Lawson J. Deming - Sir Graves Ghastly

Sir Graves Ghastly

In 1965, KYW-TV was sold and the new ownership decided they did not want any locally-produced children's shows. Woodrow the Woodsman eventually got picked up by WJBK, TV2 in Detroit, late in 1966. As fate would have it, WJBK had lost their popular horror movie host "Morgus the Magnificent" (Sid Noel) a year earlier. Shortly after Woodrow began taping, TV2 approached Lawson about filling a Saturday afternoon horror movie slot, and Sir Graves Big Show (as it was originally called) was born.

Brainstorming with his long-time wife, Mary Rita, Deming eventually came up with a tongue-in-cheek vampire character "Sir Graves Ghastly" to be the lead on the show. The character was most widely recognized for his dark (and fake) moustache and goatee, plus a cackling, nasally laugh ("Nyaaa-aaaaaaah"). Sir Graves wasn't the only character on the show. Deming also developed a sidekick named Baruba (dressed in a monk's outfit and hood, so you couldn't see the face), who did his bidding. Perhaps the most beloved character was The Glob, whose face appeared (via early special effects) in the moon above the cemetery set. (The face was actually Sir Graves', upside-down, with eyes and nose painted on the chin.) The Glob's main role was to lip sync silly parody songs, such as "I Wanna Bite Your Hand" and "Ghoul Days."

Other characters included Reel McCoy (a diminutive caretaker who would dig up the movie reels at the beginning of the show), Tilly Trollhouse (a castle maid with a deep Bela Lugosi accent, played by Deming in drag) and Sir Graves' German-accented cousin, Baron Boogaloff. While billed as a kids' show, Deming's sly sense of humor often flew over the heads of children, which might explain why a TV2 ratings poll in 1971 showed that about one-third of his audience were adults.

In all, Sir Graves Ghastly ran for 15 seasons in Detroit. Due to the show's popularity (it was topping all other programs in its time slot other than live sporting events), WJBK added the occasional after-school or prime time Sir Graves special and, of course, several Halloween specials. The explosion of televised sports in the early 1980s, particularly college football, caused Sir Graves to go into hiatus after airing a show in November 1982. A management change during this time led to the program being "officially" cancelled in 1983 before any other shows were produced. As he did while his show was running, Deming continued to do speaking engagements and personal appearances well into the 1990s.

In the 1970s, Deming marketed the Sir Graves character to Cleveland and Washington, D.C., where it also became a big hit. But his popularity in those markets never quite reached that of the Detroit audience (and many in neighboring Canada that could pick up the WJBK signal), where his "evil" laugh and catch phrases like "Happy Haunting" are remembered by an entire generation of both kids and adults.

Lawson Deming died on April 24, 2007 at the age of 94.