When J. Brown left KGSC-TV 36 for KNTV 11, MMM Carpets moved their all-night movie sponsorship to his old slots at KGSC-TV. This left KEMO-TV's late nights hostless, and for a brief time, the job was taken up by Leon Heskett.

Leon was the owner of Heskett's Carpet Coliseum. He'd been a fairly heavy advertiser locally, and someone, perhaps Leon himself, must have convinced him that hosting a late-late movie show would be a piece of cake. Heck, those two guys from MMM made it look easy, right? They didn't seem to have any special talent.

Leon's special talent was that he was utterly void of on-camera personality. His halting, monotone delivery and wooden demeanor were almost unbearable to watch. The commercials were bad enough, but at least they seemed to have been culled from the best of numerous takes. The overnight segments were more obviously - painfully - first take only.

A typical Leon improv went something like this:

     Uh. I hope you are enjoying the movie.
     Folks.
     And.
     Uh.
     I hope if you need carpet you will.
     Come on down.
     We got these Monsanto carpets and.
     Other carpets.
     Shag.
     And.
     
     [Awkwardly places hand on roll of carpet,
      takes it off, looks around, puts it back.]
     
     Heck, we got lots of carpets.
     Different kinds.
     Come on down.

It wasn't all Leon's fault. KEMO-TV had no decent movies to air at the time. KEMO-TV's film package was not even bottom-of-the-barrel, it was from the muck below the barrel. All I can remember of the films are static, stagey, set-bound Poverty Row and British films from the 30s and 40s. I wish someone would show them today, as they would be of historical interest to me now.

The listings from the sidebar at left contradict my memory of KEMO-TV's all-night package during Heskett's run. These don't look too bad. In fact, this is a pretty tantalizing listing. All the titles are quite obscure, and no doubt none of them are classics, but you don't see this kind of lineup these days, even on Turner Classic Movies.

This particular Saturday night is from the earliest TV Guide I've got which shows all-night listings on KNTV, KEMO-TV, KGSC-TV, and KTXL-TV 40 simultaneously. KEMO-TV's all-nighters started up immediately after MMM Carpets move to KGSC-TV, and J. Brown's move to KNTV 11, so these listings are most likely from an actual Leon Heskett-hosted night at the movies on KEMO-TV, just at the time the shift occured, when The All-Night Movie-Go-Round and the long-running Movies 'til Dawn were getting their start. Click here and here and here for high-res scans of the evening and all-night listings for all the channels that night.

I'm pretty certain I remember seeing print ads for Heskett's Carpet Coliseum in the TV Guide, but I have yet to run across one to scan.

Leon had the distinction of being singled out by Bob Wilkins as the subject of a running gag on Creature Features. Bob would sometimes only have to mention the name "Leon Heskett" to get a laugh.

Some time after KEMO-TV's demise, Leon was in the news for some problems with the law - fraud or something.