The hellish origins of Puerto Rico’s 1st Horror hostess, Melevill (P2).

(Part 2: Searching for Puerto Rican Horror hosts)

Let’s rewind to the late 50s. While Vampira was appearing in Ed Wood’s Plan 9 From Outer Space (check out this excellent article about her:

https://rottenink.wordpress.com/category/horror-hosts/vampira/ ),  Zacherley, the 1^st male horror host, was keeping the horror host tradition alive in Shock Theater.

(Interesting Facts: Some believe that Swami Drana Badour is the 1st male horror host { https://shocktheater1.blogspot.com/2010/10/swami-drana-badour-is-he-first-horror.html}

Puerto Rican television started with the launch of its first station, WKAQ-TV–now Telemundo Puerto Rico– on March 28, 1954. And the Vampira Show officially began on May 1^st, 1954.)

The Puerto Rican stations mostly showed educational and religious programming, but they eventually made room for “telenovelas”( soap operas). This is the part of our research where we had to heavily rely on the memories of our older Puerto Rican friends and relatives.

Most of them remember watching Puerto Rican-made comedies and variety shows on TV. American horror fiction seemed to be found only at local theaters, that is, until the early 60s, when “monster movies” began to air on TV.

(Interesting Facts: Two of the oldest movie theaters in P.R. were Cine Campoamor, situated in Guayama, the building was constructed in 1920, and the cinema itself opened in 1935, and Teatro Guayama –formerly Teatro Antiguo Calimano– from 1938. Both were famous for showing the Universal Monster movies.)

Monster movies became a staple on Puerto Rican television in the early 1960s as the Local stations incorporated imported U.S. programs alongside popular local shows.

The trend was part of a broader phenomenon where classic horror and science fiction films from the 1950s and earlier were syndicated to television stations across different regions.

While the U.S. had an entire Army of interesting horror hosts presenting those films, Puerto Rico doesn’t seem to have any records of a “movie presenter” or horror host during that period.

The only one who comes close is the Cuban-born television presenter Manolo Urquiza and his 1969 show Telecine de la Noche (https://eladoquintimes.com/2020/07/16/recordando-telecine-de-la-noche-con-manolo-urquiza/ ). Manolo was more like Robert Osborne from

TCM, a man in a suit presenting films to viewers along with a bit of trivia. He was mostly serious like a math teacher. The opposite of Zacherly or Paul Bearer from Creature Feature.

That’s all we could find as far as the 1950s through the 1970s are concerned. Months ago, we emailed a few schools and TV station representatives in P.R., but they never replied.

Jumping to the neon glitz of the 1980s, we found ourselves in a pool of edgy Puerto Rican comedians. Many of whom we do remember watching when we were kids.

Some of these comedians toyed around with the “horror host” genre, but that was usually only in Halloween, as no matter how much sexual content and lowbrow comedy these late-night shows had, they were all still following their strong religious beliefs at the end of the day.

These programs showed that it was ok to dress up for Halloween and like the horror genre for just one night. But come the next morning, all that stuff was left in the garage or basement.  

During the 80s and 90s we found (and remember) comedians like Sunshine Logroño’s (Sunshine Café) Raymond Arrieta (¡Que vacilón! and El show de Raymond), Antonio Sánchez “El Gangster” (No te Duermas), Héctor Marcano (Marcano…El Show) doing “horror host” type sketches and presentations in their shows.

These comedians would show up as generic witches, vampires, or other monsters, introduce their short sketch films, and make appearances during the breaks to offer some bad puns. But again, those were only done during Halloween or just in October.

Back then, some Puerto Rican viewers who also enjoyed American TV shows like Saturday Night Live and other late-night shows quickly noticed that many of these Puerto Rican comedy shows were copying what the American shows were doing. Sometimes, full SNL sketches were remade entirely in Spanish in TV shows like “Esto No Es Un Show.”

{ ‘Marcano… El Show’ frequently copied elements from similar shows on American networks. The set was an almost exact replica of The Arsenio Hall Show, including elements such as the dog pound and a female keyboard player. The host was introduced the same way as Hall (“Damas y Caballeros… Hector Marcano”). Its comedy sketches were taken from popular 90’s shows that included: In Living Color and Late Night with Conan O’Brien.}

Why do we mention those facts? Well, because if P.R. comedians were ripping off American culture, then where are the Puerto Rican versions of ‘Joe Bob’ and ‘Rhonda Shear’? Or Vampira and Zacherley?

It’s a good thing for P.R. that we summoned Melevill.

(To be continued on Part 3: the summoning of a shadow demon.)