On this day in 1975, an Emmy-award winning special, used to promote Alice Cooper's first solo album Welcome To My Nightmare, aired on US television. Alice plays a boy named "Steven," the narrator who is trapped in a nightmare from which he cannot escape. The great Vincent Price appears as the Spirit of the Nightmare, who helps guide Steven through his experience. All 12 tracks from the album Welcome To My Nightmare were performed.
Alice Cooper originally conceived a Welcome to My Nightmare film that was radically different from what the album, concert and this tie-in TV special ultimately became. He met with director Daniel Mann to discuss the project on the set of Journey Into Fear (1975), where he was introduced to Vincent Price, who ended up not only supplying the narration to The Black Widow, but also a starring role in the concept as a whole.• Alice Cooper later recalled, Vincent 'was in his element because he had me on a leash... I said, "Don't be afraid to yank the leash. Make this like one of your movies where I'm just like this little pet of yours that you're showing around!”