The Mistress of the Dark, Elvira, may be remembered for her movies, but did you also know she also had a show on the (ahem) boob tube? We know what you’re thinking: she already had a show on TV, the one where she hosted and commented on bad horror movies. But this was a different kind of show: a sitcom.
That’s right our lovely horror hostess made a pilot for television aptly titled, The Elvira Show back in the early ’90s, which didn’t get picked up by a network, however, you can watch it on YouTube.
The premise of the show was simple; two women: Elvira (Cassandra Peterson) and her aunt Minerva (played by the legendary Katherine Helmond) are witches who live together in a house. Problems arise when a strange young lady named Paige (Phoebe Augustine) arrives on their doorstep claiming to be a long-lost relative. Her timing is terrible because Elvira is being investigated for consumer fraud after one of her love potions appears not to work. It is a silly concept, but other shows such as Bewitched and Sabrina the Teenage Witch followed the same kind of concept and they were hits. Elvira’s show even has a talking cat!
The Elvira Show contains the star’s trademark double-entendre humor, i.e., “Opportunity only gives you knockers once,” and her valley girl-inspired caricature. It’s a wonder why the show never got picked up because there were some big names behind it. Peter Bonerz (yeah, that’s his name) who directed the pilot was the creative force behind many classic sitcoms like The Bob Newhart Show, and Alf. He would eventually go on to direct Friends and Home Improvement.
The show’s writers were well-known too. Anne Beatts was a Saturday Night Live skit writer and both Peterson and her longtime friend John Paragon wrote the pilot’s script. But even that much comedic force wasn’t able to solidify a full season of the show and it was dropped. Thankfully it has been archived on YouTube and you can form your own opinions.
Tell us, if you were a studio exec, would you have given this sitcom a green light for a full season? Comment your answer.
