Zombies invade Pittsburgh!
Contrary to what The Onion says, Pittsburgh has been overdue for its first zombie attack.
(For those who haven’t seen this, similar public zombie spectacles originated in San Francisco and spread to Vancouver, Madison, Toronto, New Orleans and here in Somerville/Cambridge (where anti-zombie protesters held signs saying, brilliantly, “Adam and Eve, Not Adam and Gggblaaaagh“)).
While some of these cities may have a greater tradition of public spectacle, none can match Pittsburgh for its rich zombie history (except for New Orleans, which handily beats all comers in both categories). The modern conception of the zombie was born there, in fact, when George Romero, a Carnegie Mellon University graduate, filmed Night of the Living Dead in Western Pennsylvania with a crew and production facilities based in Pittsburgh. Night of the Living Dead, both the 1968 and 1990 versions, also featured WPXI fixture “Chilly Billy” Cardille, most famous for hosting Chiller Theater, a local horror show in the 60’s (and into the 70’s?). (By the time my childhood rolled around, he was hosting (I’m not kidding) a 7pm televised bingo show.)
Bringing things full circle, the walk was organized by It’s Alive, a Pittsburgh television show which has taken on Chiller Theater’s late-night horror movie mantle. This, according to my cousin (and frequent RFB commenter) Margaret, whom you see in Zombie form pictured above. It’s actually her flickr photos that tipped me off to the event.
September 27th, 2006 at 9:33 am
Niall says he watched this bingo show when he was a kid. I, however, was not born yet
September 27th, 2006 at 10:37 am
I, however, was not born yet
Gulp!
You were around, you were just probably 5 or 6. I remember that hometown-boy-done-good Dennis Miller made a guest appearance on it once when he was back in town a year or two after he started on Saturday Night Live; he had this look like “oh, my god, I’m on a bingo show hosted by Chilly Billy”.
Anyway, that dates it to about 1986?
September 27th, 2006 at 10:46 am
OK, I was thinking it was late 70s. I take it back, I was alive. My sister wasn’t. Did you recognize her in the zombie photos?
September 27th, 2006 at 11:05 am
Oh wow! For some reason I didn’t at first! But I do now. Looks like you had a lot of fun.
September 27th, 2006 at 2:17 pm
Oh, wow, no I didn’t, and I’m still not sure; is that her in the Ethel and Bertha one?
September 27th, 2006 at 2:32 pm
That is her. Her roommate, also named Shannon, is the shorter one in that picture. I didn’t recognize them either when we first got there. Unfortunately they couldn’t go to the show taping since it was 21+ but I think everyone still had a good time!
September 27th, 2006 at 4:21 pm
Does that mean that they serve drinks at the Rex now? Come to think of it, I didn’t know the Rex was even *open* anymore. Do they still show movies? That was the first movie theater I ever went to that had cupholders and Dolby surround sound. I was very impressed.
September 27th, 2006 at 7:49 pm
You went to movies there? That is funny that it was the first place you went to with surround sound! It was closed for a while, it reopened recently but there are no cupholders anymore. The seats are gone and it’s now more of a venue for bands, and a bar where the snack stand in the lobby used to be. They screened Night of the Living Dead after the zombie walk but the seats in the theater were metal folding chairs.
September 27th, 2006 at 9:06 pm
Yah. Let’s see. Movies I remember seeing there were Silence of the Lambs, Wild at Heart, and maybe James and the Giant Peach during a summer break in college? And probably more that I can’t remember. That gives you an idea of when I was both old enough to hang out in Pittsburgh far away from the farm, but before I left town.
Better a venue for bands than nothing, which is what I thought its fate was. Like King’s Court in Oakland. Is that still nothing? I unfortunately never got to see Rocky Horror there before it shut down, though I did see some stuff there while it re-opened as the short-lived Beehive Movie Theater; I think the upstairs lived on as the Oakland Beehive for a while before it shut down too, right?
Thank you for indulging me on this trip down memory lane, by the way…
September 28th, 2006 at 7:19 am
Anytime, cuz! The beehive took over the whole kings court building – I spent many afternoons there studying during my freshman year of college. Then, the unthinkable happened. Starbucks opened across the street, and the beehive closed shortly after (the South Side Beehive is still up and running). I should say, though, I think they had been struggling at that location for a while. That was probably sometime in 1999(?). Anyway, King’s Court was vacant for years and just a few months ago it reopened as, ahem, American Apparel.
September 28th, 2006 at 10:12 am
Ugh. American Apparel is turning into the urban Wal-Mart–it’s taking over!
September 28th, 2006 at 11:05 am
Ew, I know. How many $25 plain cotton t-shirts can the kids at pitt really be buying? And there is an American Apparel mere blocks away in Shadyside.
September 28th, 2006 at 3:00 pm
The CEO is a well-documented sleaze-bucket, which comes as little surprise given their advertising, and they thwarted an attempt by their employees attempts to unionize.
http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/2270
Also, this had me cracking up:
http://www.weeklydig.com/blog/articles/breaking_t_shirt_news/