Whether it was hair-brained experiments that went awry or mocking commercials incessantly, Russ McCown quickly captured the hearts of Nashvillians in his role as “Sir Cecil Creape.”
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — “Did someone call?”
Every Saturday night from 1971 to 1973 Nashvillians would turn on their TVs to hear those words as “Sir Cecil Creape” appeared on their screens from “deep within the catacombs” of WSM-Channel 4’s studio.
The hunchbacked, buck-toothed host spent those years thrilling audiences with late-night horror films and humorous skits between commercial breaks on the program Creature Feature.
Whether it was hair-brained experiments that went awry or mocking commercials incessantly, Russ McCown quickly captured the hearts of Nashvillians in the role born out of his own creativity. Many locals, including Larry Underwood, still fondly remember hurrying to sit in front of their TVs to catch the show.
“Back then there were three channels on TV and when it came on, it was a big deal. He’s a native Nashvillian — what he did just absolutely spoke to us. He was our guy,” Underwood said. “He hosted a great package of movies — some good, some bad — but it didn’t matter. It was all about Sir Cecil Creape.”
For many years, no one knew it was McCown behind the ghoulish costume. When he took on the role, McCown was a film editor for WSM.
Still, he became a local celebrity, making appearances as Sir Cecil Creape at malls, parades, and even gaining his own fan club. He later appeared in Tennessee’s anti-litter campaign and the Middle Tennessee Boy Scouts issued a “Sir Cecil’s Ghoul Patrol” patch.
To Underwood, it was McCown’s lighthearted play on the horror genre and “tongue-in-cheek, goofy fun” that spoke to so many kids like him — and even some adults. Creature Feature eventually came to an end in 1973, but McCown’s legacy outlasted the show.
He continued to entertain audiences through theatre, and in 1983, his show was resurrected as “The Phantom of the Opry,” which aired on The Nashville Network (TNN). It was one of the first times a horror-host program had appeared on a nationwide cable channel.
About a decade after his death in Jan. 1994, McCown was inducted into the Horror Host Hall of Fame, appearing alongside legends like “The Cryptkeeper” and another Nashville treasure who followed in his footsteps, “Dr. Gangrene.”
Underwood took on his own hosting roll as Dr. Gangrene in July 1999 as a homage to Sir Cecil Creape. Dressed head-to-toe in goggles and a lab coat, Nashville’s Physician of Fright even sowed a “Sir Cecil’s Ghoul Patrol” patch onto his coat pocket as another nod to his hero.
“When I started my own TV show back in the late 1990s, he was absolutely the inspiration for me doing my own show, my own horror host show in tribute to him,” Underwood said. “I wanted to do the kind of show he did in the 1970s.”
The half-hour program called Chiller Cinema quickly gained a following and expanded to other cable access stations around the country. In the years since, Underwood has continued to don his lab coat for Dr. Gangrene’s Cinetarium.
Today, McCown’s legacy continues to live on both in memory and, more recently, through a plaque located just outside his former home on Richland Avenue. After proposing the idea last year, Underwood said the Metro Nashville Historical Commission erected the historical marker in July in order to honor McCown for his impact on the community.
“I wasn’t sure if they would go for it, but they’ve been really adventurous in some of the markers that they’ve done lately, thinking a little outside of the box,” he said. “Some of these quirkier Nashvillians that made an impact, like Bettie Page, and like Russ McCown.”
McCown lived off Richland Avenue for at least two decades and, according to Underwood, took a lot of pride in maintaining his historic foursquare house. Now a new set of neighbors and families reside in the area, but the same spirit is carried on each Halloween season as many homes in the area are decorated with skeletons, spiders and other creepy crawlers.
“It kind of made a lot of sense. This is the perfect place for it. It’s in a great neighborhood and they kind of go all out for Halloween from what I hear,” Underwood said. “There’s already some plans for pumpkin carving and a little Halloween party in front of the marker.”
While people from younger generations might not have ever heard McCown’s iconic introduction in the 70s, there are still several Nashvillians who perk up when they hear the name “Sir Cecil Creape.” For them, the name evokes a sense of nostalgia for the time period.
But with the marker in place, even those who never got to experience the magic of waiting for his show to begin on a Saturday night might still get a glimpse into the life of the Nashvillian who Underwood said made an impact on so many lives with his charming antics.
“It’s just spotlighting another Nashvillian who made an impact on the lives of people growing up. Not just kids either. A lot of adults watched his show too,” Underwood said. “People who didn’t grow up with it might have a hard time realizing what a big deal it was.”
Standing in front of the historical marker on Tuesday, Underwood paid one last homage to his long-time hero and signed off by saying, “Good night, sleep tight and don’t let the beddy bugs bite.”