The Hosts

Nightfall featured two hosts over the course of its three-year run, both of whom were unsavory characters with questionable histories and, very likely, long and detailed records with the RCMP. Still, nothing was ever proven against either of them, so they remained at liberty to darken listeners' dreams every Friday night.

During Bill Howell's tenure as Coordinating/Executive Producer at CBC Toronto, the Host was a nefarious character with a gravelly voice named Luther Kranst (aka Victor Rundtfunk), whom Howell first met in a darkened corner booth at a truck stop outside Piapot, Saskatchewan in 1970, and describes as "enormously dark and distinguished-looking" and "a powerfully hypnotic personna". What more could one ask for in the host of a radio horror series?

When production control of Nightfall was transferred to CBC Vancouver for the series' third year, new Executive Producer Don Kowalchuk sought out a west coast counterpart to Kranst and found him in the form of Frederick Hende. This new Host was a smooth-voiced ne'er-do-well that lured unwary listeners down a dark alley and offered to sell them some "hot" new merchandise. Except it was usually a terrifying story he had inside his dark trenchcoat instead of a collection of Rolex watches.

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Content ©2006  The Nightfall-25 Project
Nightfall was created by Bill Howell and is property of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
The Nightfall-25 Project is not affiliated with the CBC

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