Ghoulardi - Madcap beatnik with a mustache and goatee who hosted "Ghoulardi," a horror show based in Cleveland on station WJW-TV Channel 8 from 1963-66. Ghoulardi was played by Ernie Anderson, a former deejay who reveled in putting down his Friday night late movies (calling them "Bombs"). In fact, Ghoulardi at times edited himself into a movie scene so he could be part of the action, like running from monsters or interacting with the cast of a Flash Gordon serial. Ghoulardi's vocabulary included zany phrases like "Knif" (Fink spelled backwards) as in "All the world's a purple knif"; "Stay sick"; "Turn blue"; "You wouldn't believe!"; and "Cool it with the boom-booms." Ghoulardi became so popular that he also hosted the afternoon program "Laurel, Ghoulardi and Hardy" featuring comedy shorts every weekday at 5:00 P.M. and on April 13, 1963, the station gave him a second weekly movie show, Masterpiece Theater at 6:00 p. m. Saturday. The Ghoulardi show became so popular that the Cleveland Police reported crime on Friday night was far lower that any other night of the week with juvenile crime dropping some thirty-five percent during the show's broadcast. A typical letter to Ghoulardi read "You're awful! I don't know how my little girl can like you so much" or "We love you. You're so different. Drop dead!" In 1966 Ernie Anderson quit his Ghoulardi gig and headed to Hollywood to work with his friend Tim Conway (of MCHALE'S NAVY fame). Ernie later became an announcer for the ABC network and soon his vocal style was familiar to millions of viewers. You see, Ernie (a.k.a. "Ghoulardi") was the man who popularized the catchphrase "The Lu-u-uhv Boat." In 1971 a 21-year-old Cleveland native named Ron Sweed resurrected the Ghourlardi character by creating The Ghoul on WKBF-TV Channel 61. The Ghoul sported a mustache, goatee, a zany wig, a buttoned covered lab coat and sunglasses missing the left lens. He enjoyed inserting the sound of flushing toilets into the middle of a movie scene and blowing up things with firecrackers (a la David Letterman's fetish with dropping things off building to see them smash on the sidewalk below). He especially enjoyed blowing up a character called Froggy, a silly looking frog in a tuxedo that was inspired by the Froggy the Gremlin character from ANDY'S GANG in the 1950s. You could say that the Ghoul's Froggy was the forerunner of the Mr. Bill puppet who constantly got sliced, diced, chopped, pummeled and pureed by the heartless Mr. Sluggo character on NBC's SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE. When The Ghoul was canceled, Sweed took his zany character to Detroit station WKBD from 1974-75. In 1982 he returned home to Cleveland where once again The Ghoul was seen on Channel 61 on Saturday afternoons from 12:00 to 2:00 PM. Throughout the 1980s, The Ghoul was syndicated in such major markets as Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and San Francisco. A similar character The Son of Ghoul played by Kevin Scarpino aired in Canton, Ohio on WOAC Channel 67 in 1987. TRIVIA NOTE: In homage to Ghoulardi, Cleveland native Drew Carey wears a Ghoulardi Tee-shirt on his ABC sitcom THE DREW CAREY SHOW. Ernie Anderson (a.k.a. "Ghoulardi") died on February 6, 1997. The history of the "Ghoulardi" phenomenon is chronicled in the book "Ghoulardi: Inside Cleveland's TV Wildest Ride" written by Tom Feran and R.D. Heldenfels, who are both TV critics for the Akron Beacon Journal.