Kaiser Broadcasting, which owned stations in Cleveland, Detroit, San Francisco, Boston and elsewhere, decided to syndicate the Ghoul. It was spectacle. He was getting all this mail and everything. Sweed: There you go again! Unlike many newspapers, ours is free – and we'd like to keep it that way, because we believe, now more than ever, everyone deserves access to accurate, independent coverage of their community. The Ghoul would typically take an unbelievably bad horror movie and dump in sound bites at appropriate moments, using audio clips from novelty records, George Carlin, Firesign Theater and rock albums of the '60s and early '70s. first.parentNode.insertBefore(script, first); Ron Sweed, has died", "Ron 'The Ghoul' Sweed, legendary TV personality, has passed away", "Legendary Cleveland television personality Ron 'The Ghoul' Sweed passes away", "TV personality and legend Ron 'The Ghoul' Sweed dies", "Late-night TV horror host Ron 'The Ghoul' Sweed dead at age 70", "For horror host 'the Ghoul,' every day is Halloween", "Cleveland icon 'The Ghoul' dies 5 months after suffering heart attack", "Legendary Cleveland horror host Ron 'The Ghoul' Sweed has died", https://www.facebook.com/groups/TheGhoul/ Facebook group dedicated to Mr. Sweed, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ron_Sweed&oldid=973315309, Short description is different from Wikidata, Wikipedia articles with WORLDCATID identifiers, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 16 August 2020, at 15:13. The combined effect of the chaos, firecrackers, and irony made him a hit. An interesting side element is that the aforementioned rubber toy referred to simply as "Froggy" (and much abused by the Ghoul) was a toy dating from 1948 by a company named Rempel and featured often in comedic skits on the 1955 television show Andy's Gang where he was named Froggy the Gremlin. NBC’s "Saturday Night Live" would suck the oxygen out of the Saturday night time period after 1975. Just in his early 20s, Sweed had the opportunity to emulate his hero and carry on what Anderson had begun with twists of his own. King. are still widely recognized among the children of the 1970s.[10]. He also did a Saturday night request show on classic rock station WNCX FM 98.5 during the same time period. You know I’m on 11:30 at night, I do adult entertainment!” I used to get rankled. Here's Her Update On The State's Response To COVID-19. Sweed met Mary Terese Matousek, his second wife, back in ’88. Sweed: A long time ago, if people would say, ‘Hey, you’re a kids-show host, aren’t you?’ “Bullshit! And I was able to talk to the people who know him best, his wife, and the source of all evil, the Ghoul’s mother. “Ron’s show airs on Sundays on the WB affiliate. Sweed like to show old horror films. But Sweed could only duplicate his fame in Detroit, on Channel 50. [3], In 1963, 13-year-old Sweed and his friends went to an afternoon matinee of “Dr. “That was a point where almost everybody everywhere was slowing down except for TV news personalities. I like that. In fact, nobody was afraid of The Ghoul, and that was quite the point, because he was a spoof of monsters and horror every Saturday night on WKBD (Channel 50) in The Ghoul Show. Look at that!”, “Mom, look what I got! For his part, Sweed maintains that since his move to Sunday nights, his ratings have doubled, which doesn’t sound like a woolly mammoth on its way to the tar pits. They’re mostly owned by big corporations, so they’re all hooked into networks. I would tell Channel 20 when I was on there, you know they tried to censor me, “Look, if you wanted Captain Kangaroo in the first place, you should have hired him. The Ghoul was well known enough in the Cleveland and Detroit markets that some of his catch phrases ("Overdey! These guys are bringing their kids in, so now the kids know about the Ghoul. They all loved Ghoulardi,” recalled Sweed in a 2017 interview with "The Detroit History Podcast." Whether it's a one-time acknowledgement of this article or an ongoing pledge, your support helps keep Detroit's true free press free. Alan Frank, president of Post-Newsweek Stations Inc., which include Detroit’s WDIV-TV, may not have grown up with the Ghoul, but he sees other problems. Froggy made regular appearances on The Ghoul Show in which he was more often the victim of the host's pranks rather than the initiator of the same. Sweed grew up in Cleveland, and would parlay his admiration for Ghoulardi, a popular Cleveland television personality, into a lifetime career. Irene Barnard: Ron was very different right from the time he came out of the chute. All parts of this site Copyright © 2020 Detroit Metro Times. Friday night at 11:30pm on WBNX CH55. You know, that’s almost as good as Christmas. Ghoul Card Set This set includes: 3 full color cards that are printed on 2 sides, 1 Black and White Ghoul card from WBNX days, 2 Ghoul stickers and 1 window sticker. “Adults, kids, whatever. He said: ‘Nah. Metro Times: What’s it like being the wife of the Ghoul? He was like the proto-punk. It’s just amazing how people love the blow-ups. Metro Times: Tell me how you met Ernie Anderson. Or see him distribute Metro Times from 4-6 p.m. on Aug. 22 along Main Street in downtown Royal Oak. So why isn’t he on the air? Detroit Metro Times - Contact Us He said: ‘Nah. Silkini and his live stage show of horrors, on stage in person, the Frankenstein monster, Dracula, King Kong and 45 horror movies”. Ron and the Ghoul crew were planning the day’s taping, which included, “The Watermelon Bit.”, “We can’t blow it up inside. And so that’s what happened. If a guest were to demonstrate how to paint a wall, he might say, "And now I'm going to take this can of paint..." Froggy would chime in, "And dump it over my head." At the time, if I did a toilet flush sound effect, my Cleveland program director said, “Oh, you can’t. Letters should be a minimum of 150 words, refer to content that has appeared on Detroit Metro Times, and must include the writer's full name, address, and phone number for verification purposes. Film flew everywhere. Didn’t represent anything really. You bet, but Detroiters tuned into The Ghoulâs unhinged buffoonery in droves. “I’m getting a standing ovation,” he said. The Ghoul photograph courtesy of the Walter P. Reuther Library, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University (The Detroit News) 1977 With his slapstick humor, juvenile high jinks, and snarky contempt for the low-grade horror films he aired weekly, TV personality The Ghoul (real name Ron Sweed) was more foolish than ghoulish. Mary Terese Matousek: We met through a friend who I was working with, and she invited us to go out with a group of people, so we went out to see the movie Hairspray. "Those movies he shows have been around so long that anyone who hasn't seen them by the time they get passed on to The Ghoul's show must've had the TV set off for 10 years," one reader complained to Bettelou Peterson, the Free Press TV writer. His biggest success was by far in Detroit where it aired into the mid-1980s. “It’s all bottom line. As early as that, he wanted to entertain. [8][13] The Ghoul returned to Cleveland TV in 1998 on WBNX-TV Channel 55 where he remained for the next six years airing on Friday, then later Sunday nights. And people loved it.”. Whenever I go out and am doing interviews with people who are, you know, like around my age, some older, some younger … and I tell them where I work, the first thing out of their mouths is, ’Oh, the Ghoul!’’’. After much heated negotiation, it was decided “The Watermelon Bit” would take place outside. But you know what, the other thing is that people are so polite and patient. Every Wednesday Sweed would put on a show for the class with his Jerry Mahoney dummy. When Anderson eventually departed for Hollywood to work as an announcer — he was the guy who announced “The luuuuvvv Boat” on ABC-TV’s “The Love Boat" — Ghoulardi disappeared from the Cleveland airwaves as Anderson made his fortune in Los Angeles. Southfield (CBS Detroit) – Detroit Legend, Ron Sweed, aka, “The Ghoul” passed away on Monday at the age of 70. Ron was on the inside of the house by this time and we had to get him out! When Sweed was 8 or 9, he was given marionettes. The first time I saw him, he was at a small club (in Cleveland). According to his ex-wife, he recently suffered a heart attack back in November and never recovered. He’s just a dumb little toy I was blowing up! Sweed died of a heart attack in 2019. Ron at that time had all Beatle clothes. And he’s anxious to light the fuse ova dey in Detroit. “Heya Froggy, we love you!” Just a little rubber thing man, he was getting mail. He wore the gorilla suit to a live appearance by Ghoulardi, a popular Cleveland television personality played by Ernie Anderson on WJW. I’d be rankled being called a children’s-show host. People always wanted to know … I didn’t take drugs and I didn’t drink, but people were convinced that the Ghoul had to be high on something. When he had the camera to himself, he’d construct ludicrous skits with a conglomeration of rock ’n’ roll, slapstick, social commentary, explosions, polka music, little rubber frogs, and all things unhinged, demented and deranged. I was only gonna do Froggy one time. Froggy, the Frog Prince, was originally a character on the popular kids show “Buster Brown” back in the ’50’s. It was a gorilla suit, and he wore it coming home. “I'm doing an appearance. But Sweed was intent on somehow bringing his hero back to Ohio, even on a temporary basis. Paying homage to the late Ron Sweed's life and legacy, the Redford Theatre will host a tribute show at 8 p.m. on April 18. var first = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; Our small but mighty local team works tirelessly to bring you high-quality, uncensored news and cultural coverage of Detroit and beyond. During the last few years, he would make occasional appearances at metro Detroit clubs. Regardless, Detroit comes out on top. He was using the crazy hip lingo that Ernie had, and tweaking it a bit more.”[4], In 2015, Sweed appeared at the Redford Theatre. Ghoulardi was played by Ernie Anderson, who was the hottest thing going on Cleveland TV in the 1960s. “I had this gorilla suit, which I had pilfered a week before. [16] In an October 2017 interview with Metro Times Jarrett Koral, he stated how he gets ready for a show: "smoke a good kielbasa," further remarking that "smoking a kielbasa will take you to places Steppenwolf never imagined on his magic carpet ride." Detroit and Cleveland match up suburb per suburb, and the people are so much alike. But everybody loved it, so we kept it. “Yeah, do whatever you want. The Plexiglas didn’t keep me from getting sideswiped. Even with a built-in audience, Detroit television stations don’t seem to be clamoring for Sweed’s talents. Everything he does is all in fun, and who doesn’t like fun? There was no bigger fan than young Ron Sweed. The Ghoul was also outwardly disdainful of his schlocky horror films. Anyhow, there were people, I mean, there were mothers and fathers and flashbulbs. “Local things always work, can work, clearly.
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