Bob Wilkins, a Northern California TV personality whose dry wit and good taste in bad movies kept baby boomers up late Saturday nights to watch low-budget horror films, died Wednesday. He was 76.

He died in Reno of complications from Alzheimer's disease, said his wife, Sally.

Mr. Wilkins got his start as a pop-culture figure in 1966 as host of "Seven Arts Theater," a late-night Saturday movie show on KCRA Channel 3. He showed horror and sci-fi B movies – many made in Japanese and dubbed in English – including "Attack of the Mushroom People," "The Mummy's Hand," "The Blob" and "House on Haunted Hill."

He was an unlikely TV star, dressed in a suit and tie with his blond hair in a conservative cut and peering through horn-rimmed glasses. He sat in a rocking chair painted yellow to show off KCRA's then-new color broadcasts. He angered sponsors with warnings that the movies were so bad, viewers should change the channel or turn off the TV.

"Don't stay up late," he deadpanned. "It's not worth it."

Instead, Mr. Wilkins' ironic sense of humor drew young people to the kitschy show with the cool host who puffed a panatela cigar. He left Channel 3 to host the "Bob Wilkins Horror Show" on KTXL Channel 40 from 1970 to 1981.

He commuted to the Bay Area and expanded his audience as host of "Creature Features" on KTVU Channel 2 in Oakland from 1971 to 1979. He also interviewed horror and sci-fi stars on the late-night show, including Boris Karloff, Mark Hamill, Christopher Lee and William Shatner.

Mr. Wilkins influenced many artists in the comics and movie industries, including filmmaker George Lucas, said Scott Moon, publisher of Planet X Magazine and creator of a tribute Web site, www.bobwilkins.net. At public appearances, fans recalled fond childhood memories of his late-night shows.

"What you saw on TV was who he was in person," Moon said. "The movies were really scary, like 'Night of the Living Dead.' But when Bob would come on, he was so easygoing that he made it safe for you."

Robert Gene Wilkins was born in 1932 east of Chicago, the oldest of seven children reared by a steelworker and homemaker in Hammond, Ind. He worked in a steel mill and served in the Army in Korea before earning a bachelor's degree in marketing from Indiana University.

He worked at a Chicago advertising agency before moving to California in 1964 to join KCRA as a TV commercial writer and producer. His quick sense of humor as master of ceremonies at a retirement dinner caught the eye of station managers, who asked him to host a new, late-night show to keep Channel 3 on the air after the 11 p.m. news on Saturdays. He married a co-worker, Sally Dorety, in 1967 and had two children.

Mr. Wilkins, who also worked as a KTVU weatherman and children's show host, left TV in 1981. He started his own Bay Area advertising agency and moved to Reno by 1991 to be media director for John Ascuaga's Nugget. He retired in 1995.

Off screen, he was a devoted family man. The first in his working-class family to finish college, he bought a house for his parents and six younger sisters in Indiana before moving to California. He coached his son's Little League team, drove his daughter to ballet classes and enjoyed doing chores at home while watching Indiana University and Notre Dame sports on TV.

"He would sometimes have my sister and me come down to the studio and see the shows taped," said his son, Rob Wilkins. "But he and my mom would seldom let us stay up to watch the show. There were rules at home."

Call The Bee's Robert D. Dávila, (916) 321-1077.