HOLIDAY ICONS: ELVIRA, MISTRESS OF THE DARK

I can’t recall how I first became acquainted with Elvira, but I must have been relatively young.  It was likely from commercials—back in the 80s and 90s Elvira was a staple around October, appearing in the type of lavish Halloween commercials that I miss nowadays.  We’re talking haunted houses, Universal Monsters, and dry ice galore.  She sold Budweiser and root beer and her cardboard likeness also adorned supermarket displays.  If you don’t remember just how awesome these commercials were, here’s a taste:

I’ve been going through a sort of Elvira renaissance lately, seeking out interviews, videos and whatever else I can find.  I’ve really come to love her, for her humor, her sense of kitschy fun, and knowingly bad puns.  But I think what really puts her over the top for me is that while she’s been quite successful at what she does, she’s never really broken past D-List status.  Her movie flopped; her sitcom (more on that below) never made it past the pilot; her reality show is all but forgotten.  But she’s been soldiering on for decades now, appearing in sitcoms, on pinball machines, comic books, live shows and tons of merchandise.  Elvira always gets the last laugh, even if she’s never gone fully mainstream.  Or has she?!

Elvira’s real name is Cassandra Peterson, and she’s a former member of the Groundlings comedy troupe.  Her even earlier career, starting while still in her teens, was as a go-go dancer and Las Vegas showgirl.  While in Vegas she either briefly encountered or briefly dated Elvis Presley, depending on what account you read.  In these early years she also had a brief cameo in a Fellini film and appeared in a lot of music videos, all as Cassandra.  Elvira came later, when Vampira, the original female horror host, was working on a reboot of her show in the early 80s (long before reboots were a thing).  Vampira eventually left the project over creative disputes (and remained bitter and litigious about Elvira for the rest of her life).  Meanwhile Elvira was born, the name plucked out of a hat at the last minute when lawyers blocked the show from using the Elvira name.

Elvira’s mix of Valley Girl ditziness, genuine sex appeal and Goth horror aesthetic quickly clicked with the public, and she landed endorsement deals and guested on talk shows.  But while her fame grew, it never fully exploded.  As I mentioned above, her inaugural film effort, the movie Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, was a box office bomb.  The movie was a staple rerun on Comedy Central and USA Network when I was younger.  It’s fun, but not great, and saddled with a lame bunch of teen characters that Elvira has said the studio execs forced her to include to entice the “youth demographic.” 

Elvira also filmed a sitcom pilot in the early 90s that I only just recently learned about, titled The Elvira Show.  She plays a witch living with her equally witchy aunt, portrayed by the always delicious Katherine Helmond.  Luckily, you can watch the pilot on YouTube.  It’s loaded with the purposefully lame sexual innuendo Elvira is known for, plus a talking black cat that predates Salem from Sabrina the Teenage Witch by almost a decade:

The show was never picked up, but Elvira continued to eke out her place in pop culture, especially around Halloween every year.  Her likeness adorned calendars, video games and slot machines; she had self-titled comic book series at both Marvel and DC, and released numerous CDs of spooky music.  For years she's had her own live show at Knotts Scary Farm every October (sadly this year is the last).  She earned her own parody character on The Simpsons, the aptly named Boobarella.  She even a reality show called The Search for the Next Elvira in the early 2000s.   The concept of the show was to find an Elvira impersonator to take up the mantle.  The judges included two drag queen Elviras and instead of cutting contestants Elvira electrocuted them at the end of every show with the help of some bad skeleton CGI.  The show only lasted one season and Elvira later admitted that no one was really interested in a mock version of herself, so she continues to play the part.

And she plays it to perfection—seriously, the woman has not aged a day since she first appeared.  She’s clearly very smart and savvy, having written or co-written her own material over the years and cannily merchandising herself.  She has a large queer following, including yours truly, I think in part due to her slightly outsider status.  She’s a misfit of sorts, but a sexy, self-confident one.  You either get her or you don’t, but if you do, you really love her.  When asked in interviews what the secret to her success is, Elvira always credits being associated with Halloween, and advises aspiring stars to hitch their wagon to a holiday.  That’s my kind of gal!