Back in the day, TV was really cool. While today has some great primetime shows (24, Prison Break, Lost, Smallville, and Supernatural, just to name a few), it's very hard to find horror programming especially on the local channels. TV these days is littered with crappy reality and judge shows.

Let's get in the Time Machine and travel back to the mid-1970s to see what was on TV back then! Our analysis of the horror films shown in those days governs the following TV Stations:

CHANNELS LISTED IN EASTERN NEW ENGLAND FROM TV GUIDE:

(NOTE: Providence TV Stations could be received in Boston if you had a good enough antenna. Now, with cable and satellite, only the local channels are available unless you have an external, old-style antenna - UPDATE: Currently the FCC is switching everyone away from UHF & VHF signals and all local TV channels will be using a digital broadcast).

Since that time, Channel 4 & 7 in Boston swapped Networks where 4 is now CBS and 7 is now NBC. Confused? Good.

This is what Bob Eggleton has to say on the general history of Boston Horror:

I do remember both 56 and 38 having their own "Science Fiction Cinema/Theater" on Saturdays, before CDF showed up. The reference by someone there that Godzilla films were shown at 4pm was I am sure, crossed over from memories of 38, which showed WAR OF THE MONSTERS and GODZILLA VS THE THING a lot. Of course this was like the early 70's to about '73 or '74. 56's "Science Fiction Theater" lasted maybe two years if that. 

Channel 56, when it was WKGB, had these rectangular boxes on the screen that would always preview the 8pm movie, Science Fiction Cinema, and so on. I VIVIDLY remember the promos on the "8 O'clock Big Movie" for MONSTER ZERO and WAR OF THE GARGANTUAS, which were on a Friday night about a week apart in 1971, they had them as "World Premiere Events" 

I remember MZ and WOTG were in 1973 on that 8pm movie. I am sure they were on earlier. You can see it was OBVIOUSLY really busy on weekends with horror and Sci-Fi films...and Channel 4 had a penchant for showing ISLAND OF TERROR in the wee hours. I am also thinking that "Chiller Theater" on 5 may have come on after SIMON'S SANCTORIUM was gone?  I’m not 100% sure. These TV listings bear that out.

Channel 4 (Their whole identity and campaign at the time was "We're 4 Boston!") attempted to jump on the Saturday creepy movie bandwagon, about 1976, by presenting, rather as just "The Saturday 4 Double Feature" a lot of 60's British horror and Sci-Fi films mostly from Amicus and Hammer. I vividly remember aPeter Cushing double feature that had ISLAND OF TERROR (1967) and DALEKS INVASION EARTH 2160 AD (1966).  They also showed THE EVIL OF FRANKENSTEIN (1964), NIGHT CREATURES (1962), THE BLOOD BEAST TERROR (1968), CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF (1961) and the Hammer PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (1962). They also showed these late on Sundays in the wee hours after the last newscast, when stations routinely showed all kinds of weird stuff in the early morning hours.

They pretty much showed all the Hammer & Universal International releases. I recall these were shown during the season when both baseball and football were over, and then replaced by sports as the spring came around. And most of these films became part of the CDF pantheon. 

Not to be outdone, in Providence, Channels 10 and 12 had their own brief Sci-Fi and Horror movie shows on Saturdays:    Channel 10had "The 10 Thriller" which showed PSYCHO, THE COLLECTOR, MONSTER ZERO, GODZILLA KING OF THE MONSTERS and some others at various times-it was never on at an appointed time, just wherever they seemed to fit it in.  They had the straight one on sometimes the same afternoon, called  "10 Star Movie" in which they once showed HARD DAYS NIGHT on a Saturday afternoon. 

Channel 12, across town, had "Futurama" (years before the cartoon show of the same name) which had an intro of scenes reversed in negative from JOURNEY TO THE FAR SIDE OF THE SUN and they showed not only that film itself, but PLAN NINE FROM OUTER SPACE, THE CREEPING TERROR, GORGO and once a horribly edited version of DESTROY ALL MONSTERS that excised the *entire destruction* of Tokyo where the four monsters lay waste to the city - and instead went to a commercial. "Futurama" never lasted long, perhaps over a summer, as I recall. 

There were so many films on several channels being run at the same time, it was hard to remember what movie ran on what channel.

What changed all of these memories was (as a friend of mine who worked at a Boston station at the time, said) a repealing of a law that required local stations to do a certain amount of local, non-advertising programming per week. This happened around the mid-80's maybe 1986 and across the country, monster movie shows, Thanksgiving marathons (such as WOR's famous traditional showings of KING KONG and Godzilla films over two days, in the NYC area) came to a screeching halt in favor of syndicated shows such as "The People's Court", "Solid Gold", extended evening news, starting at 5pm, Network sports, and more advertising. This is why many local interest shows such as PM/Evening Magazine and 5's "Good Morning" and "5 All Night" also died about the same time.  Also, the cost of film rentals went into the stratosphere from what I heard at Channel 56. Channel 5 would get their oldUniversal monster films for a song, sometimes as a package deal with more expensive films, shown on "The Great Entertainment" which was a weekend movie show hosted by Frank Avruch (on Sunday afternoons and then at 11:30pm or on Holidays) and even that was whittled down to just 11:30pm on Sunday nights and then phased out.  Also, in the early 80's the advent of the VCR in homes made renting and seeing movies a lot easier not to mention the proliferation of Cable TV, which had stations (such as AMC, and at the time TBS and TNT devoted to old movies). All of these factors added up to most of these "movie shows" being phased out. 

To many people at Channel 56 itself, (now the CW Network, and from what I hear, no more "Boston's WB" but back to "Channel 56") CDF is a dim if almost forgotten memory. Many of the principals, who worked there in the day, have moved on, retired, or died (such as one of their famous announcers has). Dale Dorman moved back to radio and can be heard on Oldies 103.3 in the morning (I could not believe how aged he looks, compared to his days of being basically a young hippie looking guy, wearing a trench coat and announcing during the afternoon cartoons, a King Kong puzzle contest on 56). Despite that, he was a fixture to many of us who watched Channel 56 he seems hesitant to discuss those days (he had a caller on his morning show and when she went into a "Channel 56" memory he seemed to drop it fast) even though part of his appeal on Oldies 103 and a good deal of his audience remember him most from then.

The last great "marathons" I can remember are from 1998 and 1999 respectively when WPIX in NYC and AMC had a weekend of Godzilla films. The first was PIX "celebrating" the Tri-Star Godzilla film opening and in 1999, AMC did an unprecedented, commercial free 24-hour Godzilla marathon hosted by Roger Corman as part of their "Monsterfest" week.

Saturdays on Channel 5 at one point was something like this: 

"Chiller Theater" at 2:30pm, "Simon's Sanctorum" at 11:30pm, "Classic Horror" at 1am (Sun Morning) and Charlie Chan Theater (at 2:30 am until 4am when they rebroadcast Friday's "5 All Night" and "Good Morning!") The graphic they used for Classic Horror was always pretty cool-this Edward Gorey looking dead tree in a rectangle with "Classic Horror" at the bottom. That showed anything from 1930-1942, as I remember it. Following "Chiller Theater" was Wide World of Sports and preceded it with (at one point in 1976) Space 1999, which was on Tuesdays, usually pre-empting Happy Days until ABC complained. "Chiller Theater" eventually ran out of gas around '78 or so when it was just pre-empted by sports games so much that they'd show it maybe once a month and then it went away.

Sundays was Frank Avruch and "The Great Entertainment". He'd wear a sweater for the afternoon show and, then, a tux for Holidays or the Sunday evening (11:30) show.  How I remember this is beyond me. Frank Avruch did the intros to "Chiller" at one point as well as Classic Horror, just a voice over.

Channel 27 had "Abbott & Costello Theater" on Saturdays at 4pm. I remember the ads for it and a friend of mine would sit down with HIS WHOLE FAMILY to watch it. Channel 27 was extremely low-output UHF from Worcester, owned by an insurance agency at the time. They showed some real "backwater" programming as originally the station went on-air in 1970 mainly to cater to local interest. Their 7pm "Early Show" had movies that had were often "Science Fiction weeks" showing such fare as KRONOS, EVIL BRAIN FROM OUTER SPACE (and the other "Starman" films), WILD WILD PLANET, PLANETS AGAINST US, GAMMERA THE INVINCIBLE, INVASION OF THE NEPTUNE MEN and PRINCE OF SPACE. All low-renters for them but that was the place I first saw many of those films in the mid-70's.

Not many people showed Sunday horror films or Sci Fi much, unless it was Channel 6 and a ball game was a rainout. It was like Sunday was all the big movies, musicals and such.

It seems like in the 2000's, TV changed and not for the better. But all that being said, we have our memories of those days and, sites like this to keep them on.

Below is a brief listing of what genre films were on television from October 1973 to March 1976. These are all taken from Ethan Souza’s painstaking research at the Providence Library. I’ve set it up so that you can click on the date and see the snapshot from his site (the files are rather large and may take time to download).

You can also view all of the Providence Journal snapshots HERE, along with some other goodies he’s provided for you! The ones in yellow are Creature Double Feature films.

To view JUST the CDF entries, click HERE.

From Providence Journal:

Friday, October 12th, 1973

Saturday, October 13th, 1973

Friday, October 19th, 1973

11:00pm Ch. 56 Castle of the Living Dead (1961 - Christopher Lee)

Saturday, October 20th, 1973

Friday, October 26th, 1973

It would seem that Horror & Sci-Fi films were all over the dial long before CDF came along! If anyone has info on whether some of these showings were actually horror themed movie slots (like CDF), then please contact us and we’ll post the info here!

For those who grew up around Boston (such as myself), you’ve probably noticed by now listings for Channel 3, which we never saw here. If you had a good antenna you could get Channel 10 or 12 in from Providence. It’s too bad that today, even though our cable and/or satellite providers can give us the local channels, we can’t see the ones from our neighboring cities unless we go to a TV set with a really good antenna system!

Saturday, October 27^th, 1973

Friday, November 2nd - 1973

Saturday, November 3rd - 1973

----------------------------- 1974 ----------------------------------------

Friday, October 11th, 1974

Saturday, October 12th, 1974

Thursday, October 17th, 1974

Saturday, October 19th, 1974

Saturday, October 26th, 1974

Thursday, October 31st, 1974

Friday, November 1st, 1974

(Time on above may not be right due to smudge on old TV Listing)

Saturday, November 2nd, 1974

----------------------------- 1975 ----------------------------------------

Here, we see the beginning of CDF, which is highlighted in yellow. For just a listing of CDF programs during this time period, clickHERE.

Saturday, September 6th, 1975

Saturday, September 13th, 1975

Friday, September 19th, 1975

Saturday, September 20th, 1975

Wednesday, September 24th, 1975

Thursday, September 25th, 1975

Friday, September 26th, 1975

Saturday, September 27th, 1975

Saturday, October 4th, 1975

Saturday, October 11th, 1975

Saturday, October 18th, 1975

Saturday, October 25th, 1975

Saturday, November 1st, 1975

Saturday, November 8th, 1975

Saturday, November 15th, 1975

Saturday, November 22nd, 1975

Saturday, November 29th, 1975

Saturday, December 6th, 1975

Saturday, December 13th, 1975

Saturday, December 20th, 1975

Saturday, December 27th, 1975

----------------------------- 1976 ----------------------------------------

Saturday, January 3rd, 1976

Friday, January 9th, 1976

Saturday, January 10th, 1976

Friday, January 16th, 1976

Saturday, January 17th, 1976

Saturday, January 24th, 1976

Saturday, January 31st, 1976

Saturday, February 7th, 1976

Saturday, February 14th, 1976

Saturday, February 21st, 1976

Saturday, February 28th, 1976

Saturday, March 6th, 1976

Saturday, July 10th, 1976

Saturday, July 17th, 1976

Saturday, July 24th, 1976

Saturday, July 31st, 1976

Saturday, August 7th, 1976

Saturday, August 14th, 1976

Saturday, August 21st, 1976

Saturday, August 28th, 1976