A lot of you who grew up in Los Angeles are going to be really happy to see this. The best of all the horror movie hosts we had out here on local TV was Seymour, the alter-ego of a TV director and actor named Larry Vincent. At least, my friends and I all loved him. A few monster film purists were less than delighted with him because he did tend to ridicule many of the movies he showed and to occasionally tamper with them by, for example, Chromakeying himself into a scene every once in a while. But a lot of us watched some very bad movies — and remember, this is before home video so you couldn't tape it and fast forward your way through — waiting for Seymour's appearances in or between the films.
Between 1970 and 1973, he was on KHJ and then KTLA and I watched him, interviewed him in '72 for a paper called The Monster Times, got to know him a little and even wrote some gags for him to use on his show. If he hadn't died in '75, I think he would have been a very big star. I did this article about him in 1999 and most of it quotes the piece I wrote in 1972 when he was still the rage of local television.
You haven't heard much about Seymour because darn near nothing exists of his work…just a few blurry photos and bad audio clips. Since I posted that article, I've received dozens of e-mails from folks who are doing documentaries or TV retrospectives or who are just fans looking for footage. As far as I can tell, there isn't any. All the tapes were wiped…every last one of them.
There aren't even many stills around of Larry. You see that photo atop this piece? I took that. One evening when I was on his set watching him do his show, I whipped out a camera and snapped a couple of snaps before a crew guy scolded me, proclaiming that photography was not allowed. So my not-allowed picture is one of about three decent ones that seem to be around. I have a few more I have to dig out and digitize.
It's like someone went in and tried to erase every last picture and piece of tape that ever existed of poor Larry "Seymour" Vincent…but we have a spot of good news! One minute with poor video quality (a blooper, I think) seems to have survived. James Fetters, author of this book about local horror hosts, has posted it for the world to enjoy. So world, enjoy. This may be all you ever get to see of a very funny man who had way too short a career…