There are many things I am. A photographer, a writer, a tech head, etc., etc. There is one thing I know I am not and that is an actor. I simply do not have it in me to create another human being. I can help someone else find their way into creating another human being, a character, but I don’t have the ability to create another human being.

My heroes, for film and music, were – still are - Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, the Marx Bros. - especially Grouch – Monty Python’s Flying Circus – especially John Cleese – John Lennon, Frank Zappa and Jerry G. Bishop who portrayed the original Svengoolie on WFLD. I have always relished “the wise guy,” the one who could crush an opponent with a snappy come back.

This is where Dr. Praxis came in.

The three or four years I portrayed Dr. Mel Praxis were great. It was so much fun portraying Dr. Praxis. There are a lot of different ways a person can portray a character hosting horror movies. One friend of mine, Dick Dyszel, portrays a vampire who cracks some of the worst jokes around (look up Count Gore de Vol). And how can I forget Danielle Gelehrter, who use to appear as Penny Dreadful, also uses some of the worst jokes known to man or beast. Ah, I was right at home. This is not to forget or overlook anyone else of my friends who use to delight their audiences with the appropriate bad joke.

Dr. Mel Praxis was a way for me to share some of the worst jokes imaginable, be as obnoxious as I wanted to be. Almost whatever I could think of, I could do. Trust me, I got away with quite a bit. My favorite episode was the one with Hunchback of Notre Dame as the movie. I wasn’t prepared for anything. And, after fumbling around for a few minutes, I finally stopped and admitted I was prepared and everything started falling into place. When I was exiting off the camera, when I was doing “Poetry Corner,” I started laughing almost on camera. The absurdity of it all.

I know I broke the “established rule of horror hosts.” If the film was complete garbage, I said so. I had no compunction about refering the films I showed as “garbage.” The important aspect was they were in the public domain, that the copyright was expired.

All in all, I had great fun portraying Dr. Mel Praxis, (have you figured out the name yet?) but, due to physical reasons and not having a space where I can portray him, I .

And now, this is Dr. Praxis saying “Ooby dooby dooby dooby dooby dooby ooby doo wah, dooby doo wah doo wah doo wah.”