Dick Dyszel moved to Washington in 1972 to play Bozo the Clown on WDCA-TV. Five years later, the clown got the hook and his character Captain 20—a Mr. Spock–like alien who morphed into human form over the years—finally landed his own show, thrilling kids around the region who’d previously seen him only during breaks in afternoon programming. During the same decade, Dyszel moved into a slightly more adult space with his creation Count Gore De Vol, who hosted Channel 20’s late-night “Creature Feature” on and off for more than a decade. Dyszel left TV in 1987 to focus on his DJ business, but he revived the Count for the web in 1998 and has maintained a little piece of Transylvania online ever since. (On October 25 at 7 pm, Count Gore De Vol will present The Texas Chainsaw Massacre at the AFI Silver in Silver Spring. Expect special guests.) Dyszel is also a regular on the convention circuit and a star of the “horrorhost underground,” comprising shadowy figures who often lure their victims via cable access and the web. We caught him at his lair in Florida. “I really had to fight to get my vampire on television. I came to Washington from Paducah, Kentucky, where I did host a horror show as ‘M.T. Graves.’ Milt Grant, who was the general manager of Channel 20, said, ‘Okay, Dick, we need to come up with a new name.’ Every day on the way to work, I drove past the DeVol Funeral Home. On Milt’s desk was a copy of a book by Gore Vidal, so maybe they both came together in my head. “The Count was really a creature of the studio. In 1984, we did a live show at Bethesda Cinema and Drafthouse. The organ rose out of the floor, and right at the edge of the platform was my coffin. I opened the coffin and started the show. “In 1974, Channel 20 was the hind end of television, as far as all the other stations went. No one really gave us any credibility for anything. Arch Campbell [the longtime Channel 4 entertainment reporter] came on the show, and he just loved it. I locked him into the coffin, and we’ve been friends ever since. “I once asked Jim Reed, our program director, ‘Can you tell me who is my audience on Saturday night?’ He put his feet up on his desk and took a giant drag on his cigarette. He said, ‘Dick, your audience is half female and half stoned.’ ” RelatedThe ‘Free Money’ Guy on How He Got His Start—and Those Crazy Suits This article appears in the October 2024 issue of Washingtonian.The post Former Local TV Fixture Dick Dyszel on Being Count Gore De Vol first appeared on Washingtonian.