"Peculiar Playhouse" was a hosted horror movie show with Pat Cashman as "Professor Jasper Farndark", screened on KTVB Channel 7, in Boise, Idaho, USA, from 1978 till 1979.
"Peculiar Playhouse" featured the absolutely lousiest movies that they could find, such as "The Beast of Yucca Flats", and "Zombies from Outer Space". Pat would take a snippet of each movie and record a new soundtrack as their weekly promotions, using absurd words and premises into the clips. Pat would shoot field pieces outside of the studio. he also experimented with odd things, such as one week they aired the entire episode on an angle, so that people at home could watch the show while lying on their sides. Another week, the show was completely upside down so they could welcome in their Australian audience. As Boise is in the Mountain time zone, the show aired at midnight---following Saturday Night Live. Special guests included the Invisible Man. As Pat shook what he thought was his hand, Pat asked him if there was anything that people might find surprising about him. He replied, "Yes, well some people are surprised to learn that I'm actually nearly seven feet tall." Pat withdrew his hand quickly, with the implication that he was shaking something other than his hand. Another show had the Incredible Shrinking Man as the guest. After talking to the tiny man for awhile, Pat brought on his next guest, who unfortunately did not notice the Shrinking Man on the chair, and sat right on him. After a few months on the air, the station manager decided the show was a silly waste of time, even though Pat insisted that the show was developing a cult following. So the show went off the air for about a month or so. Then the ratings came in. Peculiar Playhouse was shown to have better than a 90 share. So, the show got the green light to resume, and did until Pat departed KTVB for a job at KING in Seattle in early 1979. The idea was to continue airing the show after Pat left, but it did not happen. Many thanks to Pat Cashman for the above information.—The Professor
