During the commercial breaks, Carter, in character as Sammy Terry (a pun based on the word "cemetery"), would engage in camp banter with the audience and his floating rubber spider, "George".

After receiving a master's degree from Syracuse University, Carter worked as a disc jockey at a Fort Wayne, Indiana, radio station owned by Sarkes Tarzian.

[4] In 1961 he moved to Indianapolis, Indiana, and filled a number of positions at Tarzian's WTTV as producer, director and performer, including the hosting, for a time, of a three-hour morning talk show called Coffee with Carter.

Over time, the popularity of the voice-overs with viewers and sponsors inspired Carter and his producers to develop the character of "Sammy Terry" as an on-air personality—a cloaked, pale-faced ghoul who rose from his coffin on Friday nights, laughed ominously, introduced and occasionally berated the films, and provided commercial-break entertainment.

Renamed Nightmare Theater and with the banter mostly ad-libbed, the show and Carter’s portrayal of “Sammy Terry” won him a large-scale following in the region, which allowed him to be ranked with other horror hosts of the era who operated out of much larger broadcast markets.

On October 31, 2014, Sammy Terry hosted a benefit for the Historical Society in Greenfield, Indiana, with a stage show followed by a presentation of the 1950s horror classic House on Haunted Hill.