By the last 1950s, studios saw television as a convenient dumping ground for thousands of films that had been gathering dust in their vaults. Distributors group

From December 1957 through October 1959, Chicago TV viewers were held in thrall by "Marvin," the ghoulishly hilarious host of WBKB-TV's late-night horror film s

Midnight, 1954. A striking woman in a torn black dress slinks down a cobwebbed, candelabra'd corridor. She stops, shrieks hysterically into the camera, then sol

From Vampira to Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, female horror movie hosts have long been a staple of late-night television. Broadcast on local stations and cable

From the late 1940's through the early 1970's, local TV stations created a golden age of children's television. These programs were rich in imagination, inventi