Ron Sweed As The Ghoul; May He Rest In Peace

Every now and then, someone passes away who had a major impact in my life. Last year, it was my mother and my mother-in-law. This year, I found out that Ron Sweed, who played a character on 1970's television called "The Ghoul" had passed away.

 

I recall many a Saturday night watching late night TV. Back then, televisions had two tuner knobs. One was VHF and had all the channels from 1-10. The other knob was UHF and his show was on channel 38 as I recall. He would show some awful grade-B movie and fill the intermissions/commercials with some bizarre hi-jinx, including blowing up model cars and ships, as well as his sidekick, Froggy.

I loved watching when Froggy would show up with his trademark saying, "Hiya gang, hiya hiya hiya!" and then The Ghoul would abuse him and make Froggy's life miserable.

 

I never grew tired of poor Froggy being mutilated, beat up, destroyed and otherwise abused. Every week, Froggy would show up once more and we would all shout his intro theme, "Pluck your magic twanger, Froggy!" I always wondered how many Froggy's the show had in stock.

Another great feature was The Ghoul blowing up stuff, either model cars or model ships, with an occasional odd object thrown in for fun. 

The Ghoul was my inspiration for blowing up stuff. I lost count of how many models and such I blew up during those days. I eventually took it to another level when I combined explosions with model rockets. It was a wonderful time that could never happen today. Nowadays, you blow up one thing and everyone labels you a terrorist.

I even remember this episode when a poor fake turkey got The Ghoul treatment. I had almost forgot about his fascination with Cheese Whiz.

Looking back on it now, I'm fairly certain he was either totally baked/high or drunk, or more likely a combination of the two.

There will never be another character like The Ghoul ever again. He was a one-of-a-kind and someone who inspired me to be loony every now and then... just for the sake of looniness!