Great Ghouls of Cleveland

Ernie Anderson as the original Ghoulardi
Credit below

As a preteen and teen in the 1970s, watching the weird late-night horror host The Ghoul on Cleveland’s Channel 61 was a generational rite of passage. 

Ron Sweed as The Ghoul

Every Friday at 11:30 p.m., I celebrated the weekend by taking in monstrously bad black-and-white monster movies. During commercial breaks, I delighted in the subversive live antics of the weird, iconoclastic hipster who presented these films.  

The Ghoul was the successor to Cleveland’s earlier late-night host, the groundbreaking Shock Theater ambassador Ghoulardi. In my apprehension of this era, it is sometimes hard to distinguish the two. (The best account of Ghoulardi and the mania he elicited is Ghoulardi: Inside Cleveland TV's Wildest Ride.)

Actor and disc jockey Ernie Anderson originated Ghoulardi on TV-8 from 1963 to 1966. Four years after Ghoulardi’s last stand, Anderson’s former intern, Ron Sweed, snipped the Ghoulardi name and revived the character with Anderson’s blessings on the otherwise worthless Channel 61.

Before Ghoulardi, late-night hosts were vampires or mad scientists. Ghoulardi was before my time. But the admittedly lesser Ghoul, with his discombobulated mad horror host persona and wicked, rebellious antics, was nonetheless the right ghoul at the right time.

Even my mother came downstairs to join in. She once told me that she was watching the original Ghoulardi while giving birth to one of my ghoulish siblings. 

Ghoulardi set a zany mood by regularly playing The Rivingtons’ novelty song Papa-Oom-Mow-Mow, abusing a rubber toy named Froggy, and finding some unholy uses for Cheez Whiz.

Cleveland Broadcaster Dorothy Fuldheim
Cleveland Press Collection

His ribald skits skewered the squares of the day: Lawrence Welk, Cleveland Mayor Ralph Locher, and best of all, the dour doyenne of Cleveland broadcasting, Dorothy Fuldheim. Old and uptight, Fuldheim feuded with the uncontrollable Ghoulardi over his on-air marijuana jokes and puerile antics. It seemed lost on Fuldheim that Ghoulardi was a character, a schtick. She anguished over his influence on Cleveland’s youth as he mockingly referred to her as “Dorothy baby.” That my step-grandmother revered the humorless Fuldheim made this feud irresistible. 

Despite being potent ratings draws, both Ghoulardi and The Ghoul caused sustained aggravation to their stations’ management. Long before Howard Stern and other shock jocks assembled their own crews of misfits and miscreants and pushed broadcast boundaries of decency and good taste, Cleveland’s own pioneers of mischief blazed the trail. They blurted and belched and blew up plastic action figures with firecrackers and other explosives, once almost setting the studio on fire.  

Another target of The Ghoul’s relentless attacks was the blue-collar city of Parma, Ohio, emblematized by kielbasa and white tube socks. His ethnic barbs would not make it on the air today.

Ghoulardi and The Ghoul are part of the quirky underdog history of Cleveland. Los Angeles had the glamorous seductresses Vampira and Elvira, while our city’s horror hosts were scrappy and homespun. 

Ghoulardi’s influence extended beyond succeeding late-night shows Houlihan and Big Chuck and Big Chuck and Lil' John. His character inspired '70s rock and punk bands like Devo, Pere Ubu, and The Cramps. 

Even now, in some alternative universe where I can still stay awake until 1:00 a.m. watching extraterrestrials on terrestrial TV, there I am, cheering The Ghoul, snacking on potato chips and French onion dip from the milkman, and laughing at Dorothy Fuldheim.

If you, too, grew up with Cleveland’s great ghouls, I’d love to hear about it in the comments section below.

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Top image of Ghoulardi from the book Ghoulardi: Inside Cleveland TV’s Wildest Ride by Tom Feren and R. D. Heldenfels. Reproduced with permission of Gray & Co., Publishers.