Creature Feature 1971-1973 What Did Sir Cecil Creape Show On WSM Channel 4 Nashville? Part One

My oldest daughter is really into the Muppets. I suppose the whole family is actually. I was almost 3 years old when Sesame Street premiered. So the Muppets have been with me my whole life as they have been for my children. Disney+ streams The Muppet Show so when my oldest was home for a visit a few weeks back I found her and younger sister watching episodes of the classic series. It reminded me of when I would watch The Muppet Show back in the late 70's with my father. I was pretty sure that it came on the Nashville ABC affiliate which made me want to find out when it first started playing locally.

The first episode of The Muppet Show to air in Nashville was on Friday Night September 16, 1977. It was the 2nd season one hosted by George Burns. It aired at 6:30PM right before a big making of Star Wars special on Channel 2. IMDB says that show wasn't released until September 17th, but perhaps Channel 2 wasn't following the rules. Discovering this little bit of trivia made me wonder something else. Which happens to be the actual topic of this post. 

"Did someone call? Oh, there you are," Sir Cecil Creape (played by WSM Channel 4 editor Russ McCown) would say this at the beginning of every airing of Creature Feature. Creature Feature ran old horror movies and Thriller episodes from 10:30PM until midnight and sometimes beyond on Saturday nights. I was very young when the show ran, but since it was Saturday I was allowed to stay up until I fell asleep. I would insist on watching Sir Cecil because even though he was gruesome looking he was funny and he showed scary old movies. I would typically wander in and out of consciousness during the films yet somehow always managed to wake up enough to hear his show closing words "Goodnight, sleep tight, and don't let the beddie bugs bite." 

A bit of Sir Cecil Creape 

Since I was so young when the show aired my memories were all wrapped up in Sir Cecil and the catacombs deep beneath the Channel 4 studio he broadcast from. The movies were mainly black and white blurs, more interstitial really than the comedy bits. I wondered what did get shown on Creature Feature? My old Dragula bandmate John suggested I reach out to Larry Underwood AKA Nashville horror show host Dr. Gangrene. He recently got a historical marker put up in honor of Russ McCown AKA Sir Cecil Creape. I humbly asked if the newspaper listing the "Karloff Special" during Creature Feature showings was just Thriller rebranded. Larry was polite, but not helpful. "I'm publishing a book later this year that will have all that information and much more" was his reply. He's a busy celebrity so I get it. However, I was having fun looking up what movies were shown and I was able to independently confirm that Creature Feature was showing Thriller episodes along with the movies. I'm sure Larry's book will be great considering it will cover not only Creature Feature but also every Nashville horror show ever so be sure to be looking for it, but in the meantime I'm going to post what was shown during the original Creature Feature run per the Tennessean Sunday Showcase television listings easily found via a Newspapers.com subscription. 

This will be in the vein of my other movie related posts and it will probably only take 3 or 4 parts. The movies posters that I'm using are, hopefully, considered fair use as informative visual aids to give you a sense of the types of films being aired on Channel 4's Creature Feature. It seems very appropriate that the first airing of the show I could find featured Donovan's Brain which was the very first theatrical release to ever be sold to television. It would be televised on September 18, 1971 to start Creature Feature on a just under 2 year Saturday night run with the last show running on September 8, 1973. When the Major League Baseball season ended Creature Feature would air on Saturday afternoons through December and then come back for another 2 year run on the TNN Network, but the Saturday night span is the golden age of the Sir Cecil Creape character. Channel 4 thought the show would attract an audience of older teens, but found out that many of the younger children like myself loved the character too. Russ McCown would make many personal appearances during the show's heyday. There would even be an official Boy Scout patch for a local Nashville troop. The historical marker that Larry Underwood worked to get placed was well deserved. Now for what movies were shown with a short synopsis after each one.  

September 18, 1971 Donovan's Brain 1953 A millionaire's brain is saved after a plane crash. It then starts possessing people. Weird. 

September 25, 1971 The Black Sleep 1956 Another film with strange brain stuff. Mutants and a mad scientist. 

October 2, 1971 Night of the Hunter 1955 Beware preachers with love and hate tattooed on their knuckles. It's crazy to think this film was thought to be trash and not a great work of cinema art.

October 9, 1971 The Creeping Unknown 1955 Originally released in England as The Quartermass Xperiment The forerunner of Elon Musk, Professor Bernard Quartermass, has rocket ship problems. 

October 16, 1971 The Woman in White 1948 An adaptation of the Wilkie Collins ghostly novel.

October 23, 1971 The Monster That Challenged the World 1957 Mollusk monsters invade California!

October 30, 1971 I Bury the Living 1958 A cemetery director has the power of life and death.

November 6, 1971 The Hound of the Baskervilles 1959 Peter Cushing as Sherlock Holmes helping a cursed family. 

November 13, 1971 The Curse of Dracula 1958 This movie's theatrical release was titled The Return of Dracula. 

November 20, 1971 The Beast with Five Fingers 1946 A one handed wheelchair bound pianist interested in the occult is murdered. His mansion becomes the nexus for greedy relatives. 

November 27, 1971 Gog 1954 Robots run amok!

December 4, 1971 Invisible Invaders 1959 Invisible aliens from the Moon possess the dead!

December 11, 1971 Preempted by the Michigan vs Marquette basketball game. 

December 18, 1971 Pharaoh's Curse 1957 Did someone call for a mummy?

December 25, 1971 A Christmas Carol 1951 One thing I think is forgotten about A Christmas Carol is the fact that it is full of ghosts. It was quite scary to me when I was a child.