January 11, 2009

We hate to start the new year off with bad news, but sadly Bob Wilkins, famed host of the long-running Creature Features television show, has passed away.  Those who are not from the San Francisco Bay Area may not know who Bob was, but he inspired a great many filmmakers, actors, and artists to seek a career in the entertainment industry. He did this simply by hosting a local horror movie show. But Creature Features was more than just a late night horror show and Bob Wilkins was more than just a horror host.  While most horror show hosts across the country were over-the-top, flamboyant, ghoulish characters, Bob was simply Bob. He was a mild-mannered man with a subtle sense of humor and straight-forward delivery. If the film he was about to show you was bad (and it often was) then he’d tell you so, even recommending what else you could watch instead that night. His sense of humor was so infectious though that everyone stayed to watch the movies - good or bad - and enjoy his host segments. And those host segments included hilarious commentary, fascinating interviews with directors, writers, and performer, and of course plenty of dry wit.

The Creature Features show ran for 14 years in Northern California in the ‘70s and ‘80s as a local show on Saturday nights holding its own in the ratings against national programming such as Saturday Night Live.  The show and its host Bob Wilkins were a great support to young independent filmmakers, helping to give them exposure and encouraging them to follow their filmmaking dreams. C. Andrew Nelson was one of those who credits Bob Wilkins with inspiring him to pursue a career in entertainment. “You have to remember,” says Andrew, “back then in the 1970s we did not have all the magazines, books, and other resources that young would-be filmmakers have now. We had Forrest J Ackerman’s Famous Monsters of Filmland. Starlog Magazine was in its infancy. And that was about it. Now there are scores of magazines, shelves of books, and the entire internet to draw upon.  Bob’ show was a wealth of knowledge for us because of all the great interviews with actors and directors and effects artists.”

It wasn’t only those interviews that inspired people like C. Andrew Nelson.  It was Bob himself. “I remember meeting Bob on one particular occasion at a collectibles shop in San Francisco,” recalls Andrew, “He was there to meet the fans of the show.  I remarked to him that the movie he had aired on Creature Features the weekend before was a real stinker.  Bob looked at me with a twinkle in his eye and smiled saying, ‘Then you’ll go out and make a better one for me won’t you?’  And he meant it.  Had it not been for Bob’s encouragement I might never have had the life I’ve had. I am eternally grateful to him.”

Bob turned over the Creature Features show to the capable hands of film critic and writer John Stanley for the remainder of the show’s run.  John helped produce a wonderful documentary about Bob called Watch Horror Films: Keep America Strong which is coming out on DVD this year.  In recent years, Bob Wilkins had suffered from Alzheimer’s Disease. Bob passed away on January 7 in Reno, Nevada where he had lived since leaving Creature Features. There will be a memorial service or Bob Wilkins in Oakland, California sometime in February.  Details of the memorial will be posted here when they become available.

October 9, 2008

C. Andrew Nelson has completed work on the film Race to Witch Mountain, the remake of the old Disney film Escape to Witch Mountain, which stars Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.

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