CREATURE FEATURE

ARNIE WARREN
AMOS

"Creature Features" was a hosted horror movie show with host "Arnie Warren" and his Beagle dog "Amos". The show aired in late 1972 till early 1973 on Friday nights at 11:30pm out of WCIX-TV channel 6, an independent station broadcasting out of southern Miami-Dade County, Florida, USA. Arnie Warren was a aid-back local radio personality. The opening title as well as the segues into commercials was a still of Boris Karloff as the monster from the 1931 Universal film Frankenstein. "Creature Features" was relaunched as "Creature Features", 1974-1975 hosted by Bwana Johnny, and again as the non-hosted "Creature Features", 1976-1987. ARNIE WARREN Arnie Warren, who began his South Florida radio career as Moon Cat, a pop-spinning disc jockey on WKAT in the early 1960s then created the popular, half-fictional team of Arnie and Amos, died of a heart attack on 19 April 2008. Warren also worked in television, taught television production at Lindsey Hopkins Vocational School, gave motivational speeches, and wrote several business books, including The Great Connection, published in 12 languages. A member of the National Speakers Association and past president of the Florida Speakers Association, Warren had a smooth baritone, flawless diction and a facility for accents. He read books-on-tape for the blind and appeared in high-profile commercials. Arnie hosted a local game show called "Bowling for Dollars", "Creature Features" (1972-1973) and "Commander Bolt" (1963). Arnold Warren Jr. was the son of Ina Warren, an opera singer/pianist, and Arnold Sr., the local newspapers' printing press manager. Through his mother, he discovered the performing arts as a preschooler and, said his daughter, knew immediately what he would do as an adult. After graduating from Northfield-Mt. Hermon, a prestigious Massachusetts prep school, Warren attended Michigan State University, where he studied hotel management, then graduated from the University of Miami as an English/speech major. There, he met his first wife, Joan Trout, from whom he was later divorced. After college, to his parents' surprise, he joined a band, Sonny Bloch and his Coralairs, which played Miami Beach's Rock'n M.B. Lounge and then toured Cuba in the late 1950s. They had a modest hit with the Christmas song, Buona Natale. Warren's first radio gig was the midnight shift at WKAT. At the time, Sid Levin was vice president/general manager. Warren's show evolved into a talk format that in turn inspired him to create Amos Rutledge, a crusty old Mainer who would talk to Arnie in a thick New England Yankee accent on a specially wired microphone. Amos, a weatherman, supposedly was stationed atop what was then the Dade County Courthouse. The Arnie and Amos act survived for 13 years on WKAT, WGBS and WIOD. The fictional Amos, of Kennebunkport, Maine, even ran for president in 1972 on the American Dream Party ticket. In 1982, when Warren retired from broadcasting and joined the Plantation advertising agency, Brown/Dau and Associates. But in 1985, Warren left Florida for KMOX in St. Louis, a high-powered station that was heard from Chicago to Texas. He was a celebrity interviewer, chatting with the likes of First Lady Rosalynn Carter, singer Mel Torme and comic Phyllis Diller. He became a prolific public speaker, wrote a sequel to The Great Connection, and several other business books, then began working on a historical novel, unfinished at his death.

LINKS

Internet Movie Data Base ""	Wikipedia "Creature Features"	Mapself "WCIX Creature Features"
	Internet Movie Data Base "Arnie Warren"

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