How One Episode of Elvira’s ‘Movie Macabre’ Made Over $8 Million Dollars
If there was any show meant for “3D,” it was Movie Macabre, hosted by the one and only Elvira, Mistress of the Dark. And for one night, viewers got to feel as if she were right there in their living rooms!
Movie Macabre became one of the first wave of television shows to broadcast in 3D when, in May 1982, it aired the classic Vincent Price film, The Mad Magician.
To help KHJ-TV Channel 9 viewers get the full effect, the Los Angeles station printed up 2.7 million pairs of “cheesy cardboard 3D glasses,” according to Elvira, a.k.a. Cassandra Peterson.
In her memoir, Yours Cruelly, Elvira, Peterson claims that 7-11 stores throughout Southern California sold the glasses at “three bucks a pop.” If Peterson’s math is correct, that means the station made $8.1 million.
However, Peterson says that whoever “was making a crap-load of moolah,” it wasn’t her.
New World/Everett Collection
That didn’t stop her from having fun with this new technology. “Naturally,” wrote Peterson, “we had to get in as many 3D jokes as possible. I opened ‘snakes in a can,’ played with paddleballs, blew party ‘blowouts,’ and of course, lunged my chest towards the camera as many times as possible, milking the 3D effect for all it was worth.”
To capitalize on the event, Peterson’s creative partner, John Paragon, and then-husband, Mark Pierson, collaborated on a song, “3D TV.” It was pressed to vinyl via Rhino Records. Paragon and Peterson’s fellow Groundlings member, Paul Reubens (also known as Pee-Wee Herman), joined as one of Elvira’s backup singers, The Vi-Tones.
Oddly enough, KHJ-TV didn’t provide Peterson with a pair of 3D glasses. So, on the day of the show, she went to the nearest 7-11 to get a handful of items for the guests she had invited over for a viewing party.
“Feeling comfortable that I wouldn’t be recognized, I took my place in line,” wrote Peterson, who said that she left her long black wig at home. But then, a mobile news van showed up and a reporter shoved a microphone in front of her face.
“‘Are you waiting in line to get glasses for Elvira’s upcoming show?’ she brayed. Before she could see my nails or hear my voice and put two and two together, I turned, bolted to my car, and headed out to track down another store.”
Why did she run? “How humiliating would it have been to find out that Elvira was waiting in line because her employers were too cheap to comp her a few pairs of the damn things?” she wrote. “Sheesh!”
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