3 minute read
Manic Panic
Manic Panic
HORROR HOST TERRIBLE TIM TAKES HIS SHOW TO THE NATIONAL STAGE
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By Anna Perry-Rushton
It’s a gloomy Saturday evening with dark clouds hanging overhead and a cool mist of rain trickling down. Perfect weather for a seance… err… glance at Tim Sweeten, better known as Terrible Tim, the World’s Most Horrible Horror Host.
Kansas City has a long and rich history of horror hosts that date back to the 1950s with Gregory Grave’s show Shock Theater on KMBZ and Marilyn the Witch with The Witching Hour. In the early 1960s, we had Penny Dreadful’s show Son of Chiller and Mike Murphy’s Murphy’s Monstrous Movies in the 1970s. Crematia Mortem was the last true horror host in the 1980s with Creature Feature, and after 25 years, she passed the torch to Terrible Tim and his show, Drive-In Movie Maniacs.
Terrible Tim put on a small horror convention that would go on to become a yearly event and the highlight of Kansas City’s spooky season. He brought celebrities to town and showed their movies, providing a chance to meet and mingle with horror movie characters like Alex Vincent (aka Andy Barclay), who starred in the Child’s Play franchise.
Around this time, Tim started kicking around the idea of actually putting a production together and really digging his heels into the horror host gig by creating Drive-In Movie Maniacs, a show that featured the trials of tribulations of Terrible Tim’s life, from getting in a wrestling match with Jerry “The King” Lawler to luring Gallagher for a cameo. Tim put together a team of like-minded individuals, and off they went. He added some local talent to the mix with Blade Braxton, who portrayed the “Midnight Rose.” Josh Reinhard directed, filmed, edited, and added special effects for the show. Rod Zirkle kept Terrible Tim looking terrible with his makeup, and Kelli Mollencamp created Tim’s costume from scratch. The Haunted Creepys provided the soundtrack for the show and antagonized Terrible Tim in the episodes. The series also found its biggest supporter, Brian Short, who is the COO of TV25 and added the show to his line-up of weekly entertainment, growing Drive-In Movie Maniacs from a local to regional sensation.
In 2019, Tim hit pause to address some personal health issues. In 2021, his best friend and cast member Blade Braxton passed unexpectedly, and Kelli Mollencamp died of cancer. It wasn’t until Septem-
ber 2022 when Keith Van Sickle got Tim out of the house and back into his makeup for the Slash and Bash convention, which reconnected Tim with the horror community and marked nearly three years since he had first donned his creepy clothing.
Terrible Tim has risen from the grave and dusted himself off. Now the show is set to debut nationally on Yoo Too America. From humble beginnings to 70 million households, the true haunt is only just beginning.
