Chiller Theatre was the name of the Saturday night horror film slot in New York shown at various times of the evening on WPIX channel 11 in the 1960's.
I'm not certain who designed these ads at TV Guide but my suspician is they were created by the late writer/editor/designer Bhob Stewart who worked at TV Guide at the time, (and was instrumental in bringing artist Jack Davis on board), and was also an editor at Castle of Frankenstein magazine.
the memorable opening to Chiller Threatre
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 the early-seventies Chiller Theatre opening, featuring the six-fingered hand: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ok6uzndOmPA and some later TV Guide ads  Thanks to Gary Gerani |
Love these! In the early 70's I was the graphic artist at a tiny TV station in Wisconsin, then another in Minnesota. TV Guide had a quid pro quo thing going where they would send us 16mm teaser promos to run for their upcoming issues and we would get a little display ad each week in their local edition. Nobody actually placed much value on that kind of advertising at the stations, so as often as not the boss would ask what program I wanted to promote. I'd always choose an upcoming late movie, since Laurel and Hardy or Jimmy Cagney were more fun to draw than having to design a plug for our news team.
ReplyDeleteI remember Chiller Theatre opened with some charming stop-motion animation of a Play-doh hand. It had six fingers, but you had to count 'em fast. There wasn't any freeze framing in those days.
ReplyDeleteThat's on several YouTube sites, here's one https://youtu.be/Ux3laLkueZk
DeleteThese are great! I just watched Horror Hotel again two nights ago, one of my faves
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