The Death of A Local TV Legend

Welcome to the Dead Zone...aka Pop Culture Dish. Sad to say that this is the 3rd post (in as many days) related to the death of a celebrity. Scott, a friend and fellow member of the Oldies Trivia team on which I compete informed me that Lawson Deming had died. You may know Deming better as Sir Graves Ghastly. After looking it up on imdb.com, I found that he died of congestive heart failure on April 27th at the age of 94.

If you grew up in the Metro Detroit/Ohio area during the period between the late 60s and early 80s, chances are that you spent many Saturday afternoons checking out Sir Graves Ghastly on WJBK-Channel 2. Right after Don Cornelius wished us "love, peace, and soul", Sir Graves would assault the airwaves with corny comedy (of which I am a huge fan) and some of the spookiest movies from yesteryear. I have fond memories of seeing such classics as the 1931 version of "Frankenstein", Lon Chaney Jr. in "The Wolf Man", and "The Werewolf of London" on Sir Graves Ghastly. If it was a bad weather day or during the winter when it gets dark early, that made the movie viewing experience all the better.

Although my mother couldn't stand Sir Graves (she had a low tolerance for silliness), I thought he was great! Sad to say that with the cable boom, Sir Graves and many other local TV hosts fell by the wayside. Kids today have no idea what they missed.

If you want to relive some of your childhood memories or if you want to get an idea of what you missed, check out this cool site that I found:

http://www.sirgravesghastly.com/index.htm

Happy Haunting, nyahhhh!!