New Year's Eve at The Parkway

One annual event that never really took off the Parkway New Year's Eve Party. We only did it about three years in a row, as I recall. Each admission included free champagne, a celebratory menu, dancing, and specially selected themes. themes. One was a disco party where we showed Saturday Night Fever then opened up the floor with a DJ, moving all the couches away from the stage area so folks dressed up like 70s relics 'n' rejects could boogie the night away. Another time we threw a toga party and showed Animal House. That was my favorite. But again, unlike our Oscar Bash, which sold out in minutes and packed both screens, the NYE concept simply didn't attract enough patrons to warrant staying up so late. 

The New Parkway may or may not throw a New Year's Party this year, or next. In any case, I'll probably be staying home anyway. Cheers.

Elvis Lives!...at The Parkway

The King and I

I love Halloween and Christmas, but for Monica Tiki Goddess and me, our very favorite holidays of the year are Elvis B-Day (January 8) and Elvis D-Day (August 16), the anniversaries of The King's birth and "disappearance," respectively.  My wife Monica and I first met at The Parkway on May 31, 1997, when I was hosting Jailhouse Rock (1957) in The Midnight Lounge and picked her out of the audience to spin my big wheel, so to speak. I had been hosting Elvis B-Day and Elvis D-Day parties at various venues around the East Bay since the early '90s, often sponsored by the Elvis-friendly computer company 42 Inc. Monica and I officially met  (i.e. started dating) months after our initial Parkway encounter at my Elvis B-Day party at the Ivy Room in Albany, on January 8, 1998. She remembered me as the Parkway dude who gave her an Elvis blanket as a reward for her sexy wheel-spinning, and I remembered her as the hot babe with the tattoo of a Navajo symbol that read "Elvis." She got the gigs of both lovely assistant and wife, and has been spinning my wheel ever since.

Impersonator contest...

The Midnight Lounge was the original name of my weekly cult movie show at The Parkway before it suddenly morphed into the B-movie/burlesque extravaganza known as Thrillville on January 8, 1999 with a "prime time" screening of Viva Las Vegas (1964), one of the greatest nights ever in my so-called "career" as "Will the Thrill." The crowd just went totally nuts over the cosmic, combustible combination of Elvis and Ann-Margret. After that surprise smash, I moved the gig permanently to Thursday nights, where it remained for the duration of its run, with much bigger audiences, unlike my early, sparsely attended Saturday midnight shows (replaced by the much more successful Rocky Horror Picture Show presented by Barely Legal Productions). 

I decided to host all my annual Elvis B-Day and D-Day parties at The Parkway following that  fateful screening of Viva Las Vegas. Once we even got Elvis's blonde co-star in Jailhouse Rock, Jennifer Holden, to make a special appearance. She was a trip.

Me with Annie, Deborah Walley, Monica,
September 2000

Another memorable show: the time I brought up my stepmom Anne Helm, who co-starred with Elvis in Follow That Dream (1962), along with our friend Deborah Walley (Gidget Goes Hawaiian), who co-starred in Elvis's Spinout (1966). I managed to score a 35mm print of Spinout, and was pretty pleased about it - until I belatedly discovered, during the screening, that some jerk had cut out all of Elvis's musical numbers from the print, leaving us with his thespian talents only. I guess it was "the Director's Cut." Sadly, this was one of Deborah's final public appearances before she passed away the following year. She was a great lady.

With Cari Lee Merritt and The King

I was actually fortunate enough to meet, befriend and interview several "Elvis babes" via my connection with Annie, including Stella Stevens (1962's Girls! Girls! Girls!), Joan Blackman (Blue Hawaii, 1961; Kid Galahad, 1962), and the late, great Julie Parrish (Paradise, Hawaiian Style, 1966). 

At yet another revival of Jailhouse Rock, the unconventional, controversial and unpredictable performance artist known as "Extreme Elvis" showed up with his own throne (toilet), mooning the audience as he pulled down his jumpsuit and took a seat...

With Yvonne Craig and Gary Lockwood,
August 2000

For Elvis D-Day 2000, I showed a rare, faded 35mm print of the 1963 "classic" It Happened at the World's Fair with two of the original co-stars - Yvonne "Batgirl" Craig and Gary "2001/Star Trek" Lockwood - in person. Neither had ever even seen the film before! And they only lasted about 20 minutes with it this time before drifting out into the lobby to mingle with fans...But before that, I did get to sit on a Parkway sofa next to our pal Yvonne while Elvis tried to seduce her younger self on a big screen sofa as he serenaded her with the song "Relax." Definitely one of my favorite Parkway memories, obviously. (See video of our appearance on KTVU's Mornings on 2 to promote this show.) 

Anyway, I already have Viva Las Vegas booked for Thrillville Theater at The New Parkway on January 6, 2013. Perhaps history will repeat itself. Cheers and TCB.

Posters by Miles Goodrich

Monsters Attack Thrillville at The Parkway!

Gamera!

Mothra!

Today's entry will be more of a photo essay  since, like you, I am preparing for the holidays so this blog will be brief, at least word-wise. Below is a pictorial review of the many featured creatures who stomped across The Parkway stage and lobby during my Thrillville gig's twelve year run. These monsters and mutants may make return engagements at The New Parkway, so beware...cheers.

Gamera, guest wheel-spinner

Godzilla vs. Mothra!

Godzilla, August Ragone, Bob Johnson

Gorilla X vs. the Tiki Goddess!

Gorilla X vs. El Thrillermo!

It came from Cinema Insomnia!

Metaluna Mutant attacks the Tiki Goddess!

Tiki Goddess meets Tor!

Mega Fant!

Space Monster and Mega Fant vs. the Tiki Goddess!

Sayonara....

"Papa-Palooza" at The Parkway!

Poster by Miles Goodrich

In the spring of 2007, The New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles was in the midst of an incredible "grindhouse" film festival (as it usually is, actually), showcasing many rare 35mm prints provided by Quentin Tarantino from his private collection, curated by my friend Brian Quinn. And on my very birthday, April 2 (no gifts please - well, okay, why not), the movie just happened to be  Bare Knuckles (1977), starring my father, Robert Viharo, as "Zachary Kane, Modern Day Bounty Hunter," co-starring Sherry Jackson (from Danny Thomas's old TV series Make Room For Daddy) along with genre icons John Daniels and Gloria Hendry. Needless to say, I drove down and celebrated with a bunch of friends, including Parkway founders/owners Kyle and Catherine Fischer, and Pop himself.  Even the film's director, Don Edmonds, most infamous for the Nazisploitation masterpiece Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS, made one of his final public appearances before sadly passing away not long afterwards. Needless to say, it was one of the best birthdays ever.

Pop has starred in a number of notable movies over the years, including Valley of the Dolls (1967, as "The Director"), Villa Rides! (1967), as a Mexican revolutionary, alongside Yul Brynner, Robert Mitchum, and Charles Bronson; and Hide in Plain Sight (1980), as a gangster in a true story directed by and starring James Caan. But Bare Knuckles has always been my favorite. It's a bizarre hybrid of grindhouse, blaxploitation, kung fu, and serial killer cinema, with a soundtrack by a dude who normally scored porn flicks (in fact, the LP is quite a collector's item - I have two copies!). I've been championing this flick for years, and now Tarantino himself was finally giving it some overdue love and validation. On the big screen. In 35mm. It was my Thrillville Holy Grail, found at last. But would QT let me book it at The Parkway, with Pop in person? 

The short answer: yes, and yes.

Pop and me, Parkway, May 2008

On May 8, 2008, I hosted by final Thrillville show at The Parkway, since for various reasons (mainly dealing with projection issues, since the Cerrito had a change over system required for archival prints, detailed here), I was moving the show to Speakeasy Theater's new sister venue, The Cerrito. I called it "Papa-Palooza." QT's assistant shipped me the prints (gratis!) of both Bare Knuckles and another classic cult movie co-starring Pop, Return to Macon County (1975), wherein he played a crazy copy chasing Don Johnson and Nick Nolte through the rural '50s South. Since Pop showed up at The New Beverly he would just have to fly up and appear with my own screenings. And so he did.

Now let's be clear - Pop is not a B movie buff at all. These jobs were just paychecks to him. He's a serious artist and thespian. But bills are bills, and they must be paid by any means necessary. (Pop also guest starred - either as a bad guy or a crazy cop - in nearly every major TV cop show in the 70s and 80s, including The Mod Squad, Starsky and Hutch, Baretta, Kojak, CHiPs, Hill Street Blues, and The A-Team, to name a few). He never understood the pride I took in these particular career credits. But he showed up at this gig just to make me happy, and "Papa-Palooza," with live burlesque once again by The Twilight Vixen Revue, turned out to be one of the most memorable and unique programs I ever booked at The Parkway, and it remains one of the highlights of my so-called Thrillville "career." Cheers. 

(Watch video of the live stage show here.)

SHATFEST!

Poster by Miles Goodrich

By far the most popular annual "theme night" in my long-running Thrillville B movie/burlesque series at The Parkway was SHATFEST: A Tribute to William Shatner - the real "Will the Thrill." There is so much more to this universally beloved icon than Captain Kirk. He was also an astonishingly smooth lounge singer and incredibly accomplished "grindhouse" movie star. Along with largely forgotten but timeless and priceless Shat-tastic 35mm feature films like Kingdom of the Spiders (1977), The Devil's Rain (1975), Incubus (in Esperanto! 1966), and his "spaghetti western" White Comanche (1968), wherein he portrays dual roles of two half-breed Indians - one good, one evil! - I often showed clips of his various and memorable guest appearances in classic TV shows like The Outer Limits, The Twilight Zone, Thriller, and of course Star Trek; "music videos" including his infamous rendition of "Rocket Man"; the "lost" 1965 pilot Alexander the Great co-starring his fellow slow-then-sudden speaker, Adam West!; and other random "Shat-shorts" often donated by fellow Shatheads. It became quite the popular tradition. Shat always brought down the sold-out house, year in, year out. 

Poster by Miles Goodrich

This all began many years ago when a friend showed me a video copy of Shat's obscure 1974 masterpiece Impulse, wherein Big Bill plays an outrageously psychotic pimped-out disco-dressing serial killer who suffers flashbacks to his violent childhood. It co-stars Harold "Oddjob" Sakata as his parole officer. I was simply blown away. Then I discovered that the anarchic archivists over at The Werepad in San Francisco had an ultra rare 35mm print of this masterpiece in their voodoo vaults. I immediately booked it and the rest is local history. I brought this one back on a regular basis because it was just had to be seen to be believed - again and again and agin, and even then, it defied credulity. Forget the Star Trek films - Impulse is simply the Ultimate William Shatner Movie. His hysterical histrionics are sheer genius. Or he's just a really crappy actor/singer. That's the ironic beauty and enduring mystery of William Shatner. We'll never know for sure. And it doesn't even matter. William Shatner is one of the most entertaining performers on the planet, simply by being himself. Shat's appeal crossed all boundaries of generations, cultures, sexes, and age groups. He was a perfect match for The Parkway - beer, pizza, sofas, adoring audiences, and a huge, steaming pile of vintage Shat on the big screen. It was magical match made in cult movie heaven. Or hell...

Ironically - but poetically - The Parkway closed on March 22, 2009 - William Shatner's birthday. Except more annual tributes at The New Parkway. SHATFEST LIVES! Cheers.

The many faces of William Shatner:

"Creature Features" Live at The Parkway!

Monica Tiki Goddess, Bob Wilkins, and me
October 2000

One of the most gratifying experiences in all my years as Parkway programmer/publicist and Thrillville producer/host were the annual and now legendary Creature Features reunion shows with former famous TV horror hosts Bob Wilkins and John Stanley, as well as editor/reporter/film reviewer, the late great Bob Shaw, in person. These spectacular spook shows were among the most popular programs to ever play The Parkway, creating precious memories both for the legions of Creature Features fans who grew watching the series every Saturday night throughout the 1970s and early '80s on KTVU (and Friday nights in Sacramento), as well as introducing the beloved local icons Bob Wilkins and John Stanley to generations of new fans. It was always a fun, festive event where I met and networked with many long time Creature Features fanatics and newfound friends, who often joined us on stage, including Mister Lobo, Michael Monohan AKA Dr. Goulfinger, Bill Longen AKA "Uncle Bill, the Trailer King," Sci-Fi Bob Ekman (Psychotronix Film Festvial, more on those later), Scott Moon, August Ragone, Bob Johnson, Tom Wyrsch, Strephon Taylor, Chuck Jarman, Doug Jones (who worked on the show and built a replica of the original TV set for the Parkway stage!), and many, many others, all of whom have gone on to make their own unique marks on the regional (and national) film scene.

With John Stanley

I grew up in South Jersey, and my local TV horror host was Dr. Shock out of Philly (who partly inspired my "Will the Thrill" public persona), so I didn't even hear about Bob Wilkins and Creature Features until I moved to the Bay Area in 1985, the year it went off the air! Parkway co-founder Kyle Fischer, who grew up in the Bay Area, was a big fan. Over the years I heard more and more about Bob as well as his successor, John Stanley, whom I actually met first when he appeared at the UC Theater in Berkeley in the mid-90s. Unlike Bob, John was and remains a true expert in the field of horror and sci-fi movies, and he wrote a series of successful Creature Features Movie Guides as well as contributing to the San Francisco Chronicle for many years. John also directed his own vampire movie, Nightmare in Blood, which I had the proud pleasure of showing once at The Parkway, co-hosted by John himself.

Bob Shaw, John Stanley, and Bob Wilkins
on the reconstructed "Creature Features" set
created by Doug Jones

I first contacted Bob Wilkins via my friend and frequent Thrillville poster artist Miles Goodrich, who interviewed him once for his own 'zine, back in 1999. I also interviewed Bob for The Parkway News, and asked him if he'd ever consider coming out of retirement for a personal appearance. He eventually agreed, making his first personal appearance at The Parkway the following October, along with John and ob Shaw, and thanks to the help and encouragement of official Creature Features archivist and documentarian Tom Wyrsch, who worked out the travel logistics, it was a spectacular crowd-pleasing smash with several equally successful "sequels."

(Watch video of the first Creature Features reunion from October, 2000.)

Posters by Strephon Taylor

Every October from 2000 thru 2006, until Bob became too ill, he would come down on the bus from his home in Reno to co-host specially selected monster movies, including several local premieres of new Godzilla flicks, like Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla II and Godzilla-Mothra-King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack along with vintage favorites like The Tingler and Night of the Living Dead. John, who lives in Pacifica, would show up weekly throughout the month of October to co-present Halloween hits like Creature with the Atom Brain, Zombies of Mora Tau, 13 Ghosts, The Vampire Lovers, Horror Express, and many others. One year, 2002, we made the annual event a tribute to Bob's weekday afternoon kiddie sci-fi show alias, Captain Cosmic, and even brought his original robot sidekick, 2T2, out of mothballs in Sacramento for a true reunion. (Video.)

The Return of Captain Cosmic, October 2002

With 2T2,  Bob Wilkins, and Mr. Lobo

Sadly, Bob Wilkins passed away on January 7, 2009 - ironically, the same day as my friend and another frequent Thrillville guest, cult movie god Ray Dennis Steckler (more on him in a future blog) - only a few months before The Parkway closed on March 22, 2009. It was truly the end of an era, but one that lives on the minds and hearts of Creature Features fans everywhere. Cheers.

Live Brrrrlesque At The Parkway!

Twilight Vixens: burlesque troopers

On December 7, 2006, I presented a beautiful, newly struck 35mm of the 1957 "classic" The Giant Claw, about a gigantic mutant space bird attacking the Earth, at The Parkway and called it "Thrillville's Big Holiday Turkey Roast." I pitched the movie as a "long lost Christmas classic" and booked popular local burlesque troupe The Twilight Vixen Revue - frequent guests on that big stage - to perform their Xmas show. It was a great night. (See live video of the show here.)

The original Thrillville tiki bar set

The only problem was the big heater was broken, and it was freezing. Remember, this was December. In fact, the heater had been broken for a while by that point and would continue to be broken for a while longer while technicians tried to figure out how to fix the archaic equipment. Few people realized that the old Parkway - initially built circa 1926 - was a monstrous mess of electrical, heating and plumbing problems, and we barely kept that boat afloat for the duration of our occupancy. But here's the rub: the fact that the heater busted just as Winter began and stayed busted for most of the season did not deter our hardcore loyal patrons from showing up in their usual droves. Their response to the chilly temperatures? They brought their own blankets. It was a heart-warming sight. Literally. That is love. 

Festive fun for all!

As for the bold and beautiful Twilight Vixens, dancing cheerfully to traditional Christmas tunes in the dark, icy cavern with hardly any clothes on at all, much less blankets, Monica Tiki Goddess's quip from the stage summed up their experience: "Their nipples aren't hard because they're turned on...." 

Poster by R. Black

Cheers.