Bob Wilkins' lengthy career as a horror host began in Sacramento in 1966, on KCRA-TV's late Saturday night Seven Arts Theater.

I became aware of Wilkins and the show in about 1969. In Novato, where I lived at the time, reception of Sacramento stations was limited to certain sides of certain hills, and then only if one took the trouble to install a dedicated antenna aimed at Sacramento, or an antenna rotor. Luckily, the parents of a couple of kids I knew had indulged in the luxury of special antenna gear, and so I saw him on KCRA-TV several times before he landed in the Bay Area.

One of my earliest memories of Wilkins was not from Seven Arts Theater, but from a weekend afternoon "special report" he hosted called Is Paul Dead? It was the first time I'd heard the "Paul is dead" rumor. The show played a bit like a court hearing, with Wilkins interviewing different "experts" on the topic, one of whom may have been KCRA-TV stalwart Harry Martin.

Shortly after the premiere of KTVU 2's Creature Features, KCRA-TV let Wilkins go, presumably afraid of pitting their version of his show against KTVU's in the large areas where the Sacramento and Bay Area markets overlapped. It wasn't long before Wilkins moved the show to KTXL, where it remained very popular until the early 80s.