The Cool Ghoul

and his inimitable tongue-fluttering "Bl-bl-bl-bl-bl-bl-bl-bl-bl-bl...", The Cool Ghoul was an icon of Cincinnati television, radio and local pop culture for over four decades.

The Cool Ghoul's origins date back to 1961, when Von Hoene worked on a WCPO (now WDBZ) radio show called "Bob Smith's Monster Mash".

Around that time, The Cool Ghoul started appearing in comedy routines Von Hoene wrote for colleague and puppeteer Larry Smith.

Many years later, Von Hoene was told that it was only the rear half of a wig that costumer Dana Bruce made for a customer who was subsequently killed in a car crash.

During the early 1970s, The Cool Ghoul hosted his own Saturday night horror movie show, Scream-In (the name was taken from Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In).

In the early 1980s, Von Hoene took The Cool Ghoul to WCTI-TV in New Bern, North Carolina, earning a new generation of fans in the process.