Line #20 Creator/Zacherley


1	[[quoteright:249:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/zacherly_portraitclean_8160.jpg]]
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3	-->''...and good night, whatever you are!''
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5	Zacherley, neé Roland, was a HorrorHost from 1957 to 1965 played by John Zacherle. A gleeful, well-dressed mad scientist operating out of a castle, Zacherley would play off a perpetually-off-screen supporting cast (including his wife Isobel) and reedit the movies he showed to give himself cameos. The character eventually made his way into other media--Zacherle edited two horror short-story anthologies and recorded a number of novelty songs with the character, as well as hosting a dance program called ''Disc-O-Teen'' (yes, also in character) and even launched a presidential campaign for Zacherley in 1960.
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7	The character largely disappeared in the seventies, as Zacherle moved to radio to host a ProgressiveRock show for the majority of the decade, but returned for a couple of anthology videocassettes in the 1980s. Zacherle also began attending horror conventions in-character in the 1990s. He "retired to Transylvania", according to his press team, a few months before his death in 2016, at the ripe old age of 98.
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9	!! Tropes associated with Zacherley include:
10	* CatchPhrase: Zacherley had a number of them, including "you better pay attention" when he was doing something weird and "it's alive!" when he's doing something awesome.
11	* CordonBleughChef: His oft-mentioned dinosaur-eggnog, which is revealed in one episode to contain spiders; another episode has him making "Dracula Fizz", which requires a troubling number of temperature adjustments and contains bone dust.
12	* ClipShow: 1998's ''The Zacherley Archives'', which collects most of the series' surviving material as well as a number of contemporary ads.
13	* DarkParody: One of his songs was a parody of "Gravy (For My Mashed Potatoes)" by Dee Dee Sharp called "Gravy (With Some Cyanide)", where he describes his plan to use poisoned gravy to kill his in-laws.
14	* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: Zacherley was originally Roland, and Isobel simply "my dear". The changeover came during the show's move from UsefulNotes/{{Philadelphia}} to UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity, presumably for legal reasons.
15	** Zacherley's run hosting NYC's ''Chiller Theatre'' from 1963 to 1965 was one for that show, which continued for seventeen years after he left but never again had a host during its original run.
16	* EvilLaugh: Zacherley's got a deep, throaty one.
17	* TheGhost: Pretty much everyone around Zacherley. They're all BehindTheBlack somewhere, content to make the occasional grunt or wheezing noise.
18	* InheritedIlliteracyTitle: Zacherley was originally supposed to just be "Zacherle", after his actor, but a misprinted ad resulted in the current name.
19	* LimitedWardrobe: His black double-breasted coat, his yellow neckerchief and his dual eight-pointed stars.
20	* MusicalEpisode: One episode shows Zacherley has written an opera, and he performs almost the entirety of it during his segments--it goes on so long that Zacherley decides to cut down the film to make more room.
21	* ObnoxiousInLaws: His song "Gravy (With Some Cyanide)" is a morbid parody of "Gravy (For My Mashed Potatoes)" by Dee Dee Sharp that consists of him describing a scheme to kill his in-laws using poisoned gravy.
22	* ReCut: A common feature of the show--the films would be edited to insert Zacherely into them.
23	* TheUnintelligible: See TheGhost, though Zacherley manages to hold conversations with everyone just fine.

Context Creator / Zacherley