CREATURE FEATURES with BOB WILKINS

CREATURE FEATURES
with BOB WILKINS

If you grew up in Northern California in the 60s / 70s,
you probably remember the late night horrorfest on
Friday and Saturdays, broadcast on KTVU 2 Oakland,
and hosted by the one and only Bob Wilkins
(he of the thick glasses and the huge cigars).

Bob was a true horror icon,
and he gave Night of the Living Dead
it's national TV premiere in the early 70s
(one of the scariest nights of my childhood!)
He left the show in the late 70s, to be replaced by
John Stanley, who took the show to it's next level.

Bob was memorable because of his friendly school-teacher
style of speaking, except that he was teaching the history of
horror films. He explained the history of scary cinema in ways
that kids could understand, and at the same time he got very deep
into the subject, so that serious adult fans loved the show too.
But he never took himself (or the films) too seriously,
which made his show greatly entertaining.

It turns out that Bob lives near me, and Ive got over TEN hours of
vintage footage that I received directly from him a few years ago!

Many classic moments, including:

HORROR FILM TRAILERS

Bob always showed TONS of the greatest vintage film trailers (especially the often electrifying
60s and 70s one), often in fast paced clips that left you dying to watch an all-day horrorfest.

THE MONSTER MOVIE QUIZ

Based on the book Monster Movie Game by John Stanley and Mal Whyte, this was part of
The Bob Wilkins Super Horror Show in 1974. It featured (from left) John Stanley, Bob Wilkins,
George Tashman, Dan Faris, Alvin Gunthertz. Watch out for those bloody stumpers!

CHRISTOPHER LEE

Bob and Christopher Lee on Creature Features in 1974. Lee was promoting the Bond film,
The Man With the Golden Gun, and the publicist requested that Bob not ask Lee about the horror films.
"I called Christopher Lee aside and I said, "We would really like to sit down and talk about your career,
including the vampire movies," and he was most cordial."

ANIMAL HOUSE

A strange 1978 interview with John Landis, John Belushi, and Donald Sutherland during the Animal House
promotion tour. Belushi seems bummed out, withdrawn, and irritated, probably because Landis wouldnt
let him do any coke. Sutherland explains the horror-film origin of the name of his son, Kiefer.

BEN JOHNSON INTERVIEW

BUSTER CRABBE INTERVIEW

STAR WARS / STAR TREK INTERVIEWS

Including Anthony Daniels, David Prowse, George Takei, Nichelle Nichols, and more!
Plus a Star Trek tribute special!

ERNIE FOSSELIUS

A great early appearance by the director of Hardware Wars and Porklips Now.

Twilight Zone special (KBHK 44)

The final Bob Wilkins Creature Features
(circa 1981)

Includes parting words from co-workers, vintage late 60s-early 70s showclips,
from channel 40 Sacramento.

Bob the Weatherman

CAPTAIN COSMIC

Bob's late 70s work (which is also beloved by a later generation of kids)

AN ONLINE TRIBUTE TO CAPTAIN COSMIC
Creating Captain Cosmic
Driving Captain Cosmic
Ending Captain Cosmic

Also on the tapes:

Sinister Cinema's interview with Bob...
vintage interviews with Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, and MUCH MUCH more!!

He gave a lot of young kids their first taste of horror and fantasy film appreciation,
and these tapes are nostalgic GOLD for those of us who learned Horror Film 101 from him.

Warning: these tapes are highly addictive!

Approx 10 1/2 hours -- Quality varies from fair to very good.

REVIEWS AND NEWS ARTICLES

SHOCK THEATRE

Bob Wilkins stars in a live version of his cult horror show 'Creature Features.'
Prepare to be suitably frightened.

By David Barton, Sacramento Bee Staff Writer
(Published July 27, 2001)

Although the science fiction movies of the 1950s and 1960s often celebrated advanced technology,
the technology of the time left a lot to be desired. Even in the early 1960s, the purchase of a color TV
was a neighborhood event, an actual stereo system was rare, and the only things digital were your fingers.
And there was no home video. "There were no videotapes, no VCR machines," says Bob Wilkins. "If you wanted
to see an old movie, you had to be in front of the television at a particular time. And that made it more special."

Wilkins should know. Not only did he live through that time, he helped make it special for the first TV generation.
Rare is the Northern California baby boomer who didn't spend at least a few late Saturday nights in front of the TV
to watch Wilkins host his show, Creature Features.

On the show, which ran in various forms and on various stations from 1964 to 1979, Wilkins would introduce the
movie, show half of it, then have an intermission during which he would interview horror and sci-fi stars such as
Christopher Lee, William Shatner, Mark Hamill, and even Boris Karloff. Then he'd run the second half of the film.
And through it all, he'd ad lib comments on the show, good and bad.

Even now, a mention of Wilkins, 69, is likely to draw nostalgic reveries from boomers, particularly men, who let
Wilkins be their guide through hundreds of sci-fi and horror films such as The Mummy's Hand, The Blob, and
House on Haunted Hill. In that spirit, this Sunday night, Harlow's nightclub on J Street will present a live Creature
Features show that will follow the format of Wilkins' shows. Scott Moon, publisher of Planet X, a local magazine,
is producing Sunday's show.

"Like the old Creature Features show, there will be special guests," says Moon. "They'll include Vitina Marcus
(the Green Lady from Lost in Space), Ernie Fosselius (writer/director of the Star Wars spoof Hardware Wars)
and writer/TV host John Stanley. "We'll be showing 16mm films of some old favorites like Bambi Meets Godzilla,
Hardware Wars, Lost in Space, and a special 20-minute version of It Came from Outer Space in 3-D," says Moon.
"And we'll have 3-D glasses for everyone."

The enduring appeal of Creature Features, which began on Sacramento's Channel 3 in 1964 and then expanded to
the Bay Area in 1969, was Wilkins himself. And an unlikely star he was: Wearing a suit and tie, his blond hair in a
conservative cut, peering out through geeky horn-rimmed glasses, Wilkins achieved true cool by rising above mere "hip."
And in his hand he held the ultimate statement of the '60s square: a panatela cigar. Sitting on a banged-up rocker he had
painted yellow to take advantage of the then-new KCRA color broadcasts, Wilkins presented his cheesy films through
Beatlemania, the Summer of Love, anti-war protests, the Symbionese Liberation Army, Watergate, disco and punk.
Clearly, this had to be an accident.

"In 1964, my job was writing TV commercials," he says on a recent visit to Sacramento from his home in Reno.
"TV was new and there weren't a lot of innovative or bright people in it, to tell you the truth. So anyone who came
up with a good idea, management would try it out."

Management at Channel 3 at the time was the Kelly brothers, Bob and Jon, who owned the station. When the Kellys
decided that they wanted to stay on the air after the 11 o'clock news, they told Wilkins they wanted to put on a movie.
They didn't tell Wilkins what kind of movies he was to broadcast, but they did give him one from a package of films
they'd just acquired: a low-budget Japanese film, dubbed in English, Attack of the Mushroom People.

"It was horrible, just rotten," Wilkins says now. "But they had bought up all these horror film packages,
and so I came up with the concept of showing horror films. They went for it."

Though a late-night horror film show was new to Sacramento, it was not an altogether unusual idea across the
nation. What was unusual was Wilkins. Most late-night shows featured hosts that pretended to be scary themselves,
adopting names like "The Ghoul" and feigning mystery and threat, albeit in a campy style. Hosts such as Elvira were
later exemplars of this approach. But Wilkins would have none of it. "It never entered my mind," he says.
"I'm not an actor. If they told me I'd have to dress up like a ghoul, I wouldn't have done it.
I wanted to be myself, I felt more comfortable doing it that way."

Nevertheless, Wilkins was basically an ad man, not a performer. Thus, he had to find a way to get comfortable on
camera, and found it in one of his dad's vices: the cigar. "I was very nervous, and the cigar gave me something to hold
onto," he says. "That gave me something I thought would be unique. I can't remember another host doing that.
It was different."

But as unusual as they were, his props weren't what made Wilkins a success. It was his refusal to play the normal
showbiz games. "I came on the air for that first show, with Attack of the Mushroom People, and I said, 'Look, this
is our first movie, but it's terrible, it's just bad. You shouldn't watch it.' The advertisers went nuts," he says.
"They called up and said, 'What is this guy doing telling people not to watch?'. But I always felt that a host that'll
come on and say, 'We've got a wonderful film tonight,' like he's selling tires ... if it's not a good film, you'll turn it off.
I did not mislead the audience, because I wanted to hold onto them," he says.

"I told them, 'This film is really rotten, but if you stick around, here's what we've got during intermission.' I thought
that teasing them with the promise of an interview with Christopher Lee or some beautiful woman from a movie would
keep them around, and make up to them for the movie being lousy." Despite that, he says, he was not just doing
whatever he wanted. There was a method in his madness. "I was a student of ratings books," he says, "So I would
make sure we did what the ratings said we should do." And he had the Kelly brothers behind him.
"The Kellys told the advertisers, 'Just hang on, this is gonna work.' "

And work it did. After his initial success at Channel 3 in Sacramento, Wilkins, who was still a full-time
advertising writer for the station, was offered another gig at KTVU Channel 2 in Oakland. He took it, and commuted
once a week to do the show. KCRA, apparently unhappy with the arrangement, soon dropped the show.
KTXL Channel 40 immediately picked it up, and it ran there for 12 more years.

Through it all, Wilkins was amassing a following, but he admits now that he wasn't really a fan of horror and sci-fi films,
and still isn't. "I never was an expert, but I had experts around me, so I looked like I knew what I was talking about,'
he says, crediting Channel 3 showbiz reporter Harry Martin and Channel 2 movie reporter Bob Shaw with keeping
him informed. And he was regularly corrected by viewers, who made sure to tell him when he'd made a mistake.

In 1977, as the Star Wars craze snowballed, Wilkins was asked by Channel 2 to create an afternoon show for kids,
primarily as a way of airing a cache of Japanese animated shows the station had acquired. Wilkins came up with Captain
Cosmic, who always remained hidden inside his space helmet. The show lasted until the animated shows ran out, then died
quietly in 1979. At that point, Wilkins was ready to move on.

"I never thought I'd stay in TV that long," he says. "TV is a killer, you're here, then you're gone. I gave two weeks
notice, and picked John Stanley to replace me, and opened my own advertising agency in Orinda. I got the Chuck E.
Cheese account, and worked out of there for most of the 80s." Wilkins, with his wife and two kids, did well, due in
part to his enduring fame in the area. But in the mid-'90s, his agency, saddled with a bad debt, went under. At that point,
he took a job working at the Nugget in Sparks, where he stayed for four years, then retired. The couple still lives in Reno.

"I don't really miss the limelight," he says. "But it's nice to have people tell me they enjoyed the show." He says his
appearance at Harlow's will likely be his last. "I'm getting too old to do this," he explains. "I just think it's time for someone
else to pick up the baton." As for the movies, he's still not a horror-film nut. "If there's something on, I might watch it for a
while, reminisce with it, but it's not something I seek out. I've seen a lot of horror movies." But, ever the ad man, he can't
resist signing off a conversation with the phrase he always had displayed prominently on the wall of his show's set:

"Remember," he says, "watch horror films, keep America strong."

CREATURE FEATURES LIVES IN THRILLVILLE

Bob Shaw, John Stanley and Bob Wilkins on stage - 10/26/00

TV Horror Movie Host, Bob Wilkins, never wore a costume, make-up or fangs...viewers got just plain 'ol Bob --
and that was his great appeal -- he was real, and he identified with the TV audience, greeting viewers with
comments like "Go to bed, this movie is not worth staying up late for!" or "This film is so bad, they delivered it to
Ch.2 in a brown-paper wrapper!" -- the thing that I remember vividly, was Bob flipping through the TV Guide, and
telling viewers what else was on... Bob Wilkins was brilliant at what he did -- with a rye sense and a tongue firmly
planted in cheek. During his tenure of hosting these shows, he displayed a great sense of timing and comedy -- the
crew were always in stiches when I visited the set. Bob was sort of a "Johnny Carson of Horror," and we loved it.

Bob Wilkins started in the early '60s in Stockton, Ca -- at KRCA CH.3. One day, he found himself replacing a sick tv
host -- live and on the air! His dry humor and hubris, soon saw him becoming a semi-regular host for day time movies,
and the programmers always stuck him with a crummy Grade-Z horror films. This soon led to him hosting a regular
weekly horror show, "7-Arts Theater," and when he moved to KTXL-TV CH. 40 (Sacramento) it became
The Bob Wilkins Horror Show (and later, The Bob Wilkins Double Horror).

After the great success on that channel, he was courted into doing the same for the huge San Francisco television
market, by KTVU CH. 2 (Oakland/San Francisco). The show was called Creature Features, and debuted in 1971 --
instantly, a whole generation of kids became Bob Wilkins fans. During the high point of its popularity in the
San Francisco market (one of the top three of the television markets in America), the show would often beat the
NBC Network's Saturday Night Live in the ratings (not bad for a modest local show).

KTVU's Creature Features also killed two compeating hosts in the market: in the first season, we lost the local
"Asmodeus" on KEMO TV-20's Double-Headed Feature (which started in the late '60s) and the syndicated
THE GHOUL (KBHK-TV CH.44), who was also (regrettably) squashed by 1973. In the late '70s, the KTVU
went superstation, and Creature Features (as well as his spin-off Captain Cosmic 1977-1982) was seen all
over the country (from Hawaii to Puerto Rico).

Bob started Captain Cosmic in the wake of Star Wars.. and realized that science fiction was "in" -- during a vacation
in Japan the previous year, Bob had seen a number of Japanese superhero tv shows which has taken Hawaii by storm.
All Hawaiian kids of every background, were fascinated with the Japanese heroes, and Bob realized the potential for
mass popularity. Unfortunately, the subtitled versions shown in Honolulu were not going to be suitable for a wider
audience, and Bob looked into buying a couple of the series for the mainland, and having them dubbed into English.
Most of his efforts ended up in dead ends.

When Star Wars broke, then he knew he had to act... he contacted distributors, and began to find old shows and
serials he could run. Originally, he ran Flash Gordon, and then the Japanese series, The Space Giants (Maguma
Taishi). When I appeared as a guest to discuss the premiere of this Japanese superhero series, Bob and I discussed
other options for Japanese shows to be aired on Captain Cosmic -- and I recommended Ultraman, Johnny Sokko,
and others. I prepared a list, as well as distributors for the shows, and turned that over to Bob before I left the studio
that day (mind you, I was a young teenager, then!) -- and soon, we were watching a number of Japanese Superheroes...
when Bob called me to say that they were offered Spectreman, I was excited -- we didn't have many VCRs in those
days, and it was rare to see such shows. Captain Cosmic was a godsend -- who else would have broadcast Spectreman,
The Space Giants, Ultraman, Johnny Sokko & His Flying Robot, Starblazers, and more?

Only Bob Wilkins.

7-Arts Theater/Bob Wilkins-7 Arts Theater
Saturday nights at 11:30 p.m.
KCRA, Channel 3 (Stockton, California)
1966 - 197?

Bob Wilkins Horror Show/Bob Wilkins Double Horror
Saturday nights at 11 p.m.
KXTL, Channel 40 (Sacramento, California)
197? - 1978

Creature Features
Saturday nights 11 p.m. (1971 - 1973)
Saturday nights 8 p.m. to 1 a.m. (1974 - 1979)
Friday nights 11 p.m. to 1 a.m. (1976 - 1979)
KTVU, Channel 2 (Oakland/San Francisco, California)
February 1971 - 1984

Captain Cosmic & 2T2
Monday through Friday 5 p.m. (1977 - 1979)
Monday through Friday 4:30 p.m. (1979 - 1982)

Journalist John Stanley began guest-hosting the Friday night Creature Features show in early 1979, and eventually
took over the Saturday night show, when the Friday nights were dropped. I believe that Stanley's show eventually
pulled back to 11 p.m. (can't remember when), and that's how it stayed until it's cancellation in the Summer of 1984.

Interestingly, Bob Wilkins actually was NOT a horror fan -- he fell into the job when the KRCA show took off
(he was a last-minute replacement to host Attack of the Mushroom People)... and he just rolled with the success.
He always made sure to surround himself with expert-fans, who often supplied the trivia on certain movies that the
stations would air -- two of them included myself, and Bob Shaw, who is still the resident film critic at KTVU.

The great appeal of Bob Wilkins was his "normal" appearance and extremely droll humor (as well as his
accessability and kindness to fans) -- with tongue firmly planted in cheek. Bob started ran at KTVU from 1971 to 1979,
when he felt that it was time to move on -- the ratings were still very high -- by this time the show was on Friday (one film)
and Saturday (two films and a serial), but he couldn't see himself as a 60 year-old movie host. He hand-picked film critic
and genre fan John Stanley (author of the Creature Features Movie Guides), and he ran with the show until it was axed
mercilessly but the new station management in 1984. Despite his savvy in the genre, he was never as popular as
the unassuming (and hilarious) Bob Wilkins, who never took himself too seriously...

My REAL introduction to horror films was Bob Wilkins Creature Features program. Bob Wilkins Creature Features
was a wonderful show, hosted by my all time favorite host, Bob Wilkins. Although Creature Features showed the
general movies one might expect from a z-grade horror movie show, BOB was different. Tongue in cheek, he was
DEADLY serious. No screwy makeup and silly antics for him. He wore a suit, smoked a cigar and was completely,
painfully honest about the movie you were going to see that evening. A different approach? Yes, but a successful one.
Creature Features ran (hosted by Bob - it was later to be hosted by another fantastic host, John Stanley) from 1971 to 1982.
Now that's a GREAT run. People loved Bob. His wry sense of humor and unusual style were unbeatable. The guests on
Creature Features were none to shabby either. The likes of Forrest J Ackerman, Christopher Lee, John Landis,
Ray Harryhausen, William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy were just a few of the guests to visit Creature Features.
Yes, Bob was a host among hosts. Is it any wonder I wound up hooked on horror? Creature Features provided me
with a lifetime of memories and I am forever greatful. - Cheryl Duran

Stogie Bob and the girl from the green dimension

By Jackson Griffith

If they trumpeted a grand entrance with “Gotham City Municipal Swing Band” by Neil Hefti, best known as the
composer of the Batman TV show theme, I missed it. By the time I got there 15 minutes late, the guest of honor
had finished his first entrance, and they were showing film trailers to ’50s low-budget horror flicks.

The appearance of Northern California television legend Bob Wilkins at Harlow’s on Sunday night brought back
more than a few memories for those in the packed house who were old enough to remember Wilkins’ stints at
KCRA 3 and, later, at KTXL 40 (pre-Fox, when that station was one of the coolest beacons of downmarket Caucasian
programming in the West) and at KTVU 2 in Oakland.

“Gotham City,” with its cartoonish burlesque pomposity, served as a perfect theme for Wilkins’ show, which aired
on KCRA from 1966-71, when it moved to KTVU and KTXL as Creature Features. (Wilkins’ show ran until 1978
on KTVU and until 1982 on KTXL.) Smoking a huge stogie, the boyish Wilkins would pepper the screening of such
classics as Attack of the Mushroom People--a Japanese Gilligan’s Island clone where marooned vacationers
stumble across a cache of irradiated mushrooms, munch them, then turn into walking deathcaps-- with
sardonic commentary. Ergo, Wilkins, it could be argued, invented the idea behind Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Wilkins still looks boyish, but he wasn’t exactly in fighting shape. He seemed frail, and his voice was reduced to a
spectral, laryngitis-impaired whisper. This might work well for Don Corleone, but not in a nightclub with a talk-show
format. Fortunately, Wilkins had John Stanley, who succeeded him on Creature Features, to do the heavy lifting.

Among the cinematic highlights was a circa-1953 short, It Came From Outer Space, in 3-D--although the show’s
producer, former Bourgeois-Tagg keyboardist/Planet X magazine editor-publisher Scott Moon, picked up
“the wrong” 3-D glasses (promos from Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare), which had to be turned inside out
to make them work. Also great was Hardware Wars, a late ’70s short-film spoof of Star Wars by Ernie Fosselius,
who later turned a Winnebago into a traveling museum for his bizarre whittling projects.

Even goofier was an appearance by Vitina Marcus, who played a floating green lady who was obsessed with Dr. Smith
in a couple of episodes of Lost in Space. When she was onstage the show completely fell apart; Stanley and Wilkins
apparently had no idea how to deal with someone who’d left the June Taylor Dancers and horror films for an ashram,
then a life selling real estate in Las Vegas, who apparently goes to David Lee Roth’s old hairdresser and
George Hamilton’s tanning salon. When she started babbling about UFOs, all bets were off.

Overall, though, it was a nice way to honor Wilkins, an outsider-television icon who made
childhood geekdom a lot more bearable for many of us. Thanks, Bob.

If you grew up within the broadcast range of KTVU Channel 2 during the 70's you may have been lucky
enough to catch a guy named Bob Wilkins who was the host of a show named Creature Features. He had a
distinctive voice and sat in his big lounger smoking a cigar, and hosting every great "B" movie known to man.
Many a night I would stay up as late as I could, straining to keep my eyes open to watch Gamera vs. Godzilla,
or one of the several versions of Night of the living dead. I must admit I was partial to the big
Japanese monster flicks, as they tended to give me less nightmares.

Anyway, you might ask what this has to do with Captain Cosmic? Well Bob's Creature Features show
eventually ended, and after about a year or so Bob was hosting a show called Captain Cosmic at around 3 or 4 in
the afternoon (instead of 12 midnight on Saturdays.) Of course we weren't supposed to know that it was Bob, but his
voice gave it away to anyone who had watched Creature Features before. Why was Captain Cosmic so important?
Well because it was the first place that really cool Japanese cartoons were played! I must admit that some
pretty cheesy stuff went on the air as well, but Star Blazers made up for all of it. Okay, so this is all really about
Star Blazers, the other shows that Captain Cosmic played weren't as important. There was Ultraman, something
that any self respecting Japanophile should be familiar with, and some show with a family of rocket robots
(Goldar, Silvar and Gam... What the hell is Gam?)

But Star Blazers made the biggest Impression on me. Star Blazers was the dubbed version of Yamato. The premice
being that these bad guys (the Gamilons) were busy irradiating the Earth, the only thing that could save us was the
sunken Japanese battleship Yamato (sunk towards the end WW II by American dive bombers, the Yamato was
arguably the most powerful battleship ever created during that period. It had more armor and bigger guns than
anything floating at the time. It just goes to show how much air power affected the balance of power at the time.)
So secretly the Earthlings rebuilt the Yamato (called the Argo after Greek mythology to placate the gaijin I suppose)
into this bad ass but untested space ship with advanced technology (the wave cannon, etc...)

Anyway, the women were hotties, the guys were tough, the plot was compelling and you couldn't beat the explosions.
Thank you Bob, for Gamera the flying turtle, friend to all children. And of course for Star Blazers,
the only show worth cutting soccer practice for. - BAKAFISH

I was between four and five the first time I saw Night of the Living Dead. It was on Creature Features with
Bob Wilkins. I still can recall being coiled up in front of the television in the den with my brother, only to be sent
to our room to watch it when our parents found out it was in black and white.

My brother had told me a little about it (he had seen it before), but the only thing that stuck with me was that it had
scared him, and he had seen it during the day. This mere fact amazed me. I was mesmerized for the entire duration
of the movie, and I still remember when it ended, as the screen was filled with a blazing bonfire, looking over at my
brother. He was asleep. Surely I couldn't be expected to walk all the way over to the TV, turn it off, and then
make it back to my bed - in the dark! Not after what I had just seen! I wasn't even five years old! - John

Director/writer Victor Salva (Powder, Clownhouse) has crafted a very nice homage to the horror films he loves and
watched on Bob Wilkins' Creature Features television program broadcast in Northern California. Some of the worst
and most low budget horror films were trotted out on Saturday nights to give us pre-teens, teens, and post-teens
(adults) either a good laugh or a good jolt. Both of which you will find in Jeepers Creepers.

By Jeffrey M. Anderson, Examiner Film Reviewer

When I was little, my dad used to let me stay up late on Saturday nights to watch Creature Features
on Channel 2. Creature Features was hosted by Bob Wilkins (and later John Stanley),
a sober gent who really knew his bad sci-fi and horror flicks.

The late-night childhood favorite Creature Features returns to the bay this week, as former television host and
master of midnight movies John Stanley joins the "Thrillville Revue" in presenting Ed Cahn's Z-grade 1955 classic
Creature With the Atom Brain along with William Castle's 1960 "high-tech" chiller 13 Ghosts. Witness dreadful
battles between gangsters and zombies; seek out 12 elusive specters, which can only be seen through special
"Illusion-O" glasses; and don't miss Chapter 5 of The Shadow, classic monster movie trailers from Uncle Bill
the Trailer King, and live, creepy theremin music from Robert Silverman. Creature Features takes place on
Thursday, Oct. 11, at the Parkway Theater in Oakland (1834 Park at Lake Merritt) at 7:30 p.m. John Stanley
and original Creature Feature host Bob Wilkins return to the Parkway on Thursday, Oct. 25, with the Bay Area
big-screen debut of Godzilla vs. Super-Mechagodzilla and The Satanic Rites of Dracula. Tickets are $10 for
Atom Brain and $12 for Godzilla or $20 for both; call (510) 814-2400.

The show at Harlows was a complete success--Thanks to everyone involved. I met Ernie Fosselius the creator of the
classic short Hardware Wars! He now makes these mechanical wooden puppets that he takes around in a traveling
show. They are very Wrong--but I like them. I got to work with him, Bob Wilkins, John Stanley and Vitina Marcus
(Lost In Space) who spent the night at my mom's house! Scott said he was happy I could direct the show and slipped me
a taste of the door money...Jokes on him I would have done it for free. Bob's short term memory is failng and he had
a cold... this is most likely his last live performance. John gave me a autographed copy of his Creature Features
Movie Guide. Bob is very interested in my 3AM movie host project and gave me some great advice. He wants
me to send him the tape of the Cinema Insomnia pilot and give me some more guidance. This is all too fantastic.
More later... posted by erik lobo

Creature Features' host Bob Wilkins specialized in presenting bargain basement films of the worst sort.
In fact, he deliberately advised his viewers not to watch because the movies were of such low quality.

Wilkins recalls: "I knew that if I told people to watch this film, they wouldn't." "I told them not to watch it,"
he continues. "I had a TV Guide and I told them what was on the other stations at the time."
But the viewers continued to watch. And laugh.

Wilkins had a droll sense of humor that wafted through the smoke of his ever-present cigar. He claimed his
films were purchased at garage sales. His introductions were usually the highlight of the entire show:
"Weird Women. This is a story about witchcraft, the occult, mysticism, price-fixing, tire rotation... I think you'll like it."
"Target Earth. It's the story of robots from Venus. Of course, Switzerland is known for watches, Venus has always
been known for their robots." "Remember a couple of years ago they were saying nice soft music makes your
houseplants grow? All of mine died within 30 minutes of the start of this movie." After a commercial break:
"Okay, let's get back to the movie. It does not get any better." At the end of a movie:
"Well that's it. I told you it was bad."

Wilkins occasionally invited science fiction cult figures to the Creature Features set for low-key interviews.
A favorite was Star Trek's George Takai. Master monster maker Ray Harryhausen also appeared, as well as
Star Wars producer Gary Kurtz. In 1972, Wilkins took on the added duty of weather forecasting on
The Ten O'clock News five days a week. His stint ended after two years, when he decided it was too tough
to be creative five days a week in addition to hosting Creature Features.

His replacement was John Stanley (pictured here with Leonard Nimoy, Star Trek's Mister Spock), a writer for
the San Francisco Chronicle. Stanley's style was slightly more serious, but without ever taking its tongue out of
its cheek. Nevertheless, the program finally ran out of steam in 1984.

Meanwhile, in 1977, Wilkins anonymously began hosting a weekday afternoon childrens show as the mysterious
Captain Cosmic and his wonder robot 2-T-2. Wearing a space helmet that covered his face, Wilkins introduced
episodes of Ultraman, Flash Gordon, and other science fiction adventures. He never actually exposed his true
identify, nor mentioned his Creature Features role. And unlike other kid show hosts, he never made public
appearances. He recalls, "I never wore the Captain Cosmic outfit outside the studio. It was a little
embarrassing wearing it inside the studio, but every payday I got over that."

Wilkins is now retired and lives in Reno.

"Don't stay up late, it's not worth it," Bob Wilkins warned as he leaned back in his yellow rocking chair,
smoke wafting from his big cigar. But monster movie fans in Northern California stayed up with him
every Saturday night anyway. Creature Features made it's debut on Channel 2 (KTVU) in 1971, and was an
immediate success with it's grade- Z horror films and Bob's dry sense of humor. His cool, low-key deadpan
helped him rise above it all, elevating films like The Navy Vs. The Night Monsters as well.

Bob once remarked, "We kicked off this show with Horror of Party Beach, and we knew we had our
work cut out for us that night . . . and it seems it's been that way every Saturday night."

Actually, many of the films were pretty good, and his guests were even better: Ray Harryhausen,
Christopher Lee, William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, John Landis, William Marshall, Forest J Ackerman and . . .
well, too many to list. You never knew who (or what) you'd see next on Creature Features. There was an endless
parade of the weird: People who claimed to be witches and martians, inventors who built robots, a woman
who knitted a sweater for King Kong, local filmmakers who showed bizzare TV commercial take-offs.
Once, Bob received a phone call from a man claiming to be a vampire. When he asked if he could be a guest,
Bob said "Sure, can you come down to the studio at two o'clock tomorrow afternoon?" When the caller said yes,
he could, Bob replied, "If you're aVampire, how is it you can be there at 2 p.m.?"
There was a pause, then 'click'. The vampire hung up.

The show quickly expanded to a double feature format and Bob even joined the Channel 2 eleven o'clock news as the
weatherman. All of this while he continued his weekly show in Sacramento (on KXTL Channel 40). After two years though,
he decided that reporting the weather wasn't for him, and Pat (Dialing for Dollars) McCormick took over. We know
that Bob inspired viewers (one of them being George Lucas) to get into sci-fi films, who knows, maybe his stint
as the weatherman helped inspire Lloyd Linsay Young.

In 1977, Bob went incognito for Captain Cosmic, a half hour kid's show specializing in Japanese sci-fi . "I was
disguised," Bob said, "I had a cape on and a helmet that covered my face, so you couldn't tell who I was. But of course,
by the voice people knew it was me. The younger kids didn't know who it was because they couldn't stay up late at night
and watch the horror movies." With his trusty sidekick, Robot 2T2, Captain Cosmic made the galaxy safe for kids every
afternoon at 4:30. After 2 years, Bob Wilkins grew tired of the show, and he was tired of Creature Features as well.

Keep in mind, Bob not only starred in, but wrote and produced the shows, he also lined up the guests, answered the
fan mail, and made public appearances. So in 1978, when the demands of doing two shows in Oakland and one in
Sacramento got to be a bit much, Bob left Channel 2. (But really, how many times can you suffer through a double bill
of Billy the Kid Vs. Dracula and Jesse James Meets Frankentein's Daughter anyway?) Bob's replacement on Creature
Features was John Stanley, frequent guest.and author of The Creature Feature Movie Guide

Luckily, for Sacramento viewers Bob continued his Saturday night show on Channel 40 until 1982.

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