After Bob Wilkins left for KTXL, KCRA-TV ran horror films in the hostless midnight slot for a brief while. Then Geoff Wong took over, showing Charlie Chan films.

Like Bob Wilkins, Geoff Wong worked without makeup, and did not portray a character. He was an engaging and likeable host who went to admirable lengths to provide background on the films.

It would be interesting to know the genesis of the show. Did KCRA-TV approach Wong, or the other way around? Certainly, for KCRA-TV the Charlie Chan films were an efficient late-night time-filler, there being almost four dozen of them. There was a general "nostalgia" craze at the time, resulting in revivals of W.C. Fields, Marx Brothers, Busby Berkeley, Sherlock Holmes, and other 30s and 40s icons. Charlie Chan was, in that sense, film history and begged to be broadcast.

However, it was also likely KCRA-TV was nervous about the racial stereotyping of Asians and blacks in the series, perticularly in the earlier, 1930s installments.

Geoff Wong was the perfect host given these circumstances. He graciously and fairly addressed the stereotyping by placing the films in historical and cultural context. When he thought things went too far, he said so - I remember him warning the viewers before unleashing the cringe-inducing performance of Stepin Fetchit in CHARLIE CHAN IN EGYPT, for example.

I'm not sure how long the show was on, but the TV Guides I've got suggest that it wasn't on for more than a year or two at the most.

The ad below is for a KMST 46 late night Charlie Chan slot in April of 1973. Geoff Wong was off the air by then in Sacramento. There's no indication in the ad that KMST's show was hosted, so it's likely they were just trying to duplicate KCRA-TV's success with the series in their own market.