Man vs Channel 27

When I was growing up, television was much more of a cultural touchstone than it is now, especially since we lived on the outskirts of town where there wasn't much within walking distance aside from the Big Pantry convenience store.  Don't get me wrong; there was still time for playing or reading or what have you, but television was such a big part of my life it still sometimes surprises me that I don't watch nearly as much of it as I used to.

This, of course, was back in the days when local channels were king of late afternoon, pre-prime-time programming, and cable was just something other people had.  Aside from the PBS station, which served as the home of Grover Monster, the Frugal Gourmet, and the Doctor, one channel in particular rose above the rest: Channel 27.  With their mix of weekend movies and weird rerun packages, Channel 27 was the go-to channel.  Other stations on the dial played it relatively safe with their I Dream of Jeannies, or their Laverne and Shirleys, but Channel 27 hit late evenings with the one-two punch of The Monkees and Gothic soap Dark Shadows (which they replaced with infomercials in the middle of the crazy awesome Victorian werewolf/cursed hand storyline.  Not that I'm bitter or anything...)  They even ran weird short-lived shows like Ghost Story/Circle of Fear and the quite bonkers The Fantastic Journey.

Of course, I would be remiss if I didn't mention their "Sci-Fi Saturday" block, a triple feature of schlocky B-movies, British horror, Japanese monster movies, or whatever cheapie films they had the rights to air (sometimes with an episode of Hammer House of Horror thrown in for good measure.)  While I liked the schlock-monster flicks just fine, I gravitated more to the horror films they showed.  Soon, I was planning my Saturday around which ones to watch and which ones I could afford to skip.  Of course, anything with Vincent Price was a given, especially the Dr. Phibes films, and the Poe stories, like Masque of the Red Death.  I had a weak spot for anthology films, too, with Doctor Terror’s House of Horrors being a recurring favorite.  My first Dracula movie was not the Lugosi film, but Christopher Lee in one of the many Hammer sequels* (I can’t remember the details, but I want to say the hero attempted to dispatch of Dracula by burning his coffin before sunrise, leaving the Count with nowhere to go when the sun came up.)  And, yes, if Godzilla Versus the Cosmic Monster came on, you could bet my brother and I both would be right there watching.

It has been a few years since I lived in the Dallas area, but I was saddened to learn some time ago that Sci-Fi Saturday was no more.  An infomercial void sits where it used to be.  Of course, thanks to things like Netflix and Hulu, I can recreate my own programming block, but there's something to be said about seeing this stuff on TV, week after week.  Maybe tomorrow I'll throw on my DVD of Masque of the Red Death, for old time's sake.

*By the way, Dracula was the “safe” Hammer vampire to watch.  I remember their airing of “The Vampire Lovers” not sitting well with my Mom, who claimed she saw, uncensored, an exposed breast.  I don’t actually remember the incident in question, and I never found another televised airing of “The Vampire Lovers” to find out for sure!