Author: Martin Dunne
Dunne, Martin, 2025 Deadly Earnest and the Australian television horror host, 1959-1978, Flinders University, College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences
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“Deadly Earnest” was a late-night horror host that appeared on Australian commercial television stations between the years 1959 and 1978. Played by five different actors in each of the mainland States over the course of this nineteen-year period, the host was used to introduce horror films and brought an element of comedy to them during a time when Australia had an unofficial ban on importing horror. This thesis argues the hosts were in part a mechanism to sanitise the genre by pairing horror with comedy, and part branding to establish the films as a homogenous identity or product. Their case is contrasted with the challenges comic books faced in the same era. The histories and surviving documentations are described and analysed. Examining the phenomenon of the host through the lenses of historiography, biography, and media studies, the thesis explores the Australian broadcasting landscape where the host emerged and was able to gain a foothold.
Keywords: Horror host, history, censorship, narrative research, analytical philosophy of history, philosophy of fiction, radio, television, moral panic, Shock! Theater, Comics Code Authority, Deadly Earnest, Vampira, The Television Ghost, The Shadow, George Kelting, Artells Dickson, Maila Nurmi, Roland Barnes, Ian Bannerman, Shane Porteous, Ralph Baker.
Subject: Screen Studies thesis
Thesis type: Masters
Completed: 2025
School: College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences
Supervisor: Julia Erhart