Ding Dong Ghoul

A few days ago, by Mistake, I happened to read a column by a television critic. He was complaining that most TV shows are Videotaped now. He missed the "little surprises" that used to crop up in live broadcasts, the "charming touches of spontaneity."

Well, we had a few "charming touches of spontaneity" at the TV station where I worked. Like the time when the senator from upstate made his speech, stood up, and smashed his head on the mike boom. Or the night someone printed a dirty word on the TelePrompTer, and the newscaster read it on the air.

All of this was good clean fun compared to that legendary last showing of Ding Dong Ghoul.

I used to write the thing. It was one of those tongue-in-cheek horror shows that were popular a while back. The show was a mystery to me. It started because the station got stuck with a roomful of old Monster movies. They were too abominable to show by themselves, so we set up a live Monster of Ceremonies named Heinrich to clown around between film segments and sort of kid the commercials along. He had a crypt for a set and we wrote running bits for him that were tied in with the movie. We played it strictly for laughs. The mystery, as far as I'm concerned, was this – it figures that when you program a Grade Z movie late at night and feature Heinrich, an absolute mess as an actor, you expect a fiasco. It wasn't a fiasco. It was very popular.

And it was shelved. Why did the network cancel a successful show, you ask? Because Heinrich, the star, quit. That's why. The script conference at which he informed us of his plans to vacate was a script conference to remember.

"You no good louse!" screamed Liz. Liz was the producer of Ding Dong Ghoul. She was a tall, pneumatic brunette who didn't look at all like a producer.

"It's your own fault," snapped Heinrich. "You wouldn't give me a contract when I wanted one, before we got popular."

"We made you!" yelled Liz. "We built you out of a corpse, like Frankenstein!"

"You've been bleeding me. That's for sure. Ever since this show got a rating," he yelled back. "I got a better offer somewhere else and I'm going."

Liz just stared at him. She turned to me. "I yank this skinny bit player out of a burlesque house in the slums and look what he does!" she said. Then her voice got very cold. "Heinrich . . . I'm going to get you."

"You better do it fast, boss. I got a train to catch after the show. You can go look for a new spook."

Liz suddenly became docile. It was a quick switch and it made Heinrich nervous. She even smiled. "Gentlemen," she croaked, hoarse from yelling, "shall we write our last show? The movie will be Fountain of Horror."

I thought out loud. "Fountain . . . birdbath . . . Three Coins in the Birdbath . . . shower . . . bath . . . how about if we assume that vampires hate water? Heinrich can (continued on page 88)Ding Dong Ghoul(continued from page 65) have a lady vampire in a prop coffin in the crypt and the show'll be about how he tries to force her to take a bath."

"Who'll play the vampire?" asked Heinrich. "It's been a one-man show and I'm not about to ring in a partner on the last one."

"We can fake her," Liz said. "She'll be in the coffin the whole time, anyway." She turned her beautiful eyes to me again. "Write it," she snapped, and thus was conceived a horror.

Our director was Screaming Smith. He was called that because he had no faith in the intercom headphones that cameramen and stage managers wear, so he used to scream his directions into the intercom and hurt everyone's ears.

"Don't shout tonight," said the audio man. "I turned up the volume of the intercom and you don't have to shout tonight."

"Thank you," said Screaming Smith. "STAND BY ON THE SET . . ."

"Please. A little softer . . . please!" said Camera One.

"SPIN THE THEME . . . STEADY CAMERA TWO . . . WE'RE ON . . . CUE HEINRICH!"

"Good evening," said Heinrich to the city. "I see you've decided to return to my little heh heh apartment for a heh heh final visit. Heh heh. This is our last show, you know. I guarantee you'll be completely nauseated. Tonight I have a pretty little vampire in the coffin and I have to give her a bath. Vampires just hate water, you know. First, though, we're going to have another of those little home movies I know you love so much. Heh heh . . ."

That was a cue. "ROLLTHE COMMERCIAL FILM . . ." shrieked Smith.

The audio man held his ears. "It's no use . . ." he said.

The stage manager darted into the set, quickly checked the props, and lifted the lid of the balsa-and-cardboard coffin to make sure the shower spray we'd rigged in there was working. He sort of froze when he looked inside. Then he turned to the camera like it was a firing squad. He just stood there while the commercial film ticked away its final frames.

"WE'RE ON! GET OUT! GET OUT!" cried Smith. "WHAT'S HE DOING!? WHAT'S HE DOING!?"

"We can hear you, Mr. Smith," said the audio man and Camera Two in unison.

"GET THAT IDIOT OUT OF THERE!"

One of the cameramen picked up the stage manager's headphone cord and yanked on it. It worked. The director spoke very calmly and softly to the stage manager. "Now what did you go and do that for?"

While Heinrich started, the stage manager answered the question. In fact, he babbled hysterically into the intercom. Smith lifted his eyes to heaven and started to pray. Then the stage manager lay down on the studio floor and began to giggle vacantly. Some of it went on the air.

I was standing behind Smith in the control room. "What is it?" I asked.

Smith began. "He said . . ." then he cleared his throat, "he said Liz is in the coffin."

"Alive?" For a second I was afraid Heinrich might have murdered her.

"Yes. Alive." He looked at me in a pleading sort of way. "She's naked," he added. Then his eyes popped open and he turned to the crew. "DON'T ANYBODY LET HER GET UP!" "What if she gets up!?" he said to me. "I'm ruined. Network might be watching. She won't get up, though. Will she get up?"

I comforted him in spite of my own sudden urge to get drunk. "She won't get up. She can't get up. She can't. She's just trying to shake him, probably, because they had a fight and it's the last show. She won't get up. She wouldn't. I'm sure. Almost."

Meanwhile, Heinrich was wondering why the cameramen were staring at him and why the stage manager was hysterical. Then came the moment of truth. He opened the coffin to start the bath bit, and he saw her. He looked in, looked up, smiled, looked in again, choked, and shrieked, "MY GOD! SHE'S NAKED!"

"He's gone too far," thought the sponsor's men, agency men, director, program coordinator, cameramen, boom operator, audio engineer, video engineer, lighting engineer, VIPs, VEEPs, mothers, stagehands and the editor of TV-Guidebook.

I was sweating. I looked down at the studio floor through the control-room window, and I could see the stage manager still in hysterics. Camera One had the shakes because he'd have to explain it to his wife and she never did trust show people anyway. Camera Two was nonchalant. Camera Two was always nonchalant. He didn't even smile when the senator got knocked out by the mike boom. Sidney, the boom operator, was a dirty old man, and as he kept edging over on the boom platform to get a better look, the mike kept dropping into the picture. Through it all, Heinrich plodded on, probably by reflex.

When the live segment ended and we went into the movie, all hell broke loose. Heinrich screamed that if Liz got on the air that way he'd kill her, me, the director and himself. He said he'd kill the stage manager anyway. Smith threatened to cut us off the air but Liz reminded him that she was the producer and he was a lackey and she'd fire him if he did. Heinrich tried to cover her with a prop blanket, but she threw it at him.

"You're insane!" he screamed, and they were back on the air.

Surprisingly, once he got over the initial shock he handled himself pretty well. He even started to enjoy it. As he said afterward, "It suddenly hit me that I had her over a barrel."

When Liz realized that her attempt to give him a nervous breakdown was failing, she got frightened. As the mess unfolded, we in the control room all agreed that we'd underestimated Heinrich. Maybe independence had made a man of him.

It turned into a game. While she was trying to fluster him into helplessness he was trying to make her show herself. Heinrich winked at the audience and said, "I've got to get her out of there somehow. Vampires get very dirty, you know." Then he went to the lab table that was in the set and got things to torment her with. He poured potions on her, dumped prop worms (live) on her, and even got the pet mouse (also live) and let it loose in the coffin. That almost did it, too.

In answer, she made angry gestures at him and mouthed curse words. If she hadn't been careful to stay well in the bottom of the coffin, out of sight of the cameras, it would have been very bad.

From what I heard afterward, the audience sensed what was happening. It spread from house to house by telephone, and pretty soon the whole city was ogling Ding Dong Ghoul. The studio phones didn't stop ringing.

"Maybe you'd better cut them off," I said to Screaming Smith. "You never know what might happen."

"Me cut them off?" he said. "I'm just a lackey. The producer said so. Leave me alone. I'm going to cry, soon, I think. I hope she does get up." The poor guy.

(The program coordinator came over in his pajamas and asked a stagehand if it was true. The stagehand said yes it was true and the program coordinator turned red and yelled, "I'll have her head!!!" It got on the air.)

"Shut him up!" roared Smith just as the audio man opened the soundproof door to go to the Men's Room, letting Smith get on the air, too.

It was a stalemate for a while. Then Heinrich got fed up with the whole thing and said to the audience, "This is the most stubborn vampire I've ever seen. She's actually growing roots in there. If you'll excuse me for a moment you can watch a commercial while I go in there and try to pry her loose." With that he climbed into the coffin. I guess he figured the director would take the cue and roll a commercial film.

"Roll the Commericial Film," howled Smith.

"What Film!?" yelled back Master Control over the squawk box.

What happened was that the film man got cornered by the program coordinator who was conducting an inquiry, and the man who pushes the buttons that make things happen was on the phone explaining to his mother that there really wasn't a naked woman running around the building.

So, Heinrich got into the coffin, thinking he was off the air, and started to tickle Liz. Liz struggled and fought and kicked, and the coffin shook and awful sounds came out. ("I was just tickling her," he said afterward. "Really.")

I turned away from the monitor and looked at Smith. I felt sorry for the poor guy. He looked so sad and alone. Then the Special Phone in the control room started to ring. That was the phone that almost never rings, except in case of war, and things like that.

"Hello," I said.

"Washington calling," said a voice.

I froze. I looked at Smith. He didn't look like he'd be able to hold the phone. I wanted to run away but duty called. "Put them on," I said.

It was, naturally, the F.C.C. They wanted to know what was going on. Even worse, they were watching the show on their special monitors.

I was proud of myself. I sounded very calm. "I admit it's a bit suggestive, sir," I said suavely, "but you see, there really isn't anyone in the coffin." I was doing a good job – the right tone of dignity in my voice, the proper note of injured nonchalance.

"Isn't anyone in the coffin," the voice echoed.

"No, sir. Just Heinrich, of course."

"Just Heinrich. Nobody else."

"Not a soul, sir."

"I see. You're quite sure."

"Quite sure, sir. I can imagine what you thought, of course, but – –"

He interrupted me: "I wonder if you'd do me a service." It was not a question.

"Certainly, sir," I said.

"It won't inconvenience you?"

"Not at all, sir. Anything. Name it."

"A simple little thing, really. Just look for a moment, if you will be so kind, at your monitor screen."

Well . . . Liz was a great trouper. She had done and was still doing a fine job of staying well within the coffin even while struggling and kicking. But, as I've pointed out, prop coffins are made of balsa wood and cardboard. A coffin, like any other box, has four sides, not counting the top and bottom. What I ask myself to this day is: why did it have to be the side facing the camera that, under the onslaught of Liz' flailing limbs, collapsed slowly, majestically and completely outward?