User:Intergalacticlanguage

Nightmare Theater of Salt Lake City began at 10:35pm on September 28, 1962 on KCPX Channel 4 KTVX with a showing of Attack of the 50 Foot Woman. The show was broadcast for two decades, making it one of Utah's most popular and longest running shows. Originally just "Nightmare," "Theater" was not added until 1963. Initially, spelling of theater was inconsistent, with both "theatre" and "theater" being used. "Theater" became the preferred spelling. Nightmare Theater was not the first late night horror program in Salt Lake City. In 1958-59 Roderick, played by Jack Whittaker,^[1] hosted Shock Theater, a show broadcasting classic Universal monster movies supplied by a popular nationwide syndication package. Nightmare Theater did not have a host, except for a short period in 1973. Very little documentation aside from newspaper ads is known to exist, except a few photographs of the opening credits, some audio recordings of the introduction, and memorabilia saved by Ron Ross, who would do the introductory voiceover starting in 1965.

The success of Nightmare Theater brought immediate competition. On November 23, 1962 Roderick's Towers started on KSL-TV Channel Five, featuring Jack Whitaker reprising his role as Roderick from 1957s Shock Theater. The show was short lived, lasting until May 22, 1964. On January 12, 1968 KSL again launches a competing show, Double Frightmare Theater. That show lasted until August 1969. Nightmare Theater also faced constant competition from talk shows. In April, 1967, the second feature was replaced by the Joey Bishop Show. However, the Joey Bishop Show was quickly moved to Sunday. Howard Pearson, the Deseret News television editor, notes in his April 28 article Double Nightmare Theater will be reinstated because of its popularity. In 1975, parts of Salt Lake City began to be wired for cable TV. One of the new channels was KTVU from San Francisco with the popular Creature Features hosted by Bob Wilkins.

Unlike similar shows in other cities, Salt Lake's Nightmare Theater had no long-running host to introduce the movies. In 1965, popular local icon Ron Ross began voiceover introductions, which lasted until 1971. Ross was well known in the community, primarily as children's show host Fireman Frank. Written scripts of some of the introductions have been preserved, as well as audio clips. On August 2, 1973, Nightmare Theater received it's only host, Dr. Volapuc. Alternative spellings include Volupuc, Volupuk, Volapuk, and Volapuc. Dr. Volapuc was short-lived, introducing a run of classic Universal monster movies during his six month stint. No photos of the host are known to exist. Often incorrectly noted as being played by Ron Ross, Dr. Volapuc was Larry John, know for playing Cannonball in the popular series Hotel Balderdash. John was paid $50 per Nightmare Theater appearance.[1] His shows ended with a reminder Volapuc backwards was "Cup a Love."

The exact end date of Salt Lake City's Nightmare Theater is nebulous. October 16, 1982 is the last time "Nightmare Theater" is listed by KCPX Channel 4. The movie shown was Invasion from Inner Earth. However, genre movies occupy the time slot thru the end of 1982 and until March 19, 1983. Additionally, beginning October 23, 1982 (a week after the last listing) the Salt Lake Tribune stopped listing movie slot titles for all movies on every channel. The final genre movie in the time slot was Star Pilot. The next week a rock and roll show occupied the time slot.