50 Years of Fritz the Nite Owl: How a Columbus DJ became a beloved pop-culture fixture
During any given year, the Ohio Theatre on East State Street attracts an eclectic array of Central Ohioans. Depending on the show, the historic venue might fill up with symphony lovers, ballet backers or wannabe Broadway babies.
Come summertime, the 96-year-old theater honors its heritage as a Loew’s movie palace, with film buffs flocking to the annual CAPA Summer Movie Series. And for one night during the run, the theater draws what is perhaps its most unique constituency: horror hounds.
Starting in the early 2010s, the movie series has allocated one slot each season to pay homage to Frederick C. Peerenboom, whose mouthful of a name might be unfamiliar to those who know him by the moniker that won him fame: Fritz the Nite Owl.
From 1974 to 1991, Peerenboom, in the inimitable guise of the Owl, served as the host of, and chief creative force behind, "Nite Owl Theater" on WBNS-TV (Channel 10), which broadcast movies of every sort: Oscar winners, certified classics and cult favorites. A double bill of horror movies, dubbed the “Double Chiller” program, was always shown on Fridays.
Initially, CAPA invited Peerenboom to introduce horror movies, but a few years later, the Ohio began showing, on its enormous screen, actual episodes of "Nite Owl Theater" ? that is, full movies, from “The Shining” to “Friday the 13th,” with elaborate, ostentatiously visualized introductions and periodic interjections from Fritz.
By then, the series had been revived for the internet and theatrical showings, like those at the Ohio Theatre.
Last July, the horror hounds came out in droves when the Ohio showed the "Nite Owl Theater" presentation of the 1987 vampire movie “The Lost Boys,” starring Corey Haim and Jason Patric.
Peerenboom, who will turn 90 this year, has not been making live appearances in recent years, but he still seemed to be everywhere that night. In the lobby, Columbus filmmaker and musician Mike McGraner ? who spearheads, produces and directs the second incarnation of Nite Owl Theater ? was selling Fritz-themed swag, including posters and T-shirts.
Inside the auditorium, a drawing of Fritz with fangs coming out of his mustachioed mouth was projected onto the screen. And, before the movie began, McGraner loped onstage. After talking for a few minutes, he began fiddling with his phone. Fritz was on the line. The audience erupted.
“I’ve got some mobility problems, which is why I’m not there live and in-person with you, but I want to thank everybody who came,” Fritz said. To prove that Fritz was speaking live, McGraner asked the audience to give him some random numbers; he could then ask Fritz to repeat: 10, 13, 28, 45. All went well, and the audience erupted again. “We love you Fritz!,” someone yelled.
That night last July captured something of what Fritz brought to Columbus when he was a near-constant presence on TV and radio. Through his agreeably low-key personality and genuine love of movies, Fritz was the head of a kind of community.
The members of that community didn’t necessarily know each other ? they participated from their own homes, apartments and dormitories throughout the Capital City ? but they were a community nonetheless.
One of those fans was Columbus transplant Maria Fanning. In the early 2000s, she moved to the city and stumbled upon a Fritz rerun on TV. “I was like, ‘Oh, good, something local,’” recalled Fanning at the Ohio Theatre screening.
Like so many others, Fanning found watching movies presented by Fritz to be companionable, cozy, communal. “He has so much information about the movies that adds to the experience,” she said. “It’s like watching it with a friend.”
This year marks the 50th anniversary of Peerenboom’s debut as Fritz. And while his show has been off the air for more than three decades, his surprising second act continues to play out, with movie screenings, a podcast and more in the works to celebrate the milestone anniversary.
Fritz the Nite Owl still manages to do what eludes most politicians, public officials and even other entertainers: In his own slightly off-center way, he brings people together.
Back then
Until the early 1980s, movies could be seen in theaters and virtually nowhere else. Early home-video formats, such as VHS and Betamax, had been rolled out in the mid-1970s but would not achieve anything like ubiquity until later the following decade; subsequent formats, such as DVD and Blu-ray, were yet to be developed.
If you wanted to see a movie in your living room, then, you had to rely on one of the local TV stations. For decades, Channel 10 presented movies under the banner of "Armchair Theater." Early hosts included personalities Don Riggs and Dan Imel, but the show did not achieve immortality until it was taken over by Fritz the Nite Owl and rebranded "Nite Owl Theater."
Fritz joined the ranks of other so-called “horror hosts” ? local broadcasters who added personality, humor and camp value when introducing a movie. “Every major city had one or two movie hosts,” Fritz said. “They all had movie shows on.”
In the Horror Host Hall of Fame (a real thing) are such figures as Vampira (aka Maila Nurmi) and Joe Bob Briggs (aka John Bloom) ? and, of course, Fritz ? a 2012 inductee.
“I grew up in Cleveland, when you had all those big movie hosts: I remember watching Ghoulardi and Big Chuck and Hoolihan as a kid,” said Eric Hartzell, a longtime Channel 10 employee who worked on "Nite Owl Theater." “'Nite Owl Theater' was just unique to Columbus.”
Like those other movie hosts, Fritz served a function: His program enabled people to see older horror movies ? from “The Daughter of Dr. Jekyll” to “Whoever Slew Auntie Roo?” ? as well as a healthy sampling of movies from every other known genre.
After all, horror only dominated on Fridays; the rest of the time, you would be treated to comedies, dramas, action flicks, Hitchcock thrillers and so on. “I liked all types of movies,” Peerenboom said.
But, in truth, most people probably didn’t watch just for the movies. Fans made "Nite Owl Theater" appointment viewing because of its host, who, with his signature oversized sunglasses, at times really did resemble an owl.
But there was nothing owlish about Fritz’s disposition. With his cool, soothing voice ? one already honed through years of radio broadcasting ? Fritz reeled off facts and trivia about each movie with aplomb. “Sometimes the skits were funnier than the movie,” Hartzell said.
The early days of Peerenboom
The middle of three sons born to Maurice and Rose Peerenboom, Frederick C. Peerenboom had probably the ideal training for his future profession: He came of age in the 1940s, when movies were still bigger than life.
“There was no television,” said Peerenboom, who was born and spent his early years in Nekoosa, Wisconsin. “[Going to] the movies were dependent on good grades and good behavior.”
If he had been sufficiently well-behaved to go, though, the experience could be overpowering. On Saturday afternoons, double features would be accompanied by a whole bushel of cartoons and usually a serial installment, like Flash Gordon. But more significant was the sheer size of the movies in those days.
“When you’re 6, 7, 8 years old, and you see Frankenstein and Dracula and the Wolf Man on a big screen at night, and you’ve got to walk home through the woods to get to your house, it’s scary as hell,” Peerenboom said.
“We weren’t as sophisticated as the kids are now, so we kind of believed that those people actually existed and were just waiting for us to make a wrong turn going home.”
Maurice Peerenboom, an Army officer, served in World War II. At the end of the war, Maurice relocated his family to an Army base outside of Baltimore, Maryland. “My two brothers and I were kind of Army brats,” Peerenboom said.
His father was transferred again, this time to the ROTC division at Ohio State University, which is what took the family to Columbus. “[For] grade 11 and 12, I was at Columbus North,” said Peerenboom, but when his family got moved again, this time, he stayed behind.
Peerenboom graduated from Ohio State University and then went into the Army himself. That might sound like a drag, but after basic training at Fort Knox, Peerenboom found himself at the Army Pictorial Center for two years. “It was the old Paramount Studios in New York,” he said. “It was like getting a master’s in film and television.”
By then, Peerenboom had already gotten his feet wet at Channel 10, first as a nighttime switchboard operator and receptionist, and after being honorably discharged from the Army, he went back to the station. His plate started filling up: He juggled his job at Channel 10 with a position at an area ad agency. He also worked as a radio announcer and disc jockey at WMNI (920 AM) and WBNS AM and FM.
“I thoroughly enjoyed radio,” he said. “As a DJ, I specialized in the modern jazz. People like Miles Davis, Charlie Mingus, Thelonious Monk, Teddy Edwards, Houston Person ? all the hardcore, mainstream jazz artists, none of the smooth jazz artists.”
Even over the radio, Peerenboom’s voice ? his actual, literal voice ? drew people in as much as the records he was playing. Hartzell, the Channel 10 employee who later worked on Nite Owl Theater, said he once heard Peerenboom’s voice described as “like molasses on a rumble strip.” He said: “There’s a lot of years of smoking cigarettes, and he had this special Turkish blend.”
How his career started
In the early 1970s, Peerenboom was working as the booth announcer on Channel 10 when it fell to him to assume off-camera duties on what was then "Armchair Theater" (with "Chiller Theater" on Fridays).
“You would read all of the live commercials over the air, and we would do all of the breaks,” he said. “Instead of saying, ‘We’ll be back, blah, blah, blah,’ I started to ad-lib about what we had just seen and what was coming up. … It was a combination of movie history, and wisecracking, and praising or slamming the movie.”
From such humble beginnings, a legend was born. Early on, WBNS illustrator Dave Wagstaff whipped up a cartoon slide of Fritz the Nite Owl, and that, combined with Peerenboom’s engaging commentary, led to increased audience interest in Channel 10’s movie program. “They started to write letters to Fritz the Nite Owl, but there was actually no Fritz the Nite Owl character at Channel 10,” Peerenboom said.
“But John Haldi, who was the program director, saw and heard the reaction that I was getting, and he decided, ‘OK, let’s make the Nite Owl a regular on-camera person like Flippo the Clown.’ ”'Armchair Theater' was history; 'Nite Owl Theater' was born.
The image was burnished by Fritz’s on-air getup, which had a heavy whiff of the 1970s to it: a cap, a vest and, of course, those frames. “At the time, Elton John was real big, and Dave Wagstaff, the artist, suggested that we just make a set of Nite Owl big eyeglasses,” Peerenboom said.
“He put the horns on them, and broke the pieces of mirror and glued those on the horns that he added to the glasses. We got the glasses off the rack at Revco.”
Further distinguishing Fritz from other movie host personalities was his seamless integration into scenes from the movies being shown during his on-air patter. Among other things, Peerenboom was deposited onto a spaceship, outside the Bates Motel and entering the Moulin Rouge. “I didn’t want to be one of these movie hosts that had the same living room set with a projector, where the set was always the same,” he said.
Eric Hartzell began at Channel 10 as an operations engineer in 1981, and over the next decade, he worked closely on the effects for "Nite Owl Theater." “My coup de grace was the time we had Fritz in the aquarium, and he’s swimming through the aquarium and you see the goldfish swimming around,” Hartzell said.
“All of a sudden, you realize, ‘Wait a minute. The fish are swimming in front of him and behind him.’ People were commenting, ‘How in the heck?’ I’d explain to them how it was done and just say, ‘It’s just layers, guys. It’s layers.’ ” The movie: “Boy on a Dolphin” with Sophia Loren.
Although the movie landscape had changed greatly by 1991 ? cable was booming, video rental stores were everywhere ? Fritz said that the show didn’t come to a natural end. “Essentially, I got fired,” he said. “John Haldi retired as program director, and the new guy came in. … His first words to me were, ‘I don’t like movies on television.’ And about two weeks later, 14 of us were given the ax.”
“When it went away,” Hartzell said, “I had people tell me: ‘Well, I used to stay up late and watch the movies. Now I just turn it off and go to bed.’ ”
The big break
Yet Fritz’s fans did not go away. Among the most devoted ? certainly the most persistent and resourceful ? was a Columbus native who caught the tail end of the original run of "Nite Owl Theater."
“It seemed like something that would forever be on,” said Mike McGraner, now 43. “If my brother and I were done playing video games or whatever, we would join wherever it was that night.”
But it wasn’t on forever, and by the time he had become a filmmaker himself, McGraner decided he wanted to do something with the man he considers his childhood hero: maybe a feature film, but probably a documentary.
In 2009, through his friend and radio personality Dino Tripodis, McGraner got in touch with Peerenboom. “One night, I was shopping at Meijer and my phone rang, and I didn’t answer it,” McGraner said. “When I got out to the car, I played my voicemail, and it was Fritz, with that voice.”
Footage was shot for the documentary, but McGraner eventually landed on the idea of breathing new life into the original series by embarking on a new slate of episodes. The concept would be the same, but in order to play the episodes online or in theaters, they would initially restrict themselves to public-domain films. The effects would be infinitely more polished than what was possible with technology from the ’70s and ’80s.
But it took some persuading to convince Peerenboom. “I didn’t want to do it, because I thought nobody would be interested in it,” he said. “I turned them down four times. But my family and friends said, ‘Do it, do it, do it.’” And he did it.
The first episode of the new "Nite Owl Theater," with Fritz introducing and riffing on “Night of the Living Dead,” premiered late in the night of Oct. 29, 2010, at the Grandview Theater. The audience response that night allayed whatever concerns the host had about how well remembered he was.
“Every seat was sold out, and they had to bring in folding chairs,” McGraner said. “He signed autographs afterwards and took pictures until [about] 4 in the morning.”
Some 67 episodes have been shot of the new "Nite Owl Theater." Peerenboom himself wrote the early episodes, but, by the third season, McGraner was confident he could write in his hero’s voice. “I had heard him talk so much that, in my mind, it was already written,” McGraner said.
On a chilly, rainy afternoon in November, I swung by the house Fritz shares with one of his grown sons and his family. These days, Fritz spends most of his time on the house’s lower level, a living area complete with kitchen and bathroom.
The space is overflowing with memorabilia, his own original artwork, a great deal of bric-a-brac. Think a combination of Half Price Books and a comic book shop. (He always wanted to draw his own comic strip.)
Before I arrived, Fritz had been watching the classic Joseph L. Mankiewicz showbiz drama "All About Eve," starring Bette Davis. He wanted me to hear a line of dialogue spoken by George Sanders, who plays a theater critic in the movie, so he cued the movie up and fast-forwarded to the right scene. “You have a point ? an idiotic one, but a point,” Sanders said.
Watching the Nite Owl in his natural habitat is something to behold. He has surrounded himself with reminders of the past ? not just his own career but the things that stimulated him, from movie stars to superheroes.
And watching Peerenboom interact with McGraner is like watching a master and an acolyte, maybe even a father and a son. Peerenboom dispenses stories, anecdotes, wisdom, and McGraner listens intently.
“Who was the person that thanked you because you didn’t ask a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ question?” McGraner asked.
“That was Tony Randall,” Fritz replies, before launching into a memory about the importance of asking intelligent questions at press junkets.
Not that all of their talk is nostalgic. “One of the best things about him is he was born in a time without television, and how he lived through every medium of media to the point where he stays current with it,” McGraner said. “He loves Stephen Colbert.”
Fritz interjects that his children ? and now his children’s children, and their children ? have helped him keep up.
Peerenboom and McGraner’s friendship is front and center in "Conversations with the Owl," their new podcast. There are lots of things in the works this 50th anniversary year of "Nite Owl Theater."
There could be some more episodes; there will definitely be a vinyl record of music from the show. Throughout the year, weekly screenings of episodes will be happening at movie theaters.
In the month of May, for example, episodes will be shown at the Gateway Film Center on May 17 and the London State Theater on May 23.
Night has not yet fallen on the Nite Owl. He thinks back on the last time he made a personal appearance at the Ohio, in 2019.
“There is just an excitement of being there and being able to walk out onto that big stage,” Peerenboom said. “You see all those people, and they’re applauding you. It’s just terrific.”
This story is from the May 2024 issue of Columbus Monthly.
This article originally appeared on Columbus Monthly: 50 Years of Fritz the Nite Owl: From Columbus DJ to iconic horror host
