Since 1993, every Saturday after midnight, local television station WBBZ TV, and other channels across the country, air “Off Beat Cinema” (OBC), a “late-night hosted movie show” that airs films described on their website as: “the good, the bad, and the foreign.” In between film segments, a cast of “beatniks” in the fictional “Hungry Ear Coffee House” tell jokes, read poetry and fan mail and converse with guests. It even features a musical segment.
James Gillan, creator and head writer of the show, has a background in advertising and often lectures at UB. He devised OBC “because the local ABC affiliate asked [him] to come up with something to fill a two-hour time slot at night” to avoid “running paid programming of infomercials.”
A loyal and far-reaching fanbase motivates the cast to continue the show. OBC regularly gets “thousands of hand-written letters as well as cards and pieces of art” from all over the country according to Gillan. Film requests are popular as well, which the crew tries to honor.
Readers may be familiar with movie hosts like Elvira who broadcast horror and sci-fi films; a similar show, “Fright Night Theater,” was Buffalo’s answer to this genre in the ‘60s. OBC is vastly different from those shows.
While Gillan believes that late-night hosted movie shows are an American art form, he wanted to create a show without gimmicks like “girls in skimpy vampire costumes or a guy trying to speak with a fake Hungarian accent.” This is where the beatnik theme emerged.
“The coffee culture had really just hit. There was a little bit of a resurgence in the beat generation, and so all that seemed to fit,” Gillan explained.
Rather than being limited to horror and sci-fi, OBC shows silent and foreign films, and what Gillan describes as “cult movies” and “juvenile delinquent films.” By featuring a group of beatniks instead of a horror host, the show can provide “a broad palette” of films.
The show started in Buffalo as a 13-week program, but once local newspapers wrote about the show, the word spread to cities like Toronto. Viewership and nationwide broadcasts grew from there. Now, the program airs on 111 different channels nationally, according to Gillan.
“There’s great self-deprecating humor in Buffalo,” Gillain said, noting that the city’s ability to not take itself too seriously is why the show’s antics resonate. He believes neighboring cities, like Toronto, share the same sensibilities, evidenced by the success of sketch show “Kids in the Hall,” and the birthplace of Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michaels. Gillan is responsible for writing the scenes that play in between commercials and films.
“I pull themes from comedy culture, and it’s everything from ‘Monty Python,’ to ‘Mad Magazine,’ to ‘Rocky and Bullwinkle.’” He also uses “bad lines” from films that he believes fans of OBC will recognize.
OBC episodes have featured big names in entertainment, including Keanu Reeves, The Goo Goo Dolls and Pete Best, former drummer for “The Beatles.”
According to Gillan, other celebrities like Dan Akroyd have praised the show, with Akroyd telling the cast at a Las Vegas event that he “watches Off Beat Cinema all the time.”A member of the Barenaked Ladies has also expressed his love for OBC.
Every year since its inception, OBC airs “The Night of the Living Dead” around Halloween. Other fan favorites include Ed Wood’s “Plan 9 from Outer Space” and near Christmas, audiences delight in “Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.”
In an effort to maintain OBC’s popularity, Gillan says that crowdfunding like Patreon may be used in the future. Past broadcasts of the program are currently available for free on their YouTube channel.
In an era of streaming, OBC curates lesser-known films that people otherwise would not have a chance to see because they’re not available, or are available on a very limited basis.
It’s the belief of the cast and crew that OBC airs and educates about “the movies that must be shown.” Gillan believes that the show is responsible for introducing films that may be odd but “still have poetry in them,” and that the show “does a service by bringing these films to new generations.”
The arts desk can be reached at arts@ubspectrum.com
Photo: Courtesy of Tracey Drury
