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Ghoul
Power Forever
An
interview with The Ghoul
By Bob
Ignizio |
The Ghoul (aka Ron Swede), broke into show business at
an early age, working as an assistant to legendary Cleveland horror host
Ghoulardi (aka Ernie Anderson) in the mid sixties. He continued to work
behind the scenes for Anderson’s replacements, Hoolihan and Big Chuck,
before donning the fright wig and lab coat that had been Anderson’s
trademark in 1971. As The Ghoul, Swede kept Ghoulardi’s legend alive not
just in Cleveland, but in other cities via syndication. He’s been on the
air both on television and radio pretty much ever since, most recently
hosting horror movies on Channel 55 and co-hosting WNCX radio’s “Saturday
Night House Party”. Although currently off the air, you can’t keep a good
ghoul down. Plans are already underway for The Ghoul’s next resurrection.
I caught up with The Ghoul at April’s Cinema Wasteland convention, and he
spoke candidly about his past, present, and future.
Utter Trash: So how did your run on channel 55 come to
an end?
The Ghoul: It was probably a mutual disdain for one
another. They were glad to see me go, and I was glad to go. We should be
on a new station soon.
UT: Channel 55 had strong religious affiliations,
being owned by Ernest Angley. Any issues over content while you were on?
G: Content wasn’t a problem at all, just minor things
that kept stockpiling. Just towards the last six months they started, for
the first time in the 6 years we’d been going, to dictate content. We’ve
done appearances at Ghoulardi’s and other clubs around town for the past 6
years, and now all of a sudden they were telling me they can’t show any more
footage of me in bars, or whatever.
UT: What are some of the horror movies that you
personally like?
G: I’ve been watching them all my life. The first
one I saw was ‘Frankenstein’, and that’s been my favorite all my life. You
can’t beat the Frankenstein monster. I like all the Universal classics,
those are great. The newer ones, back to the seventies, ‘The Exorcist’ I
don’t think you can get better than that. ‘Jaws’, that ruined my
honeymoon. I went to the Caribbean and didn’t go in the ocean after I saw
‘Jaws’ just before. It’s not a horror movie, but one of the best movies
I’ve seen in a long time was ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’. I love Disney
world, and that’s one of my favorite attractions.
UT: You broke into show business in an unusual way.
G: I was 13 years old. 2 weeks before I maneuvered
my way into meeting Ghoulardi I stole a gorilla suit. There was a guy
called Dr. Silkini and his live stage show of horrors at a Euclid movie
theatre. Frankenstein, Dracula, and King Kong on stage in person! While
Dr. Silkini was packing up his gear, we were walking through the back
alley. It was his misfortune to leave the gorilla suit unattended. I
grabbed it. Ernie Anderson was appearing at an amusement park called Euclid
Beach in Cleveland. I figured if I wore the suit, I’d at least get an
autograph out of the deal. I got an autograph, I got to meet him, and he
let me come down to his show the next day. And I just became his gopher.
I’d get his mail, and get his props set up.
UT: After Ernie left and Hoolihan and Big Chuck took
over the movie hosting duties, did you continue on with them?
G: Ernie left in 1966 and established himself as the
voice of ABC. I was still in high school, so I started the show with Big
Chuck and Hoolihan as a production assistant. I graduated from high school
and went to Bowling Green University, but was still coming home on the
weekends to do the Big Chuck show. I tried to get Ernie Anderson in 1971 to
come back once a month and do Ghoulardi. I’d just continue to do what I
used to do, but he didn’t want to hear about it. I asked him if I could
re-create the role and he gave me permission. He said, “I own the
character. I don’t care. But Storer broadcasting owns the name, so knock
off the “ardi”, call yourself The Ghoul.” So I took it to Kaiser and it
worked immediately. I’ve been doing it since 1971. There’s been a lot of
imitations and spin-offs since then.
UT: Like your illegitimate “son” down in Canton?
G: People just come and steal the material without
asking. We did take him to court, but it was like going to Mayberry. The
judge would not rule in my favor. Forget copyrights and stuff like that,
her ruling was that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. My
attorney said we could pursue it, but it would cost a lot of money. So that
was that.
UT: Now what about some of the other “feuds” you’ve
had, like with Denise Dufalla or Big Chuck? Are those just made up, like
when Ghoulardi used to pick on Dorothy Fuldheim?
G: Chuck has been like an older brother, best friend
of mine since I started working with him. If you don’t hear me mention them
on the show, you know I really have disdain for them. If I mention them on
the show, I think they’re cool. Denise has one of the best senses of humor
around. Right from the start she knew what I was going to do, and we
collaborated on different stunts and everything. I love Denise.
UT: Did you ever play her CD when you were DJing?
G: You don’t want to take it too far. I don’t
love Denise that much! Although she does do one track on the CD with
Michael Stanley.
UT: Speaking of the DJing thing, you’ve done your fair
share of that. Why can’t someone like you get a radio show and play
whatever you want?
G: I was on WNCX doing the Saturday night house
party. I left the station to do a great show which was exactly what you’re
talking about. It was an online show called Cleveland Hits.com. We were
going around the world with it. We didn’t have to adhere to a playlist.
You can’t do that on commercial radio anymore because they have
consultants. The consultants dictate to the program director and the
manager. You couldn’t work for better people than I did at NCX. Bill Lewis
was my program director, and Walt Tibursky was my GM. He was the only
general manager that ever let me shoot off actual fireworks in a radio
station. But you have a playlist from corporate. To make it brief, John
Lennon in his solo catalog has like 135 different songs. We can only play
the song “Imagine”. If anybody calls in and asks for a John Lennon song,
that’s what we play. Clear Channel owns stations from coast to coast. So
if you’re driving coast to coast, guess what song you’re going to hear from
John Lennon? Cleveland Hits went down the tubes because the record
companies lobbied Washington for legislation that made it too expensive for
online radio stations to exist anymore.
UT: You at least get to bring some of your musical
tastes into the TV show.
G: We’ll still do that. Mix the old with the new.
There’s a lot of good new stuff out there. But it’s getting harder and
harder to maintain a TV show, also.
UT: Do you think things are getting harder for local
TV?
G: Actually, the pendulum does seem to be swinging
back the other way. A couple of years ago the only locally produced shows
you were seeing were the news. But with Channel 3 for example, Fred
Griffith has a regular show every day now. As far as horror hosts, what’s
going to save them is cable, and things like The Horror Channel. I’m sure
it will be tinkered with corporately. It’s going to change. It’s pretty
hard to hang on to the way things used to be, and in most cases you don’t
want things to be the way they used to be. We have flush toilets now.
Without change we’d be running around and taking a dump in the back alley.
UT: Some people get you and Ghoulardi mixed together.
How does that make you feel?
G: When I first started in 1971, it was annoying. It
just gets to the point where you realize you can’t correct them, and so
what? It doesn’t matter. People will come up to me and say they remember
Ghoulardi doing Froggy. Ghoulardi didn’t do Froggy, I did. Or someone will
mention a piece of music from Ghoulardi, and it couldn’t have been on
Ghoulardi because the song came out in the seventies. It doesn’t matter. I
still watch my stuff as an impartial audience member, and 9 times out of 10
I say to myself, “Ernie Anderson was a hell of a lot funnier, he would have
done that a lot better.” So if they confuse me with Ernie Anderson that’s
pretty cool. There isn’t anybody else I’d rather be confused with except
maybe John Lennon. I was lucky enough to work with Ernie Anderson, and I
was lucky enough to meet John Lennon three years in a row, and they were
like kindred spirits. They had the same sense of humor, the same outlook on
life, the same zest for living. I had a great childhood. A lot of great
memories.
UT: Any parting words for the legions of ghoul fans
out there?
G: Just remember, do it while you can, but don’t get
caught!
Visit The Ghoul's website.
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