Count Floyd
Encyclopedia
Count Floyd is a fictional character
featured in television and played by comic actor Joe Flaherty
. He is a fictional horror host
in the tradition of TV hosts on local television in the United States
and Canada
.
The Count Floyd character originated on the Canadian sketch show SCTV
, but also later appeared on The Completely Mental Misadventures of Ed Grimley (clips of which were used on Cartoon Planet
), as well as Rush
’s Grace Under Pressure
tour.
host, Lloyd Robertson
, but other than the name and occupation, Floyd Robertson bears no real resemblance to the real-life Canadian news anchor.).
The premise was that employees at this very low-budget TV station had to double up on jobs, so news anchor Floyd Robertson was also the host of SCTV
’s Monster Chiller Horror Theater, wearing a cheap vampire
costume and speaking in a bad stereotypical Transylvania
n vampire accent. Oddly, although he was supposed to be a vampire, he would also open each show howling like a werewolf
, presumably indicating that Floyd Robertson had only the vaguest of ideas what a vampire was. Near the end of a howl, he would break off disarmingly into a weak chuckle.
Although a parody of the typical 1950s and 1960s local TV horror hosts, the real-life hosts were often themselves so silly and “over the top” that Count Floyd was not really too far off the mark.
The name Monster Chiller Horror Theater was taken from the Chiller Theater, a longtime local horror film show on WIIC (now WPXI
) television in Pittsburgh, Joe Flaherty's hometown. While host Bill Cardille
aka "Chilly Billy" was nothing like Count Floyd, his Dracula
-like persona may have been based on another Pittsburgh TV horror show host. The 1958-59 Friday night program "The Thirteenth Hour," broadcast over KDKA-TV
Channel 2 featured the vampire-like "Igor," actually KDKA staff announcer George Eisenhauer whose costume bore no small resemblance to Count Floyd's.
Occasionally, Count Floyd would be joined by a vampire-caped sidekick known as The Pittsburgh Midget, played by Flaherty's brother Paul Flaherty, an obvious counterpart to diminutive Stefan, the Castle Prankster, played by Stephen Michael Luncinski on Chiller Theater.
of the sketch was that the station would usually provide truly awful films for the show that were not in the least bit scary, including such genres as biopic
s with very scant relation to horror (Madame Blitzman), softcore
pornography
with a horror theme (Dr. Tongue's 3D House of Stewardesses) and Swedish independent
(Whispers of the Wolf), forcing Floyd to struggle to hype them to his mostly juvenile audience. (“Vow, kids...vasn’t it SCARY vhen the vaitress put ketchup on those french fries?”). His frustration with the poor quality of the films would sometimes cause Floyd to break character and explain to the kids that he usually had little say in which movies he could show, as the station's cheap manager would buy blocks of films in which one or two good movies were "packaged" with several clunkers. His frustration was also shown in an episode in which he mistakenly re-emerged from his coffin before the end of the show (thinking the camera was off) muttering, "Damn, who the hell schedules these things?" On one occasion he finally had a scary movie to review ("Blood-Sucking Monkeys From West Mifflin, Pennsylvania") but did not have the actual movie to show, so he improvised his impressions of the movie on his own.
Count Floyd often tried to make a quick buck during the movie by selling gimmicky products which would purportedly make the film seem more scary. Prices of these products would vary wildly, as though the figures were merely popping into his head as he promoted them. ("Just send me........ six dollars...")
3D glasses were a staple of these presentations, backed up by a large library of cheesy 3D
horror film
s, including Tip O'Neill's 3D House of Representatives ("house" in many of these titles suggesting the classic 3D film House of Wax
). The 3D effect of the films was merely a sad attempt to create a realistic effect, as it usually consisted of the actors getting extremely close to the camera (equipped with a fisheye lens
to grossly exaggerate perspective) and lunging the object of 3D emphasis (including pancake syrup ("Dr. Tongue's Evil House of Pancakes") or the President's pen), or their own faces, back and forth at the lens.
, a video played on the rear screen of Count Floyd introducing The Weapon
, “a scary song with real special effects” which could only be enjoyed if the listener was wearing 3D glasses
. 3D glasses were actually given to the fans during the Toronto
shows of the tour, most likely because these shows were filmed for the Grace Under Pressure tour video. An edited audio portion of the Count Floyd introduction was included on the single version of The Weapon, that actually appeared on Rush’s Signals release of 1982
.
One audio recording, Count Floyd (RCA
MFL1-8501), was released in 1982 featuring tracks such as "Reggae Christmas Eve in Transylvania" and "The Gory Story of Duane and Debbie". This was the only SCTV related audio recording apart from the Bob and Doug McKenzie
discography.
In 1988 new Count Floyd skits were made for the Hanna-Barbera
cartoon The Completely Mental Misadventures of Ed Grimley, in which The Count Floyd Show was Ed Grimley’s favorite TV show that he never wanted to miss. In Count Floyd's Scary Stories (the only live-action segment of The Completely Mental Misadventures of Ed Grimley), Count Floyd would be seen in a television studio set attempting to entertain children. This appeared to be more of a nod to Bozo the Clown
than horror hosts he is used to mocking, possibly an additional factor to the boredom of the children he is shown performing for. The same Ed Grimley segments were later re-run on Cartoon Planet, with introductions by Space Ghost
, Zorak
or Brak
.
Count Floyd was also the pitchman for Canada's Wonderland when it launched "The Bat" roller coaster in 1987.
In the Halloween episode of Flaherty's later show Freaks and Geeks
he appears in a vampire costume and reprises the same voice in allusion, scaring away many young trick or treaters.
In 1990, Count Floyd released a how-to videotape called Making Real Funny Home Videos, ostensibly aimed at viewers who wanted to make America's Funniest Home Video-style videos.
Count Floyd also appeared in the original 1999 CBC Television
film Must Be Santa
.
Fictional character
A character is the representation of a person in a narrative work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr , the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in Tom Jones in 1749. From this, the sense of...
featured in television and played by comic actor Joe Flaherty
Joe Flaherty
Joe Flaherty is an American-Canadian actor and comedian. He is best known for his work on the Canadian sketch comedy SCTV, from 1976 to 1984, and as Harold Weir on Freaks and Geeks...
. He is a fictional horror host
Horror host
Horror hosts are a particular type of television presenter, often tasked with presenting low-grade films to television audiences. This tradition is primarily American, though there have been a few international hosts over the years.-Film Packages:...
in the tradition of TV hosts on local television in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
.
The Count Floyd character originated on the Canadian sketch show SCTV
Second City Television
Second City Television is a Canadian television sketch comedy show offshoot from Toronto's The Second City troupe that ran between 1976 and 1984.- Premise :...
, but also later appeared on The Completely Mental Misadventures of Ed Grimley (clips of which were used on Cartoon Planet
Cartoon Planet
Cartoon Planet is an animated variety show that premiered in 1995 on Superstation TBS, and ran afterward from 1996 to 1997 on Cartoon Network....
), as well as Rush
Rush (band)
Rush is a Canadian rock band formed in August 1968, in the Willowdale neighbourhood of Toronto, Ontario. The band is composed of bassist, keyboardist, and lead vocalist Geddy Lee, guitarist Alex Lifeson, and drummer and lyricist Neil Peart...
’s Grace Under Pressure
Grace Under Pressure (Rush album)
Grace Under Pressure is the tenth studio album by the Canadian rock band Rush, released in 1984 . A symbol for the album is the letter "p" above a line with the letter "g" below ....
tour.
The concept
As originally conceived, Count Floyd was the alter-ego of another SCTV character: Floyd Robertson, co-anchor of the SCTV News sketch. (The name was a joke based on that of CTV National NewsCTV National News
CTV National News is CTV's flagship newscast, which airs at 11:00 p.m. local time on the CTV stations across Canada, and live at 10:00pm ET, with repeats hourly up until 2 a.m. ET on CTV News Channel, CTV's 24-hour cable news television channel, and the previous day's can be seen on the Internet. ...
host, Lloyd Robertson
Lloyd Robertson
Lloyd Robertson, OC is the currently the co-host of CTV's weekly magazine series, W5. Robertson previously served as the chief anchor and senior editor of CTV's national evening newscast, CTV News with Lloyd Robertson, until September, 2011, when he retired from the CTV National News...
, but other than the name and occupation, Floyd Robertson bears no real resemblance to the real-life Canadian news anchor.).
The premise was that employees at this very low-budget TV station had to double up on jobs, so news anchor Floyd Robertson was also the host of SCTV
Second City Television
Second City Television is a Canadian television sketch comedy show offshoot from Toronto's The Second City troupe that ran between 1976 and 1984.- Premise :...
’s Monster Chiller Horror Theater, wearing a cheap vampire
Vampire
Vampires are mythological or folkloric beings who subsist by feeding on the life essence of living creatures, regardless of whether they are undead or a living person...
costume and speaking in a bad stereotypical Transylvania
Transylvania
Transylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term sometimes encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical...
n vampire accent. Oddly, although he was supposed to be a vampire, he would also open each show howling like a werewolf
Werewolf
A werewolf, also known as a lycanthrope , is a mythological or folkloric human with the ability to shapeshift into a wolf or an anthropomorphic wolf-like creature, either purposely or after being placed under a curse...
, presumably indicating that Floyd Robertson had only the vaguest of ideas what a vampire was. Near the end of a howl, he would break off disarmingly into a weak chuckle.
Although a parody of the typical 1950s and 1960s local TV horror hosts, the real-life hosts were often themselves so silly and “over the top” that Count Floyd was not really too far off the mark.
The name Monster Chiller Horror Theater was taken from the Chiller Theater, a longtime local horror film show on WIIC (now WPXI
WPXI
WPXI, channel 11, is the NBC-affiliated television station for Western Pennsylvania that is licensed to Pittsburgh. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 48 from a transmitter located on the north side of Pittsburgh. Owned by Cox Enterprises, the station has studios in the...
) television in Pittsburgh, Joe Flaherty's hometown. While host Bill Cardille
Bill Cardille
William Robert "Bill" Cardille , is a broadcast personality from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.-Early career:...
aka "Chilly Billy" was nothing like Count Floyd, his Dracula
Dracula
Dracula is an 1897 novel by Irish author Bram Stoker.Famous for introducing the character of the vampire Count Dracula, the novel tells the story of Dracula's attempt to relocate from Transylvania to England, and the battle between Dracula and a small group of men and women led by Professor...
-like persona may have been based on another Pittsburgh TV horror show host. The 1958-59 Friday night program "The Thirteenth Hour," broadcast over KDKA-TV
KDKA-TV
KDKA-TV, channel 2, is an owned and operated television station of the CBS Television Network, located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. KDKA-TV broadcasts from a transmitter located in the Perry North neighborhood of Pittsburgh, and its studios are located in downtown Pittsburgh at Gateway Center....
Channel 2 featured the vampire-like "Igor," actually KDKA staff announcer George Eisenhauer whose costume bore no small resemblance to Count Floyd's.
Occasionally, Count Floyd would be joined by a vampire-caped sidekick known as The Pittsburgh Midget, played by Flaherty's brother Paul Flaherty, an obvious counterpart to diminutive Stefan, the Castle Prankster, played by Stephen Michael Luncinski on Chiller Theater.
Running gags
The main running gagRunning gag
A running gag, or running joke, is a literary device that takes the form of an amusing joke or a comical reference and appears repeatedly throughout a work of literature or other form of storytelling....
of the sketch was that the station would usually provide truly awful films for the show that were not in the least bit scary, including such genres as biopic
Biographical film
A biographical film, or biopic , is a film that dramatizes the life of an actual person or people. They differ from films “based on a true story” or “historical films” in that they attempt to comprehensively tell a person’s life story or at least the most historically important years of their...
s with very scant relation to horror (Madame Blitzman), softcore
Softcore
Softcore pornography is a form of filmic or photographic pornography or erotica that is less sexually explicit than hardcore pornography. It is intended to tickle and arouse men and women. Softcore pornography depicts nude and semi-nude performers engaging in casual social nudity or non-graphic...
pornography
Pornography
Pornography or porn is the explicit portrayal of sexual subject matter for the purposes of sexual arousal and erotic satisfaction.Pornography may use any of a variety of media, ranging from books, magazines, postcards, photos, sculpture, drawing, painting, animation, sound recording, film, video,...
with a horror theme (Dr. Tongue's 3D House of Stewardesses) and Swedish independent
Cinema of Sweden
Swedish cinema is known as producing many critically acclaimed movies, and during the 20th century was the most prominent of Scandinavia. This is largely due to the popularity and prominence of the directors Ingmar Bergman, Victor Sjöström, and more recently Lasse Hallström and Lukas...
(Whispers of the Wolf), forcing Floyd to struggle to hype them to his mostly juvenile audience. (“Vow, kids...vasn’t it SCARY vhen the vaitress put ketchup on those french fries?”). His frustration with the poor quality of the films would sometimes cause Floyd to break character and explain to the kids that he usually had little say in which movies he could show, as the station's cheap manager would buy blocks of films in which one or two good movies were "packaged" with several clunkers. His frustration was also shown in an episode in which he mistakenly re-emerged from his coffin before the end of the show (thinking the camera was off) muttering, "Damn, who the hell schedules these things?" On one occasion he finally had a scary movie to review ("Blood-Sucking Monkeys From West Mifflin, Pennsylvania") but did not have the actual movie to show, so he improvised his impressions of the movie on his own.
Count Floyd often tried to make a quick buck during the movie by selling gimmicky products which would purportedly make the film seem more scary. Prices of these products would vary wildly, as though the figures were merely popping into his head as he promoted them. ("Just send me........ six dollars...")
3D glasses were a staple of these presentations, backed up by a large library of cheesy 3D
3-D film
A 3-D film or S3D film is a motion picture that enhances the illusion of depth perception...
horror film
Horror film
Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...
s, including Tip O'Neill's 3D House of Representatives ("house" in many of these titles suggesting the classic 3D film House of Wax
House of Wax
House of Wax may refer to:*a wax museum*House of Wax , a 1953 3D horror film starring Vincent Price*House of Wax , a 2005 horror film starring Elisha Cuthbert and Chad Michael Murray- See also :...
). The 3D effect of the films was merely a sad attempt to create a realistic effect, as it usually consisted of the actors getting extremely close to the camera (equipped with a fisheye lens
Fisheye lens
In photography, a fisheye lens is a wide-angle lens that takes in a broad, panoramic and hemispherical image. Originally developed for use in meteorology to study cloud formation and called "whole-sky lenses", fisheye lenses quickly became popular in general photography for their unique, distorted...
to grossly exaggerate perspective) and lunging the object of 3D emphasis (including pancake syrup ("Dr. Tongue's Evil House of Pancakes") or the President's pen), or their own faces, back and forth at the lens.
Related works
During the Grace Under Pressure tour by RushRush (band)
Rush is a Canadian rock band formed in August 1968, in the Willowdale neighbourhood of Toronto, Ontario. The band is composed of bassist, keyboardist, and lead vocalist Geddy Lee, guitarist Alex Lifeson, and drummer and lyricist Neil Peart...
, a video played on the rear screen of Count Floyd introducing The Weapon
Fear series
The "Fear Series" is a set of four songs by the band Rush. The series consists of Part I: "The Enemy Within" , Part II: "The Weapon" , Part III: "Witch Hunt" and Part IV: "Freeze"...
, “a scary song with real special effects” which could only be enjoyed if the listener was wearing 3D glasses
Stereoscopy
Stereoscopy refers to a technique for creating or enhancing the illusion of depth in an image by presenting two offset images separately to the left and right eye of the viewer. Both of these 2-D offset images are then combined in the brain to give the perception of 3-D depth...
. 3D glasses were actually given to the fans during the Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
shows of the tour, most likely because these shows were filmed for the Grace Under Pressure tour video. An edited audio portion of the Count Floyd introduction was included on the single version of The Weapon, that actually appeared on Rush’s Signals release of 1982
1982 in music
This is a list of notable events in music from 1982. 1982 was a big year in music with Madonna making her debut as well as the year that Michael Jackson released Thriller which became the world's best selling album and it still holds that title today....
.
One audio recording, Count Floyd (RCA
RCA Records
RCA Records is one of the flagship labels of Sony Music Entertainment. The RCA initials stand for Radio Corporation of America , which was the parent corporation from 1929 to 1985 and a partner from 1985 to 1986.RCA's Canadian unit is Sony's oldest label...
MFL1-8501), was released in 1982 featuring tracks such as "Reggae Christmas Eve in Transylvania" and "The Gory Story of Duane and Debbie". This was the only SCTV related audio recording apart from the Bob and Doug McKenzie
Bob and Doug McKenzie
Bob and Doug McKenzie are a pair of fictional Canadian brothers who hosted "Great White North", a sketch which was introduced on SCTV for the show's third season when it moved to CBC Television in 1980. Bob is played by Rick Moranis and Doug is played by Dave Thomas...
discography.
In 1988 new Count Floyd skits were made for the Hanna-Barbera
Hanna-Barbera
Hanna-Barbera Productions, Inc. was an American animation studio that dominated North American television animation during the second half of the 20th century...
cartoon The Completely Mental Misadventures of Ed Grimley, in which The Count Floyd Show was Ed Grimley’s favorite TV show that he never wanted to miss. In Count Floyd's Scary Stories (the only live-action segment of The Completely Mental Misadventures of Ed Grimley), Count Floyd would be seen in a television studio set attempting to entertain children. This appeared to be more of a nod to Bozo the Clown
Bozo the Clown
Bozo the Clown is a clown character very popular in the United States, peaking in the 1960s as a result of widespread franchising in early television.Originally created by Alan W...
than horror hosts he is used to mocking, possibly an additional factor to the boredom of the children he is shown performing for. The same Ed Grimley segments were later re-run on Cartoon Planet, with introductions by Space Ghost
Space Ghost
Space Ghost is a fictional superhero created by Hanna-Barbera Productions and designed by Alex Toth for CBS in the 1960s. In his original incarnation, he was a superhero who, with his sidekick teen helpers Jan, Jace, and Blip the monkey, fought supervillains in outer space...
, Zorak
Zorak
Zorak is a fictional character who first appeared in the Hanna-Barbera cartoon Space Ghost. Zorak appeared as a 7 foot tall green mantis and is a foe of the show's titular superhero.-Space Ghost:...
or Brak
Brak (character)
Brak is a supervillain on the 1966 Hanna-Barbera cartoon Space Ghost, portrayed as a catlike alien space pirate trying to conquer the galaxy...
.
Count Floyd was also the pitchman for Canada's Wonderland when it launched "The Bat" roller coaster in 1987.
In the Halloween episode of Flaherty's later show Freaks and Geeks
Freaks and Geeks
Freaks and Geeks is an American teen comedy-drama television series, created by Paul Feig and executive produced by Judd Apatow, that aired on NBC during the 1999–2000 television season...
he appears in a vampire costume and reprises the same voice in allusion, scaring away many young trick or treaters.
In 1990, Count Floyd released a how-to videotape called Making Real Funny Home Videos, ostensibly aimed at viewers who wanted to make America's Funniest Home Video-style videos.
Count Floyd also appeared in the original 1999 CBC Television
CBC Television
CBC Television is a Canadian television network owned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the national public broadcaster.Although the CBC is supported by public funding, the television network supplements this funding with commercial advertising revenue, in contrast to CBC Radio which are...
film Must Be Santa
Must Be Santa
Must Be Santa, a 1999 Canadian television film, portrays the story of Floyd Court who is selected as the successor to Santa Claus. Robert Sherrin produced the film while Brad Turner was director....
.