Sammy Terry died this week.
Well, more accurately, Bob Carter, who created and portrayed
Sammy Terry, died this week.
If you grew up in central Indiana in the 1960s and '70s, you
remember Sammy Terry. Every Friday, following the evening news, Sammy Terry
(yes, read cemetery and you would be correct) sat up in his coffin for a turn
as host of Nightmare Theatre on channel 4, WTTV, the independent station in Indianapolis.
With a ghostly laugh, skullcap, overly thick make-up, and
his companion, the unquestionably plastic spider, George, Sammy Terry welcomed
viewers to the night’s foray into classic Hollywood B-movie horror flicks. “The
Mummy,” “Creature from the Black Lagoon,” “Swamp Thing,” these are among the
films that made us squeal and powered us through sleepovers giggling well into
the morning.
During my elementary school days, all of us knew the
programming of WTTV. In those pre-cable days, the independent station stood
alongside the three major networks and public television as the sum total of
our viewing options. In our younger days, Janie and Cowboy Bob hosted our cartoons,
but it was Sammy Terry who ushered us into junior high.
Bob Carter’s passing led me to You Tube where, of course,
there were a handful of Sammy Terry videos to be found. He was as deliciously
campy as I remembered, over the top just like the Adam West Batman of my youth
whom I adored. Watching the clips brought back memories in the family room of
my childhood, the old Zenith TV, the girls I’ve not thought of recently who
would remember with the same smile as I did.
It was a simpler time. Five TV channels to choose from, not
500. We walked to school, and our parents didn’t worry that we might not make
it there unscathed. We rode our bikes beyond watchful eyes. We anticipated that
one day each year when “The Wizard of Oz” was on TV. All experiences my
children did not enjoy.
I wonder in 20 years what their shared memories will be.
With our 500 channels, banks of knowledge at our fingertips through devices we
drop in our pockets, what shared experience is there when each of us customizes
our own experience in every moment? What
memories will they carry that they know their friends will share as well?
Remember when we were in junior high and Facebook was for kids not moms and
grandmas? Remember how our parents shuttled us through our over-scheduled lives,
and we shut the world out when we popped our earbuds in? It will be interesting
to see, and to see what that means for them.
For now, I smile and think of the man who greeted us with a
ghostly laugh and a plastic spider when simple entertainment was the warm
blanket in which we wrapped ourselves.
RIP Sammy Terry. RIP Bob Carter.
No comments:
Post a Comment