Stephen King is no stranger to both the big and small screens, having appeared in a number of movies based on his own books and having been a fixture on late night talk shows and other television programs for decades.
But one of his least-known appearances — at least to audiences outside of Maine and Atlantic Canada — is likely the spot King made with Maine TV legend Eddie Driscoll in 1983, which was featured on Driscoll’s late night horror and sci-fi movie show, “Weird 2” on WLBZ.
Northeast Historic Film, the Bucksport-based nonprofit that preserves historic film and video in New England, shared two clips of King and Driscoll’s oddball sketch that sees Driscoll, jealous of King having replaced him as Maine’s number one celebrity, scheming to eliminate the world-famous horror author. The clip has likely not been seen by the general public in decades.
In the sketch, Driscoll, ever the creative character, finds out from former Maine Gov. Percival Baxter that the secret to growing as big as Paul Bunyan is to drink a potato milkshake, daub a little clam juice behind your ears, and shout “TIMBER!”
Driscoll grows to giant size and comes after King, who after escaping throngs of screaming fans is minding his own business shoveling snow in front of his West Broadway home in Bangor. King who tries to fend off Giant Eddie with offers of an autograph, a free book and a cute little puppy named Cujo. It’s all set to the soundtrack of Pat Benatar’s “You Better Run,” for the full 1980s effect.
It’s all very silly, in keeping with Driscoll’s decades of local stardom as the host of multiple TV shows on WLBZ, the NBC affiliate in Bangor. Between the station’s inception in 1954 and when Driscoll retired in 1987, he hosted children’s shows like “My Backyard,” game shows like “Dialing for Dollars,” and his long-running late night movie show, “The Weird Show,” which had a second run as “Weird 2” in the 1980s, after its initial run in the 1960s and 70s.
Northeast Historic Film vault manager Karin Carlson-Snider said the organization has been digitizing WLBZ’s archive for years now, and is in the midst of processing multiple hours of classic footage through a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
