By Celina Ehrlich
Floating down a misty hallway with her long black hair, skin tight black dress and long red fingernails, Vampira birthed the horror hosting genre with her signature blood-curdling scream. Her TV production, The Vampira Show, which aired on KABC-TV in Los Angeles, was the first of its kind, creating a timeless format where a ghoulish host introduces a classic horror movie that they watch with the audience, making comedic comments along the way. In the 1980s, Philadelphia’s own horror show, Saturday Night Dead, was hosted by Stella, “that maneater from Manayunk ” who represented a uniquely Philadelphian brand of horror hosting that is remembered to this day.
Elvira Revives Horror Hosting
In 1981, after attempting to revive the Vampira Show to no avail, Los Angeles’s KHJ-TV station found itself in need of a new host for their weekend horror show. They soon discovered Cassandra Peterson, who would create her own character, Elvira. She was an instant hit both in Los Angeles and nationwide, and she soon branched out from her syndicated show Elvira’s Movie Macabre to make public appearances nationwide, and star in her own movie in 1988.
Introducing: The Maneater from Manayunk
KYW-TV in Philadelphia noticed Elvira’s popularity and conceived its own horror hosting show, titled Saturday Night Dead. KYW-TV found their star power in Karen Scioli, a Philly native who became their leading lady: Stella, the maneater from Manayunk. Living in a haunted condo in Manayunk, Stella was a gritty, hard-working character who quickly bounced back from every obstacle thrown her way.
It was Karen Scioli herself who conceived of Stella as a Philadelphian instead of an Elvira copycat. In addition to playing the leading lady, Scioli also became the principal writer of the show. She was inspired by the Carol Burnett Show to include entire stories in between the characters’ commentary about the horror film that they were showing. Elvira’s show embodied the traditional horror hosting format of including only commentary, while Saturday Night Dead created a world for Stella outside of her work as a host.
Stella as a Philadelphian
Before Stella, most horror hosts lacked a cultural imprint. Elvira took a non-personal approach, drawing from LA’s wealth of pop culture inspirations rather than including more specific references. Stella, however, was a human character who attracted the macabre, and audiences understood her as a Philadelphian who they could relate to.
Saturday Night Dead successfully represented many different facets of Philadelphia’s culture. Because of her many reincarnations, Stella claimed that she gave Benjamin Franklin a hickey and saw the Liberty Bell before it was cracked. After commercial breaks, Saturday Night Dead would often show Philadelphian working class characters commenting on the show, such as window washers, motorcyclists and couples hanging out of their third story windows. Stella’s campy, over the top looks appealed to the gay demographic of the city, leading her to be praised by The Philadelphia Gay News. In addition to its everyday cast of characters, Saturday Night Dead also included some familiar faces as guest stars, such as Thatcher Longstreth, a Philadelphia Councilman who played Stella’s lawyer for an episode.
Stella’s Legacy
Stella never quite became as widely known as Elvira did. However, universal success was a small price to pay for the niche cultural charm that Stella provided to the people of Philadelphia. What the show lacked in budget, it more than made up for in local support. In 1985, Karen Scioli won a local Emmy for her role as Stella. At the Monster Inn, a local gay restaurant, Stella was honored with her own dish called “Stella’s Breast” which Scioli herself came to taste in person.
By the time Saturday Night Dead was cancelled in 1990, due to a disagreement between Scioli and the station’s management, Stella had become a city-wide treasure and a community figure. Audiences no longer watched the show for the movies that it hosted, instead tuning in to see Stella and her cast of characters tell their own stories. In many ways, it was Stella’s commitment to staying local that created her cult following and embodied her status as Philadelphia’s own horror hostess, whose unique format and self-starting attitude is forever cemented in the city’s broadcast history.