Richard E. Dyszel, known professionally as Dick Dyszel, is an American

television Television (TV) is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. Additionally, the term can refer to a physical television set rather than the medium of transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...

personality, known for his television alter-egos

Count Gore De Vol Count Gore de Vol is a television horror host who originally appeared on Washington, D.C.'s WDCA from 1973 to 1987. Originally named M.T. Graves and played by announcer Dick Dyszel, the character first appeared on the WDCA version of the Bozo the ...

and Captain 20.

Background

The

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

native attended

Southern Illinois University Southern Illinois University is a system of public universities in the southern region of the U.S. state of Illinois. Its headquarters is in Carbondale, Illinois. Board of trustees The university is governed by the nine member SIU Board of T ...

and graduated with a degree in radio-TV. He became the local

Bozo the Clown Bozo the Clown, sometimes billed as "Bozo, The World's Most Famous Clown", is a clown character created for children's entertainment, widely popular in the second half of the 20th century. He was introduced in the United States in 1946, and to tel ...

at WDXR-TV in

Paducah Paducah ( ) is a home rule-class city in the Upland South, and the county seat of McCracken County, Kentucky, United States. The most populous city in the Jackson Purchase region, it is located in the Southeastern United States at the confluence ...

Kentucky Kentucky (, ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north, West Virginia to the ...

, before moving on to

WDCA WDCA (channel 20), branded Fox 5 Plus, is a television station in Washington, D.C., serving as the local outlet for the MyNetworkTV programming service. It is owned and operated by Fox Television Stations alongside Fox outlet WTTG (channel 5) ...

in Washington in 1972. He was a jack of all trades at WDCA, functioning as the station's announcer, as kids' show host Captain 20 as well as Washington's second Bozo, after

Willard Scott Willard Herman Scott Jr. (March 7, 1934 – September 4, 2021) was an American weather presenter, radio and television personality, actor, narrator, clown, comedian, and author, whose broadcast career spanned 68 years, 65 years with the NBC br ...

had originated the local version of the character. The

horror host A horror host is a person who acts as the host or presenter of a program where horror film Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit physical or psychological fear in its viewers. Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal w ...

character of

Count Gore de Vol Count Gore de Vol is a television horror host who originally appeared on Washington, D.C.'s WDCA from 1973 to 1987. Originally named M.T. Graves and played by announcer Dick Dyszel, the character first appeared on the WDCA version of the Bozo the ...

(whose name was either a play on author and native Washingtonian

Gore Vidal Eugene Luther Gore Vidal ( ; born Eugene Louis Vidal, October 3, 1925 – July 31, 2012) was an American writer and public intellectual known for his acerbic epigrammatic wit. His novels and essays interrogated the Social norm, social and sexual ...

or the name of a prominent Washington D.C. funeral home, "De Vol") originated as a character called "M.T. Graves" on the Bozo show. He stayed on as the Count until 1987 when the station ceased local production. In 1998, Dyszel presented a weekly show on the Internet at Count Gore.com, featuring Count Gore hosting streaming video of movies and shorts as well as celebrity interviews. In 2005 he returned to the DC area, built a high-definition studio and expanded the role of Count Gore de Vol to include live-hosted horror movies at the AFI Silver Theatre in Silver Spring, Maryland. This series started on February 3, 2013, with the 40th anniversary celebration of his first hosted horror movie on WDCA-TV—''House of Frankenstein''. In February 2023, he celebrated fifty years with a showing of ''The Shining'' at the AFI Silver. He owns and operates Sounds Fabulous Entertainment, providing a virtual DJ system named George that he developed for small-venue parties. As Count Gore de Vol, he is a guest at six to ten conventions a year and is closely associated with the Spooky Movie Film Festival, an annual week-long celebration of horror feature films and shorts, which celebrated its tenth year in 2015.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Dyszel, Dick American television personalities Living people Horror hosts 1947 births