5 Questions With Rich Koz (MeTV’s Svengoolie!)

MeTV

By David Cohea

Svengoolie (as played by Rich Koz) is one of the most enduring and beloved late-night horror show hosts. You can find the mustached mystery man every Saturday on MeTV. We caught up with the legend, who shared all sorts of secrets about MeTV’s October programming stunts.

“We’ve been doing Svengoolie Halloween Boonanza [at MeTV] the past few years at Halloween, and it goes over great,” Koz says. “We have Halloween-themed classic TV shows and also blocks of classic series, like the The Addams Family, The Twilight Zone, Alfred Hitchcock Presents and, of course, Kolchak: The Night Stalker.

“We’re also doing a special titled Svengoolie: Uncrypted [premieres Saturday, Oct. 1], which gets into the whole world of Svengoolie. It should be lots of fun. And then of course I’m doing a horror classic every Saturday night. We have Bride of Frankenstein; The Tingler, a Vincent Price classic; and Fiend Without a Face, a movie we’ve been wanting to show for years.”

The network’s monthlong Halloween Boonanza will celebrate all things Svengoolie, spooky, kooky and fiendishly fun for everyone.

Here, Koz answers our “5 Questions.”

1. What shows did you watch and love when you were growing up?
In Chicago where I grew up, there was an abundance of hosted local kids shows by various characters and such. And I loved those, because they’d also run cartoons and comedy shorts, like Our Gang and The Three Stooges. I liked hosted shows because it felt like they were a friend who was talking to you. I loved sitcoms: The Honeymooners with Jackie Gleason, Car 54, Jack Benny, Andy Griffith, Get Smart, which is actually on again here at MeTV, it’s like old home week. There was a show on PBS called Silents Please that showed silent movies and had voice-overs explaining some of the stuff. The local stations produced a lot of different types of programming, from cooking shows to talk shows and everything else. And oh, another great guy who was on [in Chicago] was Bill Jackson, who did The BJ and Dirty Dragon Show and Gigglesnort Hotel. [He was] a very creative guy. You didn’t just tune in for the cartoons or shorts; he was somebody you wanted to see.

2. Tell us about the first scary movie you ever watched. How old were you, and what do you remember?
That would be The Wizard of Oz, which I saw on TV when I was 3 or 4. Not because of the flying monkeys, but that Wicked Witch! There was something about her voice and her demeanor that scared the heck out of me. I would hide my head in the couch cushions. But the first actual horror movie I believe I saw was the original King Kong. I remember being very apprehensive about watching for all the things my parents said about it. But I was fascinated and did watch it. And I think part of that fascination, even though I didn’t know what it was at the time, was the whole stop-motion animation, which I am now a huge fan of. I’ve always enjoyed the way Ray Harryhausen did it.

3. What is a typical fan experience like for you?
It’s overwhelming. When l go someplace, there will be huge lines of people waiting to just get an autograph and say hello. These people will wait in line for half an hour, 45 minutes, just to have a little interaction with me. It always gets me when people thank me for what I’m doing. It’s wonderful to see people so devoted to the character [of Svengoolie]. I remember somebody saying it’s a record that we’ve been on a network and seen nationwide for over 10 years. And we’re still on, and the show is more popular than it’s ever been. When I started, I was just thrilled that I had a job working in TV. I wasn’t thinking past the next few months or whatever. But yeah, here I am 43 years later.

4. Can you us about a time when you were starstruck?
I once received an email from Mark Hamill saying he was a big fan and watched my show every weekend. It was very flattering, but there are even people who pretend to be a bottom-feeder celebrity like me. So I asked, “How do I know it’s really you?” And he said, “Well, I’m on Twitter. I’ll post something about you and then you’ll know it’s me.” An hour went by, then two and three hours. Then all of a sudden a tweet comes up from Mark Hamill saying, “One of the best things I discovered this summer was the Svengoolie show on MeTV.” I was like, “Oh, my God,” and I gave him the phone number. He actually called me. I think the first time we talked for about 40, 45 minutes, and all that time I’m thinking, “I’m talking to Luke Skywalker.”

5. What horror stars have you had on your show?
A lot of them are not with us anymore, but we’ve had Robert Englund, who played Freddy Krueger, and some of the other folks from A Nightmare on Elm Street, as well as the ones who played in the Friday the 13th movies. At one convention I met Cassandra Peterson, who plays Elvira. She said it was nice to finally meet me after hearing for years about Svengoolie. She’s always been kind talking about me in interviews and elsewhere. And there’s Rob Zombie, who is actually crafting his own Svengoolie shirts.

“Svengoolie’s Halloween BOO-nanza”starts one hour earlier Sat. Nite on MeTV- Leading off with “Trilogy of Terror”- followed by the special “Svengoolie Uncrypted”- then the return of Sventoonie! Starts at 7 eastern/6 central time! pic.twitter.com/gamh5SLxm7

— Svengoolie (@Svengoolie) September 30, 2022