Happy birthday Gailard Sartain aka Dr. Mazeppa Pompazoidi
Before Tulsan Gailard Sartain joined the cast of the "Hee Haw" TV show and acted in movies, he was Dr. Mazeppa Pompazoidi on the late night weekend show "The Uncanny Film Festival and Camp Meeting." The show, shown locally for three years starting in 1970, starred Jim Millaway, aka Sherman Oaks, and Gary Busey, who went by Teddy Jack Eddy, whose own manic presence added to the sketch show that was always unpredictable.
On Gailard's birthday today, Sept. 18, we wanted to share some photos we found in the Tulsa World Archive.
Also from the Tulsa World Archive:
Gailard Sartain
From 1970-73, the Mazeppa crew performed sketch comedy that aired between breaks of whatever movie was showing that night on KOTV, usually horror films, sometimes Busby Berkeley musicals.
Gailard Sartain
Sartain once described himself as “fearless and unsophisticated” during the Mazeppa years. “Ignorant is probably a better word,” he told the Tulsa World in 2017. “‘Fearless’ sounds like there is some sort of brave underlying (element), but I just stumbled through it.”
Gailard Sartain
Sartain was in his 20s during the filming of “Dr. Mazeppa Pompazoidi’s Uncanny Film Festival and Camp Meeting.”
Gailard Sartain
When Sartain was not acting on the show, he was a cameraman. He still swept the floor after his show.
Gailard Sartain
When did Sartain know Mazeppa was hot? He told this story in a story looking back at his career: “We would do these phony drawings. We had a squirrel cage kind of thing in there where I would put one envelope in it and say ‘let’s go see who won something this week.’ That was just a gag. People said, ‘oh, I guess we can write in.’ We just got deluged with letters and stuff. So we knew we were on the right track there.”
Gailard Sartain
Tulsa-based manager and agent Jim Halsey, whose company was, at one time, the top country music agency in the world, once described Sartain’s local following as “legion, almost religious.”
Gailard Sartain
“Dr. Mazeppa Pompazoidi’s Uncanny Film Festival and Camp Meeting” was on TV on Saturday nights in Tulsa. Not too many years later, another sketch show, "Saturday Night Live," first appeared on NBC.
Gailard Sartain
Sartain in his home in October 1984. Before he got the acting bug, he was working on a master’s degree in art at the University of Tulsa with the goal to become an art teacher.
Gailard Sartain
Jim Millaway and Sartain hold a framed matchbox cover that helped inspire the name of the show.
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