to potentially seek out intelligent life, who could then find the planet from there. However, the beam somehow became a transportation beam since then. Before Adam is transported back to Earth, he was given a schedule of when the Zeta-Beam would activate again. He then used that schedule to travel back to Rann and defend it from evil forces.







The Silver Age Connection







Adam Strange made his debut in the pages of Showcase #17 in 1958. Shortly after that, he started appearing regularly in Mystery In Space. The character proved popular enough to be the main attraction in that book well into the 1960s.







A few years prior to introducing Adam Strange, Showcase had been used to debut the new Barry Allen version of The Flash. With the success of Adam Strange, Julius Schwartz looked to other superheroes to update. Within a few years, the new versions of Golden Age characters were mixed in with new original characters like Hawkman and The Atom.







Schwartz then got the idea of creating a superhero team as an updated version of The Justice Society. This lead to the formation of The Justice League, which Adam Strange was made an honorary member of.







Abilities







Adam Strange was an archeologist who was very quick-thinking. For most of his existence, his abilities were entirely science and tech-based, much like Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers. This makes him like a space-faring Indiana Jones.







His most obvious feature is the rocket pack and spacesuit that he uses to fly through the air and into space. He uses various types of energy weapons and blasters. He also has the Zeta-Beam which allows him to instantly travel through star systems instantaneously.







During the events on Infinite Crisis,