Initially he appeared on Philadelphia's WCAU-TV as a character called Roland, between 1957 and 1958, and then went on to  New York's WABC-TV from 1958 to 1959. It was sometime after March 1959, that the 'y' was added to his surname, and the character of Zacherley was fully formed.

The record was released as a double-A-side, containing both versions of the song. Part-1 being the original version and Part-2 being the alternate toned-down version requested by Clark. 

Weird Retro Fact: On Valentine's Day 1970, Zacherley introduced the Grateful Dead at the famous Fillmore East rock venue in the East Village of New York City.

Weird Retro Fact: Zacherley turned 96 on the 25th of September 2014. He still makes personal appearances at conventions.

Weird Retro Fact: Although the crossroads at Highway 61 and Highway 49 in Clarksdale is believed to be the legendary crossroads where Robert Johnson made his pact with the devil, new evidence says it maybe not be. In the song the crossroads he is referring to is actually in Rosedale, as he sings "Going up to Rosedale, got my rider by my side". In legend, and in voodoo, the Devil is always supposed to hang-out close to the river. The Devil, marking his territory with an “X” (hence the crossroads). Clarksdale is too far away for this to match the legend. However, Rosedale is right by the river.

As far back as 1945, there had been a suggestion of the sidicious nature of comic books, in a Time magazine article entitled "Are Comic Books Fascist?" The moral panic over comic books really started to take a grip in 1948, when ABC Radio ran a debate called "What's Wrong with the Comics?" In the debate John Mason Brown, critic for the Saturday Review of Literature described comic books as, "the marijuana of the nursery; the bane of the bassinet; the horror of the house; the curse of the kids; and a threat to the future." At the same time, Wertham was regularly giving talks about the dangers of comic books, which eventually lead to the writing and publication of Seduction Of The Innocent. In he'd taken part in a symposium called "The Psychopathology of Comic Books", from which Time magazine later published an article of the same name. The panic grew over the next few years, with comic book burning and the establishment of committees to investigate the influence of comic books on society and the young.

The publication of the book and its subsequent fame made Wertham a cause celebre, giving expert testimony at a Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency. The CCA voluntary code remained in place right up until the 2000s, until publishers started to break away from its restrictions, as many comic books and graphic novels became a accepted and recognised element of adult literature. 

Weird Retro Fact: In 1935 Wertham testified for the defense in the trial of the infamous serial killer and cannibal Albert Fish, declaring him insane. (It's claimed the the character of Hannibal Lecter from Silence Of The Lambs is loosely based on Fish.)

On the Weird Retro facebook page, there is an album of images named after Seduction Of The Innocent. 

The ludicrous plot involves three friends, a weird carnival, a hypnotic stripper and her fortune-telling sister who with her henchman turn people into killer zombies by throwing acid in their faces. That's just about the whole plot summarized right there... All interspersed with utterly meaningless and bizarre song-and-dance numbers.

The movie was released originally by Fairway-International Pictures, who stuck in as lower half of a double-bill. Steckler was unhappy with this and bought back the movie, deciding to promote it himself. Like any good carnie, Steckler hawked it around the Grindhouse circuit, changing its name every so often to confuse punters in to coming to see it again. Some of the titles that he used included, The Incredibly Mixed-Up Zombie, Diabolical Dr. Voodoo and The Teenage Psycho Meets Bloody Mary.Also in the gimmicky Grindhouse tradition of the likes of William Castle, Steckler had the movie advertised as being in shown in a variety of made-up formats. He used tag-lines like filmed in “Bloody-Vision”, to “Terrorama” and “Hallucinogenic Hypnovision” to drawn people in and milk every last dime out of them. In some of the screenings, Steckler himself sometimes and employees would run into the theater auditorium wearing monster masks, to scare the audience. It was often double-billed with the equally now infamous “so-bad-it’s-good” cult movie The Beast of Yucca Flats, that starred Tor Johnson of Plan 9 From Outer Space fame.

Weird Retro Film Fact:  The film was lampooned in 1997 by Mystery Science Theater 3000, which brought it to the attention of many cult film fans, who had previously not been subjected to the awfulness of this ridiculous cult classic.

Set in 1949, somewhat after the time period of many of the contemporaries of pulp crime novels, it already sits somehow apart from those that it gives a nod too. It's about an odd series of murders (nothing so weird so far) that occur in the Venice Beach, California. Interestingly at that time, in Bradbury's narrative and in reality, a declining and in and of itself dead part of the world. Death surrounds the characters, in every aspect of the story. But most striking is the decaying setting. Deaths set against a dying community of broken board-walks, and failing fun fairs. All the characters, apart from the central one based on Bradbury himself are waiting for death to call. Interestingly Ray Bradbury actually lived in Venice Beach between 1942 and 1950, exactly the time period the novel is set.

Being set on a decaying seaside, it shares in some ways the essence of a dark decaying carnival feel that Something Wicked This Way Comes did. And like Something Wicked... is a brooding piece of literature. The main character struggles to deal with the decay, the dilapidated society that surrounds him. He's a writer (like Bradbury), of pulp novels. He struggles to make writing his stock in trade. He's had a few sales of his work, but generally he is currently a failed writer. Depressed, he fits in despite fighting against it, with the freaks and weirdos that inhabit the the novel. That inhabit the derelict pier and generally dark and forgotten area that the novel is set.

I'll say no more and give nothing else away. Least to say, as a huge fan of Ray Bradbury, Death Is A Lonely Business is a novel I approach with trepidation. Knowing it was outside of what I expected from the great man, it delivered prime Bradbury in spades. Harking back in style to the classic little known short stories of his I had read, reread and loved while no-one else had. Bradbury could set a scene, describe it in the most wonderfully rich and dark detail. Immerse you as a reader in that slightly out of kilter other place and make you feel comfortable with it, and yet sacred to turn your back at the same time. Death Is A Lonely Business is Bradbury at the the very peak of his craft. And unfortunately a novel that one of the greatest writers in American literary history is not well known for. As a fan of Bradbury, of mystery, of just great literature. I urge you to seek it out.    

A piece of self-aggrandising weirdness. Explaining (erm) how the album was produced with no studio trickery, and thus sounds as good live as it does on the album. It tells of their pathetic excuse for leaving their previous band The Hassles, and tries to make them sound all 'street wise' and hard. It just makes them sound creepy and weird. Oh and then you get to the instruments... If this isn't enough to warn you off once and for all, from listening to this album... Nothing will!!!

Published today, three new articles in rocketship Weird Retro's in-flight magazine. First is the Top Ten: Exploitation Cinema Documentaries, a must read for all fans of cult and Grindhouse cinema. The second is entitled A Haven For Devil Dolls. Taking a look inside an unassuming house in a leafy Kentucky suburb, that is home to the world's largest collection of creepy ventriloquists dummies. Henry Darger: In The Realms Of The Unreal. The story of one of the most prolific and reclusive writers ever, and his magnum opus The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion.

Go Little Honda (1965) is a track by The Hondells, declaring their love of the Honda motorbike, from the Honda themed album of the same name. Written by Beach Boys Brian Wilson and Mike Love, the Hondells were made up of session musicians that included now country legend Glen Campbell. Another 'manufactured' band of sorts was the 1983 album Beatle Barkers, where animal noises replaced the lyrics of many of the most famous songs by the Fab Four.

During the 1960s and 1970s there was a fashion for instructional spoken word albums. There are many weird and wonderful examples out there to be found, here are included two especially strange choices. From 1976 is mother earth type Molly Roth, who owned a plant shop called Green Earth, that had a jukebox to play to the plants. She recorded the album Plant Talk/Sound Advice, which is Molly in husky loving tones talking to a variety of house plants. The B-side of the album was Molly's advice to plant owners. The sampler includes all 13 minutes of Molly's seductive Plant Talk, who appeared naked on the cover of the album covered only by plant foliage and a watering can.

Download Way Beyond Planet Weird (Sampler) here.