You're Not Dreaming...
You're talking to Mr. Lobo
By Sir Lawrence Alegdrop

Mr. Lobo (Erik Lobo) runs and hosts a horror movie show in syndication throughout parts of the United States called “Cinema Insomnia.” After having seen several episodes, I talked about his show on a science fiction movie message board (www.scifilm.org), when who should reply to my messages, but Mr. Lobo himself. Eventually, we exchanged information, which led to this telephone conversation between myself (Sir Lawrence Alegdrop) and Mr. Lobo.

WORMWOOD CHRONICLES: I want to thank you for giving me some of your time today. So how has the show been doing lately, Mr. Lobo?

MISTER LOBO: It’s a pleasure to talk with you. The show is doing great. We just finished what has to be the most involved set of wraps in the history of the show. It took four days of shooting, which is the most we have ever done. We did sort of a George Lucas inspired theme where we went to different planets for our vignettes. We had things like the yard sale planet and the planet of poorly used stock footage. It was pretty involved from a shooting standpoint.

WC: What movie was it for?

ML: These will be for the movie Star Crash, a science fiction movie that kind of ripped off of Star Wars.

WC: Let me start by asking where do you get the movies you air on your show?

ML: That’s a good question because most outlets that offer this type of stuff simply take it from videos. We actually get it from garbage cans, quite literally. When TV went to video much of the 16 millimeter film went into the trash. Then film collectors like Scott Moon and Bob Macaben made it their life’s work to recover these films and they like what I do so they lend me copies to air. I used to work for Scott’s magazine, Planet X and I had already done live shows for him in bars and night clubs. But they buy prints of public domain films for around $700 to $1,000 for a 16 millimeter print for me to air.

ML: How did you get started doing “Cinema Insomnia,” the horror movie show in which you host?

ML: I was working for an ABC affiliate here in Sacramento, Calif. The affiliate was airing movies at 3:00 a.m. and having four and six minute commercial interruptions, four and six minute commercial interruptions. Let me say that again, four and six minute commercial interruptions. And they had no real advertisers, they were mostly public service announcements. So we suggested doing wraps for the movies.

WC: What kinds of movies were they showing? Were they horror and science fiction movies or just whatever?

ML: They were just showing whatever they could get ahold of to fill the air space. One movie they aired was They Made Me a Criminal. Have you seen it?

WC: Yes, John Garfield and the East Side Kids. That’s a great movie.

ML: That’s the one. We had fun with it. We pretty much made fun of the amount of times someone said “sucker.” So whenever we heard the line I’d come out with a sucker.

WC: So when you started making the wraparounds, where did you come up with the idea of the Mr. Lobo character?

ML: The beginning of Mr. Lobo was a comic strip I used to draw for my high school newspaper. The strip was of me, sitting there in my suit watching movies. This was how I wrote a review. I’d draw some of the movie, then draw myself tearing it apart.

WC: Are you still on in Sacramento?

ML: Unfortunately, not. After 18 weeks, management decided not to do the show anymore. It got good ratings, but they just didn’t “get it.” They thought that stuff was small market, and they had a corporate image to maintain. I really feel that if the show had done poorly it would have stayed because once they started getting calls and mail about it that was when they took it off the air. And most of the executives had never even seen the show.

WC: So what did you do then?

ML: Well, when I had the show at the ABC affiliate they supplied everything, the audio guy, cameras, cameramen, everything was at my disposal. Now I had to figure out how to make the show without all of those resources. Plus I was still working for the ABC affiliate, so it meant the end of my job.

WC: Somewhere around this time is when you wound up in my area of Virginia Beach, right? How did that come about?

ML: Yes. I got a call from Bill Gontz in Virginia, who owned Easychair Productions. It was an advertising agency, that also did a high school sports show, a music video show, and he wanted to do a hosted horror movie show. He was also a big Dr. Madblood fan (the hosted horror movie show of legend in Virginia), and he felt there was still something in hosted horror movie shows. I said I don’t what I can do, but I’d like to make this show for Virginia. That was how my relationship with Cox Communications came about. That was a surprise for me. It took about 13 weeks to get any feedback from the fans then all of a sudden everything came in.

WC: Was there any animosity between you and Dr. Madblood with two hosted horror movie shows in the same market?

ML: I suspect there may have been. I hold no animosity toward Madblood at all. I know exactly where he’s coming from. But for several weeks we were showing the same movies, Carnival of Souls for example. So we looked to find the most off the wall movies we could to get away from that. That was when we did Gamera, Super Monster and Superwheels. I thought that even Dr. Madblood would not show these movies.

WC: I’ve seen those episodes, and the wraps are hysterical, probably the best wraps you’ve ever done. But the movies are probably the worst you’ve ever shown.

ML: Yes, we like to think of ourselves as hamburger helper. We make bad movies better. Once we decide to show a movie if it is really, really bad we work really hard to make it even better. And we have to work REALLY hard on the bad ones.

WC? How was it to be suddenly putting the show together for another audience?

ML: In the heat of the moment, we were just putting out fires in making the show for Virginia. I had never written a TV show before, ever. I totally have complete respect for what these people do. I had just done Sacramento and a few public access stations, and at some point people start communicating with you about the show. That started happening, and we weren’t even on UPN yet, we were just making the shows for Virginia. So I wasn’t even on in my hometown. I was emotionally moved by how forgiving people were. We were just in limbo.

WC: You mentioned UPN, where were you on and how did that come about?

ML: Well, for about a year and a half we were putting these shows together for public access stations in Milwaukee and Florida, where we were running episodes in a theater at a science museum. I really felt confident we were doing something well. Then Louisiana called from a UPN station and saw something in me they liked. That is KEJB 43. At this point they were still building the transmitter. There was a chance they were going on the air on Halloween, but they didn’t have anything to air. FCC rules said they had to have something on the air. I sent some episodes, some aired. In the end I signed a 28 show commitment. In the two prior years we made 18 episodes per year, so this was a bit more work.

WC: How has that helped get your product out there to the public?

ML: We’re on 100 stations in the Southeast today, and we’re trying to get more affiliates involved. Also the B-Mania cable network sponsored a live show and wanted me to host some of their programs. I think it’s a case of people not seeing what they want on TV so they’re making it themselves. On the other hand, when we made the deal with UPN we decided we can’t ask someone to pay for what we’re giving away to other outlets. So here in Sacramento, we’re still not on.

WC: Do you find it difficult coming up with material?

ML: You know, it’s difficult to do satire. People expect a horror hosts to be weird, irreverent. I think it’s ideal for most humor. You’re giving them the material for humor then you have to allow them to “get it.”

WC: How do you put together each show?

ML: We make 22 wraps for each show, and there are 12 commercial breaks. We do eight minutes of show and two minute wraps. We write a show on a weekend and shoot it on Sunday and some on Monday much at my own cost. The Gamera episode was written and shot all in one day. This season is a little different because we want to get them all done in advance.

WC: Kind of like an old Corman film.

ML: Yes, something like that. I have a deeper appreciation for these guys now.

WC: How much does it cost to produce each show?

ML: The average cost is about $43 per show, and I get the films borrowed from collections.

WC: Where do you shoot the episodes so cheap?

ML: In my backyard there’s a small shack where the show is filmed. It has one window. It kind of looks like a fifth grader’s picture of a house. It’s about the size of a two car garage. Inside there’s a black curtain stapled to the wall. The lighting is made out of pool skimmers. In the show you just see the black wall, but in reality all the other walls are filled with junk; models, mattresses, it’s like a junkyard with a black curtain.

WC: What’s all the junk for?

ML: We make the props right on the spot. We needed a space periscope once, so we made it right on the spot.

WC: Tell me about some of the people who are also on the show.

ML: Well, we have Lady Skankenstein. It was tough to find a female character, but she “gets it.” She was recommended to me by a friend. She was a stripper by night and a college student by day. Her first episode was Carnival of Souls. I had a box full of clothes for her to wear, things like bicycle handlebars coming out of her head.

WC: How about behind the scenes?

ML: It’s been very hard work because there’s been a revolving door of people who’ve helped and had to go back to their real lives. Ken Waller directs and edits now. Ken did not start out as a friend. He was introduced to me. He had done “Shock Theater” in the 1980s, but was never picked up. He was a big fan of horror movies. There’s so many people who don’t ask for anything and give so much. You just don’t know what to say to them. But no one has been there since the beginning but me.

WC: Were there any nights that didn’t go so well?

ML: The night that never ended was the night we did Dick Tracy Meets Greusome. Lady Skankenstein lost part of her costume, it was locked in the studio. We kept forgetting things and were driving back and forth because it was on location, and we wound up spending $40 in gas. We didn’t get out until 4 a.m. and Skankenstein had school in the morning.

WC: What is the status of “Cinema Insomnia” today?

ML: We’re finally airing in Louisiana since mid-February. We’re on prime time right after “The Outer Limits.” We’ve gotten lots of positive feedback. It also airs in cable outlets in Arkansas, so we’re back on legit TV. We’re also getting calls from publications. There’s a real hunger for this type of thing. The time is right and people are getting into this type of programming.

WC: And how about the future?

ML: Next season we’ll have a good headstart, and we’re hoping to find prints that are in better quality. We have one episode with the movie Ancient Astronauts where we’ve wrapped around a documentary. The film has Rod Serling looking at various things around the world and talking about how they could be proof of alien beings having visited the Earth. Toward the end we have a wrap of us examining a Christmas tree and we say it’s proof of alien interference. We also have a couple of investors who are stepping up and will put tens of thousands of dollars to promote the show. This will be a very big push for Mr. Lobo.

WC: Finally, I have to ask, just who is Mr. Lobo?

ML: Well, being a horror host has always been my dream, but Mr. Lobo is a character, not myself. Mr. Lobo is my prop. In my life I have published comics, done theater, wrote for a TV show, made trading cards. They were all interesting things but none of them ever had a face to it. Mr. Lobo is a conduit. He connects everything I used to do and people can see where it’s coming from. Things have been a lot easier since I’m selling myself instead of something else.