Knott's Scary Farm - Before Halloween Horror Nights, Before Oogie-Boogie Bash, Knott's Got Boysenscary! - The Lowdown on the Plus-up - A Theme Park Podcast

Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_08 (01:11):
Hello and welcome to the Lowdown on the Plus Up, a
podcast where we look ateveryone's favorite theme park
attractions, lands, textures,and novelties.
We talk in, over, about, andthrough our week's topic, and
then, with literally no concernfor practicality, safety, or
economic viability, we come upwith ways to make them better.

(01:31):
My name is Kelly McCubbin,columnist for the theme park
website Boardwalk Times, andwith me as always is Peter
Overstreet, University Professorof Animation and Film History in
Northern California.

SPEAKER_04 (01:57):
So Pete, what are we talking about today?
Well, today we're heading toBuenaparque, California to talk
about uh something that hasbecome a staple for this time of
year, the when we're recordingthis.
We're almost uh upon that spookyseason of Halloween.
That's right.
Yeah, so in Buenaparque, thereis uh uh a wonderful, wonderful

(02:20):
event that goes on annually anduh has been doing so for a good
many of years, almost as long asI've been alive.
Yeah, since 1973, and so that isnot scary farm.
Not scary farm.
Yes, otherwise known as thehaunt.
Right, yeah.
Yeah, so you it some people sayone thing, some people say

(02:42):
another, and I'm sure that thereare schisms within fandom out
there that will go, oh man,people who call it the haunt.
Those are like people who callSan Francisco Frisco.

SPEAKER_08 (02:49):
Oh well, but you know, for the first two years it
wasn't called Knot Scary Farm.
Right.

SPEAKER_04 (02:54):
Yeah, so this is this is a special event.
It is not a theme park initself.
Yes.
And yet it is.

SPEAKER_08 (03:02):
Yeah, no, I'm trying to figure out what theme park
would Knott's Scary Farm be in.

SPEAKER_04 (03:10):
Oh.
Yes, it's in Knott's Berry Farmin Buenaporte, California.

SPEAKER_08 (03:16):
I think this is the first time we've visited Knotts
on the show, isn't it?
Yes.

SPEAKER_04 (03:20):
Uh and I think this is a great way to actually kind
of get started uh in that.
Yeah.
You and I have actually talkedabout a couple of different
attractions and uh areas that uhwe can discuss.
Right.
But the trick is doing deepdives on this thing without
having to just regurgitatewhat's out there in the in the
media.

SPEAKER_08 (03:37):
So yeah.
So you you you are a haunt guy.
You've run many a successfulhaunt.

SPEAKER_04 (03:44):
Oh, yeah.
So a little background here.
Yeah.
Uh I may have mentioned this onthe show before, but I've I've
been doing haunted housesprofessionally since I was five
years old.
Yeah.
Yeah, wow.
I mean, I made my first gig wasuh I was bored.
It was the middle of summer, soit was not the time of year.
Yeah.
Literally five years old in SanSouth San Jose, California.

(04:07):
I took two fold-out card tablesand I stretched out this dark
sheet from my dad's bed over it,and I put some sleeping bags and
some other pads underneath it.
I think I actually used cushionsfrom the couch and I draped
something over it so we wouldn'tget motor oil on it or
something.
Brought out my little FisherPrice record player and I was
playing uh thrilling, chillingsounds of a haunted house from

(04:28):
Disney Records on it.
Yes.
But not the classic one thateverybody knows with the orange
covered.
Right.
It was in fact a second editionthat was only released in 78 or
79, and it was deemed far tooscary to be selling to children
because it actually has a coupleof scenes in it, including like
a uh the living dead attacking agrave robber.

(04:50):
Whoa.
And another one in which uh it'sa full-on Jack the Ripper scene.
Wow.
And it's really intense.
Yeah, that seems whollyinappropriate.
It's incredibly inappropriate,but I had it because my mom
thought it was the original one.
Uh-huh.
And so I would play that myrecord player.
So the record player wasstanding on top of the haunted
house, and uh, or as I calledit, the haunted tunnel.

(05:12):
Yes.
Badly misspelled tunel.
Uh-huh.
Haunted tunel.
Because you're five, you know,and you're drawing with magic
marker.
Those really smelly magicmarkers from the 70s that made
you high just by being nearthem.

SPEAKER_08 (05:25):
Tell me you put an umlaut over the you.

SPEAKER_04 (05:28):
Please tell me.
Maybe, not on purpose, but uhthe haunted tunnel.
Yeah, it was my it was I see.
I was into Verna Herzog eventhen.

SPEAKER_01 (05:36):
He was going to make a haunted tunnel.
And he he would play the verythrilling, chilling sounds of
the haunted house.
That's good stuff.

SPEAKER_04 (05:49):
And uh so and I would charge 25 cents to walk
through the haunted tunnel.
And I had scotch tape like paperdecorations for Halloween, and I
had a couple of rubber spiders,I had a rubber skeleton, and
then I had a Tor Johnson mask.
Oh, awesome.
Tor Johnson from Plan 9 fromOuter Space with the big crack
on the forehead.
He was like the number oneselling mask, apart from any

(06:09):
Star Wars character that year.
Yeah.
It was like Darth Vader, 3 CPO,and Tor Johnson.
Like those are the big, the bigdeal there.

SPEAKER_08 (06:19):
Did I think did you just say 3 CPO?

SPEAKER_04 (06:21):
I did.
And there's a reason for that.
We won't talk about that'sforeshadowing, folks.
So we'll get to that in aminute.
But I would wait at the end ofthe tunnel with my Tor Johnson
mask.
Oh, my babysitter, Katie Bell,and her her best friend walking
around.
And this is hot summer South SanJose summer.
So it's like 90 degrees out.
They're walking around.

(06:41):
Like I would do stuff.
You ever like take a gardenhose, you put it in, you know,
on the driveway or somethinglike that, and you float your
little green army men down it.
Oh, yeah.
Like pretending it's oh, it's atorrent river and the Viet Cong
are after us.
Yeah.
I mean, that shows ourgeneration, but I I still do it,
but except the enemies havechanged.

SPEAKER_08 (06:59):
Why?
I have a little miniature MarlonBrando that sits at the end
staring at me.
I swallowed a bug.
Yeah, swallow the bug.

SPEAKER_05 (07:08):
Did you know that today is the last day of the
rest of your life?
Yeah, thanks, Marlon.
Yeah, okay.
Shut up.

SPEAKER_04 (07:15):
Yeah.
So um, and so Katie Bell and herfriend would go through on hands
and knees, and I'm playing therecord of like, look out, it's
uh, you know, like a little kid,look out, there's a monster.
Eek, there's a bat in there.
Eek, you know, because you'redoing your best.
It was my very first attempt.
Yeah.
And then I'm waiting at the end,and so when you part the
curtains, I'd be waiting therewith my Tor Johnson mask on, and

(07:35):
I would go, except when you'refive, a Tor Johnson mask is
really, really big on your head.
Yes.
And so when I would lurchforward, it would spin around
180 degrees.
And so Katie and her friendwould go through and they would
just laugh their butts off.
Uh-huh.
They would like we were and theywould start tickling me because
I was like a kid that theybabysat, and it was like, and

(07:56):
they paid me.
I got 50 cents.
The ice cream man came to ourblock and I bought a drumstick,
and I was super happy.

SPEAKER_08 (08:03):
So that was my first haunted venture.
And that was the most moneyyou've ever made on one.

SPEAKER_04 (08:09):
No.
No.

SPEAKER_03 (08:11):
I know that's not true.

SPEAKER_04 (08:12):
But I have I have professionally, as either an
actor, a designer, or directorof haunted houses in Northern
California for over 40 years.
There's a lot of influences.
Like you start learning whenyou've been in the business long
enough, you start learning wherethe origins of this
entertainment medium come from.

SPEAKER_08 (08:30):
And it's stunning how many of them are right here
with this haunt.
Yes.
A lot.
In fact, in fact, I'm lookingfor you to tell me when I go too
far with this.
But I think that pretty much anyhaunt that you see in a theme
park now.
Yes.
This is the origin of that.

SPEAKER_04 (08:50):
Yes.
That they were the first toreally tackle it.
They were not the first hauntedhouse.
Nope.
That honor goes to a Britishwalkthrough in the 1930s.
Tell me about that.
Uh I don't remember the name ofit.
Uh-huh.
Because we'll go more into depthon haunted houses a later time.
Because we'll probably go intothis with like a Haunted Mansion
episode forthcoming.

(09:11):
Yeah.
But there was a haunt in GreatBritain that was basically a fun
house where they decided to addghosts and a few other things,
and it was just actors in thiskind of darkened maze.
Uh-huh.
Um, and it was right next to ahelter skelter slide.

SPEAKER_08 (09:27):
Oh, interesting.

SPEAKER_04 (09:28):
So very British.
Yeah.
Very, very British.
It was called the, you know, itwas like a haunted castle or
something like that.
Very, you know, very, verysimple.
It was not anything major, butthat was in the 1930s.
Wow.
So as far as the actual likehaunt approach, that's the
1930s.
Yeah.
It really kicks in uh in theearly 70s.
Right.

(09:49):
There are haunted housesalready.
They do exist.
And most of them are amateur.
A lot of them are thrown on byorganizations like the YMCA, the
JCs.
Yeah.
There are even churches that areputting on haunted attractions.
Right.
Uh, mostly as a fundraiser.
Yeah.
But then you also have the riseof horror hosts.

SPEAKER_08 (10:07):
And this and this is all about the dovetail to our
main topic here.
Exactly.

SPEAKER_04 (10:12):
I'm kind of showing these early, I'm doing our deep
dive early influences that ledto the birth of what we're going
to talk about.
Yeah.
Okay.
So the horror host.
It started off with a theaterpackage that was sent out by
Universal Studios in order tomake some extra bucks.
It was sent off to almost everysingle independently owned
television station all acrossAmerica.
And you got this great booklet.

(10:33):
Yeah.
When you opened it up, like onthe front, it just said shock.
Yeah.
And you opened it up, and therewas this pop-up of Frankenstein,
who, you know, when you open itup, it goes and it lurches out
at you.
And it was a it's a verysimplistic.
I've got a PDF of this thing.
Yeah.
It's very simplistic language,basically saying we have a

(10:53):
catalog of 52 movies.
Yeah.
Pay us a very small fee, arelatively small fee.
And you can show these movies asmany times as you like all year
round.
Yeah.
You know, you can make it yourwhole program if you want.
And the reason why that was sentout is King Kong, a year or two
before the release of the shocktheater package, was broadcast

(11:13):
to such huge numbers on theNelson's ratings, that the
station said, let's run itagain.
And so kids who had never seenKing Kong in the theaters, they
had shown movies before, but notfantastic cinema.
Yeah.
Like King Kong.
Yeah.
And it got such huge numbers,they're like, what else we got?
Yeah.
And so Universal, who was notdoing so well at the time uh in

(11:33):
the f in the early 50s, youknow, they had had a hit with
Creature from the Black Lagoonand it came from outer space,
but that wasn't enough tosustain an entire studio.
So they needed to diversifytheir income.
Their solution was to rent out acatalog of horror and mystery
movies.
And so their list includedclassics like Dracula,

(11:55):
Frankenstein, The Wolfman, TheMummy.

SPEAKER_08 (11:57):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (11:58):
And even some more obscure ones like The Black Cat,
uh, The Man, you know, The ManThey Could Not Hang, stuff like
that.
But it also had a lot of reallybad movies on there as well.
Some that were not sosuccessful.
Right.
You know, some bad, you know,dark old house, house of mystery
kind of movies that weren't allthat great.
Yeah.
Murders in the Black Museum,stuff like that.

(12:18):
Just it's okay, it's fine.
Yeah.
But there were 52 of them.
So if all you did was show one amonth, you've got your value.
Right.
But a lot of these stages, well,let's run them five days a week.
Yeah.
You know, and they needed a wayto put it out there.
And so no one knows exactly how,but almost simultaneously, as

(12:40):
soon as those theater packagesstarted coming in, the shock
theater packages startedarriving, which were like these
huge boxes filled with filmcanisters of all those movies.
They would just go like, here'syour prints, run them, yeah, run
them through your Moviolo,whatever the broadcast
equivalent there has is.
These weather broadcasters andnewscasters and announcers

(13:03):
started dressing up and draculacate and so forth as a way to
break the tension for thesemovies.
And I think it was because ofthe 50s attitude that this is
some of these movies mightactually still be considered
deviant.
Right.
Some of them might see likefreaks.

(13:25):
It still feels that.
The island of Dr.
Moreau, you know, like theisland of lost souls.
Yeah.
That is a very shocking moviefor its time.
Uh and so you needed a host tobreak the tension for the kids
and the families who might bewatching of saying, Yeah, that's
just a movie.
You know, that was their way ofkind of breaking it up.
But there was only a handful ofthem in that first year on

(13:47):
opposite sides of the UnitedStates.
Yeah.
We're talking like 69?
No, we're talking 53, 55.
Oh, wow.
Okay.
Early, early.
Yeah, early 50 broadcast.
So these were live, and there'snot a lot of footage of these
people because, again, they werelive.
And most, and the only reasonwhy we have some of the footage
is their fans would take their16 millimeter cameras and aim it

(14:08):
at their television so that waythey could actually record it.
So the footage we have is kindof patchy and gross.
Right.
But we have a lot ofphotographs, we have a lot of
anecdotes about them.

SPEAKER_03 (14:18):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (14:19):
The first one was down in Los Angeles.
It was a woman who was born inAstoria, Oregon.
Not in Oregon.
She was from Finland originally,but she was raised in uh
Astoria, Washington.

SPEAKER_08 (14:29):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (14:30):
Her name was Maya Nurmy, and Maya had moved to Los
Angeles.
She wanted to be a model.
Uh she wanted to do cheesecakeand pinup and that kind of
stuff.
Yeah.
And she got dressed up asMorticia Adams at a Halloween
party and was spotted by aproducer and said, You're
perfect.
You're what we need.

SPEAKER_08 (14:47):
And this this Morticia Adams thing was going
to come back to bite her later.

SPEAKER_04 (14:52):
Yes.
Although it wasn't the MorticiaAdams from the TV show.
She was basing it on the comicstrip.
Yeah.
And she was the first to reallydo this.
So she had the torn dress, shehad the long fingernails, the
long hair, and I'm talking aboutVampira.
Vampira, yeah.
Vampira.
And she would come down thislong hallway with this creepy
music and walk, and there's fogon the ground.
Yeah.
And she'd slink towards you, andyou suddenly realized she has

(15:14):
this incredibly narrow waist,and apparently it was like a
17-inch waist.
She held the world's record forthe world's smallest waist for
the longest, longest time.
Yeah.
And she always looked, you know,Forrest J.
Ackerman used to say I would beamazed to see like her break in
half because it looked like shewould as she walked.
But yeah, so she came out andthen she would look right in the
camera and scream at the top ofher lungs.

(15:37):
And then as soon as the screamwas over, she would go, Oh,
screaming relaxes me so.
And she became a phenomenon in atime of fear because this is the
height of McCarthyism.
Yes.
The whack is going on.
Yes.
Anti-communist movement.
Horror comics are getting bannedand burned at this time.

(15:57):
Right.
And here comes this woman downthe hallway, basically
simulating an orgasm.
Because that was how sheintended it to be.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know, and she wouldlanguidly talk about the film
and you know, I'm going to drinksome vampire, you know,
cocktail.
It'll petrify my nerves.

(16:18):
She would hypnotize peoplethrough the screen.
And she became a phenomenon, notjust with guys who were looking
at this pretty girl with bigknockers, and uh, you know, uh,
or and it wasn't just for kids.
Suburban moms were gettingtogether late at night, their
husbands are out bowling, andthey would watch Vampira

(16:38):
Together because it was likefeminine empowerment.
She became a feminist symbol forwomen who were feeling sexually
repressed and societallyrepressed.
Yeah.
She's like, I'm now I'm nohousewife, and I'm the only
non-housewife on television.
Right.
I'm single, I know it, and Idon't care.
Yeah.

(16:59):
Wow.
And she was and she got awaywith it.
She totally got away with it,and she was rewarded for it.
Yeah.
But but on the other side of theUnited States, you had another
person who was starting this up.
He started off as a televisionactor, played an undertaker in a
Western show.
Yeah.
And he so he had the outfit, andhis name was John Zakirl.

(17:22):
Yes.
And John Zakerl eventuallybecame Roland for Shock Theater.

SPEAKER_02 (17:30):
Yes, let me tell you, my friends in uh in
Transylvania.
What was that, my dear?
What?
Don't you talk to me that way?

SPEAKER_04 (17:40):
And we're going to play with a brain, and he'd
break out like a cauliflower andput electrodes into it and shoot
sparks into the cauliflower,pretending to be his brain.
He would have a jello mold thatwas full of coconut and stuff
like that.

SPEAKER_02 (17:51):
We've got a giant big amoeba here.
We're gonna be watching a moviehere that's gonna be called
Dracula, the Prince of Darkness,the Evil One, and uh join us
today on Shock Theater.

SPEAKER_04 (18:02):
And he was live.
Yeah.
He would he would have peoplewrite letters and he'd read the
letters, and the kids are like,wow, it's a connection to the
communities.
Yeah.
These creepy people that weresafe for kids to like, it was
like this way of these hosts togo, horror hosts had been born.
And the host's job was to go,like, look, you might get in
trouble for staying up late forwatching this movie.

(18:22):
Right.

SPEAKER_03 (18:22):
But let's do it anyway and have some fun while
we're doing it.

SPEAKER_04 (18:25):
You know, like let's do this.
And this this is Zacherly,right?
The great Zachary.
Yeah.
He started off as Roland.

SPEAKER_08 (18:31):
Yeah, Roland Trillon shot later.
His last name seems so obviousthat it should be Zacherly.
The fact that he missed it thefirst time.
Right.

SPEAKER_04 (18:40):
But Zacherly reached national fame when he became one
of the first horror hosts everin the same year of Vampira
getting a featured article inLife magazine.
Zacherly, uh about a year later,was featured on the cover of
Famous Monsters of Filmmagazine.

SPEAKER_08 (18:57):
Do you know, was Vampira still local at that
point?
Was she local TV or had shebeen?
She was always local.
Okay.

SPEAKER_04 (19:04):
The only way that people knew about her
internationally or nationally,she made a couple of appearances
on a couple, like the Jack Parrshow and things like that.
She would come out and make aguest appearance.

SPEAKER_08 (19:15):
Wow, this is so interesting because the
parallels with um the womanwe're going to talk about very
shortly are so similar.
Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (19:24):
Yeah.
She did not Vampira reallydidn't become popular nationally
until after she was fired afterabout 18 months.

SPEAKER_08 (19:33):
Right.
And that had to have been late60s at that point?

SPEAKER_04 (19:38):
Mid-50s.
Mid-50s.
Mid-50s.
She did not last long at all.
Yeah.
But she m left her markindelibly.
And she was replaced by uh oh ohuh what was her name?
She was called Voleptuina orsomething like that.
And she showed this other womanwas this blonde with big bosoms
that would show romance movies.

SPEAKER_08 (19:58):
Uh-huh.
That's not the same thing.

SPEAKER_04 (20:00):
No, it is definitely, it was, it was the
complete and that did not lastlong at all.
You know, like some of the guyswere tuning in, but all the the
housewives and stuff who hadbeen tuning in with their secret
vampire parties like, what isthis?
Yeah.
You know, like it was the qu theto them, it was the equivalent
of exploring alternativesexuality, not just with the SM
and bondage stuff that wasalways implied with vampira.

(20:22):
Right.
But it was also the fact thatwomen could feel desire to.
There's actually a greatbiography out there just about
Vampira the character.
Uh-huh.
And then there's one that'swritten by Sandra Namey about
it.
It was called Glamour Ghoul.
That is more about the actualbiographical information about
Maya.
Right.
If you have these two together,it's a very, very fascinating.

(20:44):
Yeah.
Um, and then you have Zacharygoing, Zachary lasted on
television off and on.
He was in Philly, he was inChicago, he was everywhere for a
long, long time.
Yeah.
He just lasted.
But Vampiro is so outspoken.
She was one of these peoplethat, you know, managed to rub
the misogynistic, you know, TVproducers the wrong way one too

(21:06):
many times.
Right.
Out she went.
But the horror host had beenclearly established as a public
phenomenon and it startedpopping up everywhere.
Yeah.
And so you have Goulardi inCleveland.
Yeah.
You have Graves Ghastly, youhave uh so many people.
But then there was this actorwho kind of started off as a

(21:29):
comedian and character actor.
He'd be on like Rawhide andRango and all that kind of
stuff.
And his name was Larry Vincent.
Yes.
Great Larry Vincent.
And I think he was actually in acouple of Three Stooges movies
as a background actor orsomething.
But I think that's right.
Yeah.
And he he was a working actorand he got a job on the same

(21:50):
station, KTLA, in Los Angeles,to basically take over the shock
theater package, but he had acompletely different style.
I mean, obviously he's not goingto be this bucksome SM beauty.
Yeah.
But he dressed in the you know ablack suit, this big flowing,
you know, opera cape, and thisfabulous wide-brim black fedora.

(22:12):
Yeah.
And he has this kind of almost,you know, he he looks like a mix
between Vincent Price and LeeVan Cleef.
Yeah.
So good.
And he he would bash into thesemovies.
Yeah.
He would call them absolutegarbage to your face.
But we're still gonna, you know,he had this very definite way of
talking.
Yeah.
Hello, hello, dummies.

(22:33):
Welcome to uh shock theater.
And he called himself SinisterSeymour.
Sinister Seymour.
Sinister Seymour's fright night.
He started in 1969 on KTLA.
Yeah.
And he became an absolutephenomenon.
He had a shockmobile orsomething like that.
I forget the name of it.
He had a car that was designedby the Barris Corporation, the

(22:54):
people behind the Batmobile.
Oh, cool.
They, you know, they had custommade this van that he could
drive around and make personalappearances in and had creepy,
you know, coffin lights on itand stuff.
It wasn't that fantastic.
It was no Batmobile.
Oh, right, yeah.
But it was designed by theBarris Corporation because it
was LA, it was local.
And Z and uh not Zachary, sorry,Seymour was so popular.

(23:16):
Yeah.
He you know, he called his fansfringies.
Yeah.
Because this is that era, right?
You know, 1969.
Hello, fringies! Yeah.
I'd like to tell you about howmuch I love this motion picture.
Yeah.
I'd like to, but it's not mystyle.
We're gonna watch theNeanderthal man.
It's a movie about a man namedNeanderthal.
You know, and he would he had aphone booth on you know, a

(23:37):
little phone on his wall.
He had this creepy, slimy wallthat he would crawl out of.
Yeah.
Kind of like the Homer Simpsonmeme where he would just appear
through the the muck.
Yeah.
And he would come out and uh hewould introduce the movie, and
sometimes he would inter like hewould stop the movie, make a
joke about it, and just go rightback into the movie.
You just stop it, and you werejust like waiting for him to

(23:58):
make a joke.
And eventually people startedsaying, Hey, let's do some live
shows.
Yeah.
And and the live shows where hewould just stand off to the
side, he would have like athrone off to the side with a
microphone, and he would docommentary over the film while
you were watching it.
Wow.
And the fringies loved it.
There was it just hit thischord, and it's it's the 60s.

(24:19):
This is the time of laughing.
This is the time in which peopleare making fun of the
establishment.
Yeah.
So that kind of cynic humor wasvery, very popular, and he
really hit a chord.

SPEAKER_08 (24:29):
And we would be remiss if we did not also
mention his assistant who latertook over his show, Muna Lisa.

SPEAKER_04 (24:36):
Muna Lisa, yes, indeed.
The great Muna Lisa.
So we'll talk about how she tookover because that that's kind of
an extension of where we'regoing.
Yeah.
So now that you guys know theselittle origin points of these
are the ingredients that makethe giant bowl of if you really
want to get into Knott's berryfarm, parlance, the the the

(24:58):
fried chicken, yeah.
Yeah, Mrs.
Knott's chicken and cornbreadand boys and berry jam.
Like this is this is all thethings that go into making what
is going to be not scary farm.

SPEAKER_08 (25:11):
So there's some interesting stuff that happens
as we move up to 1973.
Um, Sinister Seymour's still onthe air.
Uh I I think up until like ayear or so before that, and then
Muna Lisa's taken over his showfor one reason or another.
I'm not sure why.
Yeah.
But we we come up to 1973.
A few interesting things happenin 1973.

(25:32):
One, and this will make sense alittle bit later, is a DJ who
has started to gain somenotoriety around the country uh
gets a spot in George Lucas'American Graffiti movie.
Yes, indeed.
At that point, everyone suddenlyknows what Wolfman Jack looks

(25:55):
like.

SPEAKER_04 (25:56):
Yep.

SPEAKER_08 (25:56):
And I didn't know this until I was researching for
this episode.
Did you know that Wolfman Jackgot a percentage of American
graffiti?

SPEAKER_04 (26:04):
That makes a lot of sense.
Uh especially since that moviecame out.
He would mention it almost allthe time.
That's right.
Yeah.
He he made a lot of money.
Mr.
Robert Weston Smith, aka WolfmanJack.

SPEAKER_08 (26:18):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (26:19):
That's right, baby.
And we'll Wolfman Jack.

SPEAKER_08 (26:22):
We'll go a little bit into his biography shortly.
That happened in 73.
Um, also, Knotts had two reallyinteresting things happen in
their park in that same year.
Yep.
At this point, the Knottsfamily, mostly the kids, are
still pretty much running it,and they and they stay involved
until they sell it uh to CedarFair in like the 90s.

(26:46):
Yes.
But they're not involved in thescary farm at all.
That's a different team atKnott's.

SPEAKER_04 (26:51):
No, they don't they don't want anything to do with
it.
They're not really thatinterested.
Well, and just to put a pause onthis, just to give a quick I
mean, there's plenty ofinformation out there, but just
so that way you don't have to gosearching on Google for this.
So Knott's Berry Farm actuallywas a berry farm.
It started off in Buenaparque,California.
Um, they had a failed businessventure before and they decided

(27:14):
to go for it.
And uh basically Walter Knott uhwas a farmer who was developing
different types of berries.
And one of which he actuallynamed after a friend of his, Mr.
Boysen.
That's right.
The Boysenberry was invented byMr.
Walter Knott.
And grown initially at Knott'sberry farm.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
I mean, that's the origin pointof it.

(27:35):
And uh so they were a roadsidefruit stand at first.

SPEAKER_08 (27:39):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (27:40):
Uh you'd go get boysenberries because it was the
only place you could get it, andyou drive home.
Yeah.
Or if you're on your way to SanDiego or Anaheim or wherever
else, another agricultural townof no significance at that
point.
Yeah.
And uh he had been all set up tohave this farming venture, and
then there was this massiveflood that hit that area, and it

(28:01):
killed a lot of his crops.
So they need to make some extramoney.
So Mrs.
Knott started making chicken andserving it up to people who
would come and peep first eatingthis amazing chicken of Mrs.
Knott's.
Yeah.
And you would start going allthe way down from Los and let's
go get Mrs.
Knott's chicken from and they'dhop in their Model T's and head

(28:24):
on down to you can still do ittoday.
Yes.
The lines are still around theblock.
It is infamous.

SPEAKER_08 (28:30):
Yeah, and and you don't have to go in the theme
park to eat at the chickenrestaurant.

SPEAKER_04 (28:34):
Nope.
To this day.

SPEAKER_08 (28:36):
Um, but yeah, so the she built the chicken
restaurant, it it took off.
Um, they just started puttingattractions in to give people
something to do while they werewaiting for their chicken.

SPEAKER_04 (28:47):
And a lot of it was really simple stuff, like a
mule, a mule train ride, yeah,and then uh you know, panning
for gold, which Mr.
Walter Knott always put the goldin by hand himself.
Yeah, I love this.
Until he died.
Yeah, which is pretty great.

SPEAKER_08 (29:01):
Mr.
Knott had a lot of interestingthings about his character, but
some of them I love.
Yeah, some I love, you know.
Some of them are like, whoa.

SPEAKER_04 (29:09):
But yeah.
So and then he eventually likehe made enough money where he
would he says, I need people, Ineed to give people something to
do while they're waiting for youknow Ma's chicken because we're
waiting for like an hour and ahalf for this now.
Yeah.
So he bought a ghost town.
Yeah.
Like you do.
Yeah.
He bought a town and he named itCalico after the actual mining
town of Calico.

(29:29):
Yeah.
And he started havingstagecoaches added to it and
said stagecoach rides, andwesterns were taking off as a
popular movie format.
So he started addinggunslingers, and it just
exploded until it really becamean honest to God theme park
where they charged a separateadmission to get into.

SPEAKER_08 (29:48):
And a weird, interesting aside is that later
he actually also bought Calico.

unknown (29:54):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 (29:54):
Yeah, the real place.
And I think we talked a littlebit about this in the Gravity
Shack episode because.
Both Knotts' version of uhCalico at the theme park and
actual Calico had gravity shacksin them.

SPEAKER_04 (30:08):
Yes, they did.
Yeah, they and yeah.
Knotts no longer does.
Sadly, its mystery shack nolonger exists.
Yeah, I think it rotted and hadYeah, it did not do well.
I was lucky enough to go into itat least once when I was a kid.

SPEAKER_08 (30:20):
But it it but it tie but it's used a lot in these
early scary farms.
But real quick, let me finish73.
Please.
Uh so the Wolfman Jackson inAmerican Graffiti.
Yeah.
Um, a couple of people that workat Knott's who are sort of high
up but are not Knott's familymembers, George Condos and
Martha Boyd, uh, who areinstrumental in putting the
scary farm together.

(30:42):
But before that, they decide totake this little drawn cowboy
character that's on a wholebunch of Knott's advertising and
turn him into a walk-aroundtheme park character named
Whittles.

unknown (30:57):
Ha!

SPEAKER_08 (30:58):
Trans Whittles.

SPEAKER_04 (30:59):
Hey, everybody.
Have you seen pictures ofWhittles?
No, but I'm I'm pulling out theright now.
Whittles is terrifying.
Oh my god.

SPEAKER_08 (31:08):
The proportions are they're accurate to the
drawings, but in real life,they're just like, oh my god,
what's wrong with this?
Whittles ends up being adisastrous failure.
Like kids are crying when theysee Whittles.
He's this prospector guy, right?
He is absolutely the prospectorguy.
Yep.

SPEAKER_04 (31:27):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 (31:28):
But there's a walk-around actual costumed
character version of that.

SPEAKER_04 (31:32):
Oh.
Oh God.
Yeah.
No, that thing's terrifying.

SPEAKER_08 (31:37):
It's awful.

SPEAKER_04 (31:38):
Yeah, he's Gabby Hayes.
Yes, he is, absolutely.
He's absolutely who was a verypopular actor at that time.
But yeah, Whittles is justterrifying.
He's like he's like homelessSanta Claus.

SPEAKER_08 (31:49):
Yeah.
Yeah.
He's the prospector without thecharm.

SPEAKER_04 (31:52):
It's great.
Yeah.
I'm standing behind my mule overhere, pops.

SPEAKER_08 (31:57):
Patty, partner.
So that that kind of came andwent.
It was a huge disaster forCondos and Boyd.
Yeah.
Also, there's a guy named BillHollingshead.

SPEAKER_03 (32:06):
Yep.

SPEAKER_08 (32:07):
Bill Hollingshead.
Yeah, very, very involved in thecreation of the scary farm.
He is, he's not only famous forhis work with knots, and there's
quite a bit, but he's alsofamous for being someone who
booked a lot of vintage rockacts.
Yes.
And a weird thing happened in1973 at Knotts.

(32:27):
He booked the Everly Brothers.
Now the Everly Brothers aregreat.
I love the Everly Brothers.
But this was a point when theywere really falling apart.
Yeah.
So they do a performance in 1973at Knotts where Don just gets
fed up on stage, smashes hisguitar into the ground, and

(32:52):
walks off.
Leaving Phil to finish the showon his own.
Phil Phil tries manfully for asong or two until Hollingshead
comes and pulls him off thestage.
Oh Lord.
The Everly brothers broke up onthe not stage that night.

SPEAKER_04 (33:10):
Was this in the John Wayne Theater?

SPEAKER_08 (33:13):
Might have might have been, I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_04 (33:15):
What what or what would become the John Wayne
Theater?
Or was this in the disastrousgypsy camp?

SPEAKER_08 (33:21):
Oh, no, I it wasn't in the gypsy camp.
Okay.
I don't know how long the gypsycamp lasted, but they got rid of
it.

SPEAKER_04 (33:29):
Yeah, they got rid of it.
It is now the Roaring Twentiesarea.
Right.
But Gypsy Camp was another badmove by the management of
Knott's at the time.
Yes.
I don't know what the thinkingwas.
They wanted like we want to do acircus, but we also want that
element of racism.
So let's put it a gypsy camp,right?

(33:49):
So it it was not really the hitthat they thought it was going
to be.
So they had this theseweird-distracting people from
Whittles.
What did we care?
Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_08 (33:59):
So this this is what's going on in 1973 in
Knott's.
Of course, you know, diDisneyland's been around for a
while.
Disneyland's not doingtremendous business in 73.
Eventually, those three peoplethat we've just talked about,
and one more guy uh named GregSalisbury, decide, hey, why
don't Oh, I'm sorry, GregSalisbury and another guy named

(34:19):
Wendell Bud Hurlbut.

SPEAKER_02 (34:21):
Oh, yes, Bud, yes, yes.

SPEAKER_08 (34:23):
He they they decide, hey, what would happen if we
just did a spooky thing for likea night for Halloween?
Yep.
So they so in 1973 they didtheir first one.
They they you know, theybasically dressed up some stuff
they already had.
They they dressed up the GravityShack, they dressed up the
Calico Mine Train.

SPEAKER_04 (34:44):
The story is that they went to every Woolworth in
in the area, bought out everypossible Halloween decoration
they could get their hands on.
Yeah.
And it it's literally like we'rejust gonna decorate you like you
would decorate your house.

SPEAKER_08 (34:56):
Well, and so what's so interesting is is Wendell
Herlbutt.
Yep.
It's just a fun name to say.
Uh, this is a guy who was uh oneof the main designers for the
calico uh mine ride.
He was one of the main designersfor the Timber Mountain Log
Ride.
Yeah.
Important person in theme parkhistory.

SPEAKER_04 (35:14):
Absolutely.

SPEAKER_08 (35:15):
So he goes out and buys a gorilla outfit and starts
going into the Calico Mine Trainride and leaping out and scaring
people.
Yep.
And they decide at that pointthat this works.
Um, and at this point, andthey're like, hey, this is this

(35:35):
is a thing.
We might be on to something.
Yep.
And it's important to rememberno other theme parks are doing
this.
There's no universal horrornights, there's no Disney's very
not very scary, there's no uhOogie Boogie mash, of course.
But like nobody else is doingthis.

SPEAKER_04 (35:51):
Right.
Nobody's doing this yet.
Yeah.
And so after the success, theysold out on that night.
Yeah.
And then they said, let's makethis more formal.
Right.
And there's a statue on thestreets of Calico, in you know,
in ghost town Calico.
Right.
And uh they had and that thatstatue is of a prospector

(36:13):
sitting on a bench.
It's a fiberglass prospect.
Or it's I think it's concrete,actually.

SPEAKER_08 (36:18):
I think it is too.
I've sat next to it.

SPEAKER_04 (36:19):
Yeah, it's pretty, it's pretty grotesque.
Yes.
But um, but it's still fun.
It's it's very much of its time.
Yeah.
But apparently, these organizersof the haunt, all the people
that we've mentioned, yeah, hadmade a proposal to the family
saying, let's do this Halloweenparty, and they were shot down.
They were told, absolutely not.
This is you know, no punintended.

(36:40):
Absolutely not.
We're not doing this, forget it.
Yeah.
We're Christians, yeah.
We're very, very devoutChristians.
We don't want to, you know, wedon't deal with that devil
stuff, you know, that kind ofstuff.
So the group organizers werefeeling desperate, and they
cornered Walter, the patriarchof it all, yeah, who was not
even on the board anymore.

SPEAKER_08 (37:00):
No, he was done.

SPEAKER_04 (37:01):
He was kind of like the executive producer at this
point.
Like everybody looked at himlike he's the he's the thing.
You know, he's the what do youcall the figurehead now.

SPEAKER_08 (37:08):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (37:09):
They sat him down on that bench and he said, I hear
you've got something going on.
What do you tell me about it?

SPEAKER_08 (37:14):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (37:15):
And they pitched it all, pieced it all together, and
he said, Okay, here's what wewant to do.
We want to do this party.
We're gonna have celebrities, wewant to have like, we want to
set up scary monsters and stuff,and make it like a Halloween
party.
Right.
Two or three days.
That's it.
Last weekend of October.
Right.
Walter thought about it for aminute, looked around at Calico,
looked at his street, and thestory goes, he said, I want a

(37:35):
party, and I want it here.
The cry of the werewolves,right?
The werewolf behind me and thecoyote.
Or this is nuts, there'scoyotes, right?
Yeah.
And he said, I want a party andI want it here, and that's all I
gotta say about that.
Yeah.
He just said, I want this.
Yeah.
So Walter Knott is responsiblefor saying, I want the haunt.
Let's doing the Halloween party.
That's amazing.

(37:55):
They threw it on.
They they added, you know, theytook the stunt actors from the
Wild West show and they put theminto costumes.
Yeah.
These guys were used to doingstunts in movies.
They got worn out because no onehad ever been a haunt actor,
like to this level before.
Yeah.
They, I mean, they were gettinghurt.
They weren't lasting, but theygot all the way through the
first two nights.
Those two nights were sold out.

(38:18):
Yes.
They hit a cultural nerve.
This is what people ofBuenaparque and Southern
California wanted and needed.
And the haunt that night, thatweekend, was born.
Yeah.
And there was somebody therewho's kind of the grandmaster of
it all, which was a celebrity inLA.
Like, let's add that celebrity.
Who could we afford?

(38:38):
Well, we could get Legosi.
No, we can't, no, he's dead.
Yeah.
Who else can we get?
We could get Christopher Lee.
Oh, we can't afford it.
We can't afford it.
Let's get Sinister Seymour.
Yeah, yeah, which was anexcellent choice.
It was a stroke of genius.
So Seymour's on those earlyposters, and he's looming over.
Hello, fringes, welcome toNotchberry Farm.
You know, and it was such a bighit.

(39:00):
And all he had to do was he wasthe ghost host of the whole
thing.
Yeah.
And uh he would perform and showbad movies, come out, do his
show.
Yeah.
They do a little bit of magic,do some, you know, some dancing
girls come out, that's it.
And then everybody else goes offand has a good time in the rest
of the haunt.
Yeah.
And it's this was a separateticket from your theme park day

(39:23):
ticket.

SPEAKER_08 (39:23):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (39:24):
They would kick everybody out of the park, get
set up, sell new tickets forevening.
Right.
Those are the ones that soldout.
So we're not talking tickets.
They filled the park during theday.
Yeah.
Then they kicked everybody out.
Then they sold twice as manytickets because they sold
tickets for the evening and leteverybody back in.

(39:46):
So when we say sell out, wedon't just mean out for the
whole day.
We're talking twice a day theysold out.
So this was a huge financialthing.
And it actually almost itliterally brought them back into
the black in their books.
Right.
And so the haunt suddenly becamethis financial staple for
Knott's Berry Farm.

SPEAKER_06 (40:05):
And and so it's and The Lowdown on the Plus Up is a
Boardwalk Times podcast.

SPEAKER_08 (40:24):
At Boardwalk Times.net, you'll find some of
the most well-considered andinsightful writing about the
Walt Disney Company, Disneyhistory, and the universe of
theme parks available anywhere.
Come join us atBoardwalkTimes.net.

(40:55):
So that yeah, that first yearwas except for Sinister Seymour,
it was pretty much what have wegot?
Let's dress it up.
Right.
It takes off the second year,and I think it's the second year
that Sinister Seymour bringsMoona Lisa with him.
Yep.
And they do kind of a biggershow.
Um they're also, and I this justcracked me up when I read about
it.
They were accompanied by theband Hello People.

(41:19):
And Hello People is this weirdum rock slash mime band.
It's like KISS, only quieter.
Yes.
Which is pleasant in some ways.
Rest in peace, ace freely.
Yeah, rest in peace, ace freely.
Tail on spaceman.

SPEAKER_04 (41:41):
Yeah, so you had you have got this hello people.
Ah.
He just showed me a picture ofhello people.
I'm looking at the picture.
It's it's like take Kiss andmake and mix it with like a
fever dream from Sid and MartyCroft.
Yes.
Maybe a little Shields andYarnell.
A little bit of Shields andYarnell.
Wow.
You pulled that one out of thehat, didn't you?

(42:03):
I'm impressed.
Mime was such a weird thing.
It was such a thing.
It was in the late 70s, early80s.
Well, there's everywhere.

SPEAKER_08 (42:10):
So there's a few things about the time that we
grew up in that are impossibleto describe to children today.
That's one of them.
The prevalence of mime.

SPEAKER_04 (42:21):
We had a very serious mime problem.
Yes.
We had exterminators.
They actually sprayed over LosAngeles for the mime population.

SPEAKER_08 (42:29):
So there's that.
Evil can evil.
Can't explain it to kids.
Right.
But he was cool.
Right.
And the person we're about torun into, Wolfman Jack.

SPEAKER_03 (42:39):
Wolfman Jack, baby.

SPEAKER_08 (42:42):
Right here on the radio.
So Sinister Seymour didn't makeit to the third year because he
sadly passed away.

SPEAKER_04 (42:48):
Yeah, he passed away of stomach cancer.
Yeah.
He was bravely performing hisstage show almost from his
deathbed because he would betaken from the hospital by his
friend, driven.
They'd put on his costume in thehospital, put him in a
wheelchair, wheel him out to thecar, pull him in, they'd wheel
him into the into the park, andas soon as he was backstage, he

(43:08):
would say, I don't want my myfans to see me like this.
He would stand up and he'd lookreally frail and really you see
later pictures of him, he lookslike a corpse because he's just
so suffering from this uhdebilitating stomach cancer.
But as soon as he stepped out inthat audience, he would come
alive.
He would just become Seymour.
Yeah.
Oh, Frenchies Radio.
And he would perform his gutsout.

(43:30):
And then he'd sit back down andgo back to the hospital, and
that's when he died.
Wow.
He died performing as Seymour.
Um they needed a new host.

SPEAKER_08 (43:41):
Yep.
And so they reached out to a guywho was becoming starting to
become pretty famous, partiallybecause of American graffiti.
Yep.
Um that would be Wolfman Jack.

SPEAKER_04 (43:50):
Wolfman Jack.
Because the attitude was theyhad, along with all these
performances that we're talkingabout, they started including
the William Morse style ofmazes, including in the mystery
shack.
Uh yes.
Yeah.
So you would have, and all theydid was you had a Phantom of the
Opera, you had a Dracula, youhad Frankenstein, Bride of

(44:11):
Frankenstein.
They pulled out all the classicmovie monsters and shoved them
in there.
I'm sure making Universal veryangry.

SPEAKER_08 (44:19):
Yeah.
Oh, there are rights issues thatwe are going to bump into very
soon.

SPEAKER_04 (44:23):
Oh, yes.
It gets very vicious.

SPEAKER_08 (44:25):
And I and I think what you're talking about is uh
in 1977, 10 Chilling Chambers.

SPEAKER_04 (44:30):
The Chilling Chambers, which is one of the
most famous of the mazes.
Well, it was the first one.
It was the first, and and it islegendary.
It has been recreated severaltimes on earn anniversary shows.
Uh there are a couple people whostill have artifacts.
Yeah.
I do want to pause really quickand I want to give a shout out
to a friend of mine who uh is ahistorian of knots and has

(44:52):
actually told me a lot of thethings that I'm presenting here.
Yeah.
His name is David MichaelHansen, otherwise known as Uncle
Mike.

SPEAKER_08 (44:59):
Okay.

SPEAKER_04 (44:59):
And um, for those of you who know Knott's Berry Farm,
you have probably heard the nameUncle Mike pop up.

SPEAKER_08 (45:05):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (45:05):
Um, Uncle Mike, uh, I met him in one of my haunt
endeavors up here in NorthernCalifornia.
Yeah.
And I uh we became really goodfriends.
We hung out one time and heshowed me this collection of
Knotts stuff.
Yeah.
And he had everything going allthe way back from the first
haunt.
He was that big of a fan.
Right.
And he was smart enough to bringan intimatic with him into some

(45:27):
of these mazes.
So there are pictures of himabout 11 or 12 or something like
that.
Yeah.
In the chilling chambers withthe Phantom of the Opera.
So he is one of those few peoplethat actually captured these
images that we still use indocumentaries.
Pictures of the that of TenChilling Chambers, especially,
is really hard to find.
They're very hard to find.
And it's and it's because ofUncle Mike that we do that.

(45:48):
That's awesome.
So thank you, Mike, for gettingme started about my fandom of
this and my understanding ofthis.
But whenever you look stuff up,including YouTube stuff, a lot
of the times it's Uncle Miketaking those pictures of those
really.

SPEAKER_08 (45:59):
Yeah, because nobody thought to before that.
Right.

SPEAKER_04 (46:01):
Nobody was cataloging stuff as much.
There are some, but Mike was oneof them.

SPEAKER_08 (46:05):
Before we jump jump too much into um Ten Chilling
Chambers, though, I want to do alittle Wolfman Jack.

SPEAKER_04 (46:12):
Oh, please, no, no, no, no.
We have to get into WolfmanJack.
So the reason why I bring it upis because the thinking was
we've got Dracula, we've gotFrankenstein, and Wolfman Jack.
That was the attitude, right?
And I think that wasHollingshead who said that.
We got to do that.
So anyway, that's where we gowith this.
And so he was called upon to bethe new ghost host.

SPEAKER_08 (46:32):
Right.
And so Wolfman Jack, he's suchan interesting character.
This is a guy, I believe Ibelieve he grew up in New
Jersey.
You know, in spite of hispersona, he went to school for
broadcasting.
Yes, he did.
Um, and he did some some radiowork, and then he discovered
where the money in radio was,and that was just south of the

(46:53):
border.
Uh-huh.
And he was one of the big DJs onthe X, or one of the several X
stations.
Zurf AM.
Zerf AM, just south of theborder.
Now, this doesn't really existas a phenomenon anymore, but the
thing that's interesting aboutthe X stations was that because
they were just outside of theU.S., they weren't subject to

(47:17):
any FCC regulations.
So they would goose the power upso high that you could hear
these stations from Mexico allacross the country.

SPEAKER_04 (47:27):
Yes.
So to Los Angeles.
My father has memories oflistening to Wolfman Jack in
Burbank, California.
Oh shoot, there were people upin New England that would pick
these things up sometimes.
Oh, yeah.
It was crazy.
It was crazy.
And these and these stations hada nickname.
They're called Border Blasters.
Border Blasters, that's right.
Yep.

SPEAKER_08 (47:45):
And uh, you know, if you know the if you know the uh
Z Z Top song, I heard it on theX, that's what he's talking
about, is these stations justsouth south of the border.
50,000 watts of Boss Soul Power.
They tended to play a lot oflike RB and sort of chunky
classic rock and soul music.

(48:07):
It was good stuff.
And Wolfman Jack started puttinga persona together as he did
that.
And he was being heard aroundthe country.
And interestingly enough, hebroadcasted on X stations for a
long time.
Even though he left Mexico, hewould just do his broadcasts on
cassette, send them south of theborder, and they'd play them.

unknown (48:27):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (48:28):
Yeah.
No, he he was he was a life.
Okay, so funny little sidestory.
Yeah.
In his later years, he was knownfor being a little bit heavier
and having long hair and kind ofthe striped beard kind of look.
My uncle, my dad's father,Steven Overstreet, for some
reason wound up looking like himwhen they were about the same

(48:49):
age.
Uh-huh.
And one time my uncle, who livedin LA, went into a copy store,
like a Kinkos or something likethat.
Some copies made.
Yeah.
And the girl behind the counterlooks at him and goes, Wow, you
look just like Wolfman Jack.
Yeah.
And my uncle goes, I get that alot.
You know, I hear that a lot.
She goes, Well, do you know whoI am?
I go, and he says, No.

(49:10):
I'm Teresa Jack.
I'm Wolfman's daughter.
You're one of the Wolf kids.
Yeah, he's one of the Cubs, youknow, one of the Cub Jacks,
right?
And so, yeah, Teresa Jackactually gave him the stamp of
approval, like, you look like mydad.
That's awesome.
So that's that's hilarious, youknow.
So, anyway, a little personalnotice size.
Wolfman was brought on board.

SPEAKER_08 (49:29):
Yeah, interesting thing about Wolfman's look is
that for a long time nobody knewwhat he looked like.
Nope.
I mean, he'd been broadcastingfor years south of the border.
There's no images.
Yeah.
Um, even when he came back tolike LA and he lived in Burbank
for a while, um, nobody knew.
And there was there werequestions about his ethnicity.

(49:50):
Yep.
People just didn't know.
And so for a while, he wouldplay with that.
He hadn't quite worked out theWolfman look.
So he would this sort of it'sreally sad.
He would he would put on likedark makeup and wear an afro.
Oh god.
And just to keep it weirdlyvague.

SPEAKER_04 (50:12):
Yeah.
It's like he had there's like alittle bit of like a Latinx kind
of look to him.
That's right, yeah.
You know, like does is heMexican?
Is he this?
Is he that no one quite knew whohe was.
Yeah.
And he's from Brooklyn.
Yeah, he's from Brooklyn.

SPEAKER_08 (50:27):
And and he he does have a little bit of a darker
complexion anyway.
Yeah, he does.
So he could he could push it,but he was playing with all
these personas, and finally heended up in in the persona that
uh we know, which is the thewith the kind of blown back but
kind of wild hair and the bigbeard and stuff.
And once he was in Americangraffiti, it was all over.

(50:47):
Oh, yeah.
And and of course, at the setthat same year, he started
hosting the Midnight Special.

SPEAKER_04 (50:53):
Yes, indeed.
You know, showing up with thosefabulous, fabulous outfits of
himself.

SPEAKER_03 (50:58):
That's right, baby.
I got my huge red collars in myblack velvet outfit, my huge old
pompadour haircut.

SPEAKER_04 (51:06):
Believe it.

SPEAKER_08 (51:08):
So the so the wolfman took over.

SPEAKER_04 (51:10):
The wolf man, and yeah, and the wolfman was on the
poster wearing his infamousvampire wolfman teeth.
I can't say vampire teethbecause he's not a vampire, he's
a wolf man.
Right.
So he's got his wolf man teeth.
I actually have an eight by tenof him in my collection.
Yeah.
With it with the full-on teethand the whole nine yards because
I love the wolf man.
Oh, yeah.
He's a dad was a hot rodcruiser, so I would listen to

(51:31):
old cassettes that my dad hadrecorded on real to reel of
Wolfman from his X ERB.
And it's like, okay, cool.
But he um he would come out onstage and basically hold a disco
party.
Oh, man.
Which made no damn sense as faras Halloween is concerned.

SPEAKER_08 (51:50):
There's at least one film of this, and Pete and I
have both seen it, and wow.

SPEAKER_04 (51:54):
Yes, it is an acid-soaked glitter nightmare.
Like people who worked on themovie Phantom of the Paradise
probably saw this show and went,that's taking it a little too
far.
Yeah, right.
You know, like that is that isridiculous.
You know, I'll believe PaulWilliams in the you know, the
the arrow tip collar, but I'mnot gonna believe this.

(52:17):
You know, like you'd gotWolfman.
I mean, Wolfman, God only knowswhat his his poisons of choice
would be, but this is the 70s.
Yeah.
I'm sure I'm sure even thoughthere was Coke on Main Street,
there was snow on the manorhorn.
Let's put it that way, okay?
But he's working the audience.
And one of my favorite He'sworking hard, though.

(52:38):
He is.
Yeah.
Like he and he he's got himbecause you could hear the
cheers, you could hear thepeople whistling and having a
good time.
One of my favorite lines is ohman, a lot of good looking
people out here in the audience.

SPEAKER_03 (52:48):
Yeah.
Ain't no ugly people out here.
No, no.
No, they sent all the uglypeople to Disneyland.

SPEAKER_07 (52:54):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (52:56):
So good.
So good.
So good.

SPEAKER_04 (52:59):
And he owns it.
And then it gets weirder.
Because it's one of these shows.

SPEAKER_08 (53:03):
Now there's like there's like pop and lock
dancers for a little while.
Right.
And then and then I I don'tknow.
There's like some solid goldstuff going on.

SPEAKER_04 (53:13):
It's a little bit of soul train, a little bit of
yeah, it's it's it's crazysauce.
And then because it's 1977.
We get into some licensingissues.

SPEAKER_07 (53:24):
Yes.

SPEAKER_04 (53:25):
And out comes, you know, like somebody said, you
know what?
Star Wars is a really big hit.
Yeah.
Let's have the Wolfman have alightsaber duel with Darth
Vader.

SPEAKER_08 (53:37):
He's just, he's on stage and he's like, we got some
of the stars of Star Wars.
Star Wars.
Look, right here, we got theJawas.
The Jawas from Star Wars.
How are you doing?

SPEAKER_04 (53:50):
Yeah, there's like little people in little
bathrobes, like walking aroundwith tin foil for the little
glowing eyes on.

SPEAKER_08 (53:57):
And then like the worst C3PO costume you have ever
seen.

SPEAKER_04 (54:01):
Well, now remember, it's not C3PO, it's three CPO.

SPEAKER_08 (54:04):
CPO.

SPEAKER_07 (54:05):
Here he is.
Three CPO.

SPEAKER_04 (54:07):
That's how he actually says it.
And it's like he gets away withit because it's three CPO.
So it's like, okay, that's athat's a cheap rip-off.
Like, okay, here's how bad thecostume is.
The little disc thing, it's apie plate on the dude's chest.
Okay, it's that terrible.

SPEAKER_08 (54:21):
And it's like separated, the bottom and the
top are separated, so you justsee the guy's t-shirt under it.

SPEAKER_04 (54:26):
Yeah, it's oh, oh.
And then Darth Vader comes out,and the Darth Vader outfit is
bad.

SPEAKER_08 (54:32):
My favorite thing in that is Darth Vader comes out
and threatens the Wolfman, whichI wouldn't threaten the Wolfman.
No, don't threaten the Wolf.
But he threatens the Wolfman.
Wolfman Jack like holds his armsout.
A couple of people come and riphis costume off of him, and
under it, he's just got anotherlike Elvis looking costume with
these massive tassels hangingoff his arms.

(54:55):
And he just says, Does this looklike the body of someone who's
afraid of you?

SPEAKER_04 (55:02):
So wild.
Like this is this is high-classentertainment.
I mean, you can't look away.
No, you can't.
Like, that's the problem.
You know, like cut to the shotfrom a clockwork orange.
Yeah, right.
Pointing, you know, dripping thedrops in the eyes.

SPEAKER_05 (55:22):
You know, it's don't play Beto with Fifth.

SPEAKER_08 (55:25):
And it's actually great.
The um the video that you canfind of it, I'll I'll put it in
the show notes, a link to it.
It's on archive.org.
But um, the video you can findof it, evidently that day, or
he's just making this up.
I don't really know.
Evidently, uh one of theproducers of Star Wars, like
Irving Kirshner or something.
Yeah.

(55:46):
And Carrie Fisher are supposedlyin the audience.
He's like, look, look, there'suh Irving Kirchner, producer of
Star Wars.
Let him know you love him.
Let him know.
And then next to him is CarrieFisher.
She played Princess Um uh uh uhLeah.
Princess Leah in Star Wars.

(56:07):
Let her know you love her.
Wow.
And I don't know if they werereally there.
Maybe they were.
Maybe the Wolfman was seeingstuff.
He'd been working hard for likean hour.
Poor Wolfman.

SPEAKER_04 (56:23):
Yeah, it's just like, oh, oh.
Oh, I I love that.
So he lasted as the mascot.
And I love the posters for thehaunt because it's Wolfman
howling above, all of knots.
Oh, so great.
And this is also the time inwhich they had formalized the
Monsters College, in which youneed to have your you're

(56:44):
starting to actually have thesemazes.
And they have these little areasthat were like these vignettes
in the ghost town.

SPEAKER_08 (56:49):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (56:50):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And you look in and oh, there'sthe Chinese laundry, or here's
the bank, over here's thesaloon, and they have these
doors with kind of chicken wireon them.
Yeah.
And so there are figures inthere.
And so they would just dress upthe figures as monsters.
And and a couple of very cleverpeople, one of whom was in the
marketing department, yeah, gotdressed up and just stood still.

(57:10):
And then when somebody wouldlook in the window, they would
go, and they would jump at thebed.
And it was a great scare.
He did that to one particularwoman.
Uh-huh.
She fainted dead away, as didher kid.
They both went boom and theywere out.
He scared them so much.
So he got voted.
Oh, they were fine.
Oh, good.
But they were so scared theyfainted.

(57:30):
Yeah.
And a couple of the marketingpeople were watching that,
going, wow.
And then he couldn't get back inbecause the door had locked.
Oh.
So his supervisor said, justwander around the street, see
what you can do for the rest ofthe night.
Right.
He was never in the pop-upagain.
And thus was born the wanderingmonsters of the haunt.
Because the the haunt actors ofthe Calico are notorious.

(57:55):
The haunt at Scary Farm is very,very unique in the fact that you
have wandering monsters.
They put fog machineseverywhere.
Yes.
It's like you are locked in thishorrible fog.
There's a legend that's aboutthat.
It's the fog of this witch thattakes over the haunt.

SPEAKER_08 (58:09):
Yeah, and I want to definitely talk about the
hanging.
Yes.
We'll get to the hanging in aminute.
But yeah, so it's interestingbecause we've got, like in 77
with 10 chilling chambers, wehave the first ever freestanding
horror maze in a theme park.

SPEAKER_04 (58:23):
In a theme park.
In a theme park, yes.

SPEAKER_08 (58:25):
I understand there's others outside.
Yeah.
But in a theme park, it's thefirst time that's ever happened.
The walking, wandering scareactors.
Yep.
First time that's ever happened.
Yep.
Um, I I also read that they werethe ones who developed that
skidding across the ground.

SPEAKER_04 (58:41):
Sliders.
Sliders, yes, thank you.
Sliders, yes.
Sliders came a little bit later.
They were kind of born out ofthe skateboard culture.

SPEAKER_08 (58:49):
Okay.

SPEAKER_04 (58:49):
Uh, because this is what you know, you had like at
first they were just using theirknees, and that first night it
were like, don't do that again.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 (58:55):
Well, I know that I know they had learned that if
you scare people from below,it's really effective.

SPEAKER_04 (59:01):
Especially in the foggy streets of Calico.
Right.
So for those who don't know whata slider is, a slider is a haunt
usually the the monsters ofCalico, the street, the street
actors, if you are a streetactor at Knott's Berry Farm, you
have a lot of credit.
Yeah.
Those are the those are the bestof the best actors at Knott's
Berry Farm.
Uh you have to, there is ahierarchy.

(59:23):
You have to work your way up.
You have to start as a mazeactor.
You have to go to haunt college,and you basically learn how to
scare, and it's a gruelingexperience.
You get a certificate, and whenyou're done, you're the first
place you're put is in a maze.
And so they they have to knowcan you get scares if you're
stuck in one place?
Right.
Then you became a maze wanderer,in which you're going from scene

(59:44):
to scene, and so you get towander between a couple of
scenes.
And that usually is year byyear.
Because they want to know thatyou're taking it seriously.
Yeah.
Then after a while, if you playyour cards right, you actually
graduate to be a street actor.
That's the coveted role becauseyou've got the run of the park.
Yeah.
And you get to have verydistinct characters built around

(01:00:06):
you.
But around the mid 80s, early90s, sliders were born.
Yeah.
And what it is, is they're the nthey they consider themselves to
be their own beasts.
Yeah.
But they are street actors whoare a lot more athletic.
They're usually very youngpeople.
And because you have to, becauseyou have to have good knees, you
have to have good elbows.
Yeah.

(01:00:27):
It's hard work.
Yeah.
And uh you put big pads on yourknees, and you wear steel-toed
boots, and you you put togetherthese gloves that usually have
washers riveted to the palms,and you run full bore at a
guest.
And then at a certain point, youfall down onto your knees and
you scrape your hands across theground or your feet across the

(01:00:50):
ground.
And because it's the steel onthe stone, it shoots these
sparks out in the light, andit's terrifying.
It's an amazing effect.
They have events where they haveuh slider acrobatic events now.
Yeah, they've gotten so goodthey do flips, they jump over
people off of ramps.
They're almost like they've gotthe same type of notoriety like
1980s BMX bikers and skatershave.

(01:01:11):
Yeah.
So they're very definitely uhtheir own offshoot.

SPEAKER_08 (01:01:15):
Yeah, and you know, it's interesting, just as a
quick aside about the hauntcollege, I was reading someone
talking about actually tryingout for to be a walk-around
scare actor.
It's very difficult.
Yes, it is.
A lot of stages, and when youget to the final stage of it,
they just put someone in achair.
I don't know if this is stillthe case, but it was for a
while.
They put someone in a chair andsay, just scare them.

(01:01:38):
They don't give them anyinformation past that.
And um, the person in the scareis not going to help.
Like they're they're going totry and work against it.
And what they're really tryingto figure out is if you're going
to touch them.
Because if you touch that personin the chair, you're out.

SPEAKER_04 (01:01:58):
You are out.
Yeah.
Yep, you can't do it.
I mean, I do uh a lot ofauditions, and a lot of these
audition tactics I got fromUncle Mike, who got a hold of
training manuals.
He never actually worked thehaunt until he moved back down
to Buena Park.
Uh-huh.
And he was in his late 40s, andhe says, I've never worked it,
I'm gonna work it, damn it.

SPEAKER_08 (01:02:18):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (01:02:19):
And he's a school teacher.
Yeah.
And he's like, I don't care, I'mgonna do it.
I'm I'm gonna live out my dream.
And he got in, and they alreadyknew who he was.
Like, oh, it's Uncle Mike.
Yeah, yeah.
But he he said, Don't treat menice, give me the whole thing.

SPEAKER_08 (01:02:31):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (01:02:32):
And he got in.
Wow.
Good for him.
He did taste one year, and thenhe was a street actor, and it
was like, go, Mike.
Yeah.
But a lot of those techniques,it's really hard because the one
thing you do not want to do isto touch, you know, you have to
be able to scare people withoutlaying a finger on them.
Right.
That's for their safety and foryours.
Right.
I'm speaking as a haunt actorwho has been tased.

(01:02:52):
I have been punched, I have beentackled.
Yeah.
I have been squirted with Godonly knows what.
I have been urinated on.
Oh man.
Oh, I've been thrown up on.
There's a lot of stuff that hashappened to me as a haunt actor.
Yeah.
So like it's it's tricky.

SPEAKER_08 (01:03:08):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (01:03:08):
The less contact you have with your audience, no
offense, folks, the better.

SPEAKER_08 (01:03:12):
And this and this is why, when we get to it a little
later, this is why I have issueswith a later thing that Knott's
did, which is trapped.
Yes.
We'll talk about that in just asecond.
Yeah, but so so we're at thepoint where around 77, and
believe me, folks, we're notgoing to go year by year.
No, no, no, no, no.
Once we hit the late 80s, westart getting uninterested.

SPEAKER_04 (01:03:33):
Not uninterested, but it does tend to start
getting into a cycle of thisworks, we don't need to develop
anymore.
Really talk about thedevelopment of it.

SPEAKER_08 (01:03:41):
Well, we you know, we've got 10 chilling chambers
coming in in 77.
Um, Wolf Wolfman's still there.
Um, and in 75, we have the firstepisode of The Hanging.
Uh yes, the infamous hanging.
Now, the hanging is interesting.
It's especially interesting inits early years.
Yeah.
Um, what it becomes later, I'mnot crazy about.

(01:04:02):
But uh in its early years, thethe first year I don't think
it's specifically said as it's awitch, but it bec certainly
evolves into that they arehanging the the witch of Calico.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And it's a it's it's actuallypretty scary.
I've seen some films from like76 or so.
And um it's very serious.

SPEAKER_04 (01:04:24):
Yeah, they play it like a hammer film.
It's like Witchfinder Generalset in the old west.

SPEAKER_08 (01:04:28):
Yes.
Yeah, really crazy.
And if you haven't seenWitchfinder General, you need to
see Witchfinder General.
Yeah, it's a good one.

SPEAKER_04 (01:04:34):
Um it's Vincent Price, guys.
Come on.

SPEAKER_08 (01:04:35):
Yeah, it's amazing.
So the basically the the shtickis they you know, everyone
gathers around this gallows inthe center of town.
Some people are bringing up thiswoman that's accused of being a
witch.
There's there's a littleinterplay, but it's it's nothing
comedic about it to start with.
And they put her in the nooseand they pull the lever and they

(01:04:56):
hang her, and it's a veryeffective effect.
Yep.
And a few seconds later, youhear her voice again.
Yep.

SPEAKER_04 (01:05:03):
Oh over the overspeaker.

SPEAKER_08 (01:05:05):
Yeah, over the other overspeakers, and some smoke
comes up and a bird flies up.
It's indicated that that's herspirit flying away.
Yeah.
And it flies off and she says,I'll come back for you.
And it's it's super effective.

SPEAKER_04 (01:05:21):
Yeah.
It's really effective, it'sreally creepy.
Yeah.
Yeah, the hanging, the hangingseffects uh have been planned
pretty much by the same peopleforever.
Yeah.
And uh it wasn't until like themid-80s, early nineties that the
tone shifted.
Yes.
It starts off with a hangman,and you've got the sheriff of

(01:05:42):
Calico.
Yeah.
And they will come out and theywill introduce who's going to be
hanged this time, and theyintroduce the criminal.
Right.
And sometimes it's the witch,and it eventually it became this
pop culture parody show.
Yeah.
And if you watch earlierversions, there are plenty of
videos of early haunts, some ofwhich that Uncle Mike actually

(01:06:02):
took.
Right.
And you can actually hear ateenage me laughing next to him.
It's the 90s, and I'm standingnext to Uncle Mike.
But there are a couple of themthat are making references to
OJ.
Uh yeah, real real strange.
Some really strange stuff.
And also some culturally andracially very insensitive humor
uh involved in these shows.

SPEAKER_08 (01:06:24):
For a little while it's okay.
For a little while, it's like,okay, we've transitioned from
this interesting, serious horrorthing to something a little
funnier because so people haveseen it.
They've now expanded.
You know, this first couple ofyears, it's a couple of
weekends, now they're expandingto a week, now they're expanding
to two weeks.
So people are coming again andagain, so they're trying to add
some variety.

(01:06:45):
It's it's it's oh it's okay.
Yeah.
I watched one from what 1997that was was not too bad.

SPEAKER_04 (01:06:55):
It was there's some good ones.

SPEAKER_08 (01:06:56):
Yeah.
Um, they were specificallytrying to do something that was
a retro 70s thing in it.
And it's ridiculous.
You know, there's there again, Iunlicensed Star Wars, though in
97 it's amazing they got awaywith it.
Uh there was this, there waslike Darth Vader's mother,
Madame Evita Vader.

(01:07:20):
Uh I wrote down some notes oflike Richard Nixon's in it.
Yeah, 1997.
Yeah.
Uh obviously there's Jason,there's a channel by there's two
Batmans.
There's like the Adam WestBatman fighting the Michael
Keaton Batman.
Uh Donnie and Marie and Sonnyand Cher both get killed by
Jason.

(01:07:40):
Uh which is sort of satisfying.

SPEAKER_04 (01:07:43):
Uh well, there was a tradition for a while.
They would get through the show,you'd introduce all the
characters, and then FreddieKrueger suddenly makes an
appearance and slaughterseverybody on stage.
Yeah, he becomes the icon of itafter a while.
Yeah.
He becomes the thing.
Where it's like, okay, we're atthe finale.
Here comes Freddie, he's gonnakill everybody.

SPEAKER_08 (01:08:01):
Yeah, and this kind of happens here.
Like Freddie comes out andfights Wonder Woman and kills
her.
He kills Barry Manilo.
I'm not making this up.
Um there's there's a greatmoment where Donna Summer shows
up.
1997.
Yeah, and and she's singing LastDance, and she kills Jason.

SPEAKER_04 (01:08:21):
Okay, cool.
Yeah.
So yeah, so maybe Jason had anidea for a song.
Yeah.
It's called Crystal Lake.
It'll be amazing.
Boom! Yeah.

unknown (01:08:30):
I don't know.
Stop it.

SPEAKER_04 (01:08:32):
Yeah, I mean, there was a one of my favorite
hangings.
They did this thing where all ofthe classic 80s slasher monsters
come out in the drag queens,because the movie The Silma
Queen of the Desert had comeout.
Oh, that's a good idea.
And they do a song calledMonsters by Day to YMCA.
And and they're all in drag,they all have fishnets and stuff
like that.
And they're all and all theirdrag outfits are themed around

(01:08:54):
them.
So like Jason has axes, like awhole fan of axes behind him.
Michael Myers has blades, andPinhead comes out, he's got a
corset on.
It was like I kind of went,okay, that was awesome.
You know, and like the the onlylike all the characters sing,
like Freddie Krueger has a lineof song, and then leather facing
something, Pinhead sayssomething, and out comes Jason,

(01:09:15):
and his only line is I saw onewhere they did that gag, and it
was really funny.
It's like Jason, that's allJason.
You know, like okay, that'sawesome.

SPEAKER_08 (01:09:27):
And and by the way, folks, if you don't think Pete
and I work hard on this on thispodcast, think of how many
hangings we watched just forthis.
I I watch seven.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (01:09:39):
I watched seven hangings.
That's about where I was too.
I'm I'm in two of the videos.
Yeah.
You can hear my ex-wife in oneof them.
Yeah.
You she's screaming and laughingvociferously in one.
And uh it's like, wow, uh, Iwill not watch that one again.

SPEAKER_08 (01:09:54):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (01:09:54):
And no offense to my ex-wife.

SPEAKER_08 (01:09:55):
But especially um they I I think that 97 one's
kind of the last one where I waslike, this is kind of fun.
The choreography, choreographyis still fast.
Yeah.
Uh there's some fight scenesthat are legitimately good.

SPEAKER_04 (01:10:08):
Oh, and a lot of stunts.
Yeah, a lot of dives off of thishuge barn and water towers.
Yeah.
It's impressive.
That is actually quite the andfor a while there it really was
an impressive show.
And to many people, it still is.
It's a hanging the hanging atknots is a staple.

SPEAKER_08 (01:10:22):
It it is, and they have to do it.
I mean, there's no way aroundit.
Though I think uh after thatpoint, as we move into the
2000s, it becomes a littlegross.
Yeah.
Um, it becomes a little like theuniversal Bill and Ted show
where they're just going kind ofgoing for the lowest humor they
can possibly go for.
I find that it starts to becomea little unpleasant after that.

SPEAKER_04 (01:10:43):
I agree.
And and this is one of thosethings where where no matter
where you are in the politicalspectrum, yeah, there are parks,
there are theme parks out therethat definitely show the owner's
political leanings and also thecommunity's political leanings.

SPEAKER_08 (01:10:59):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (01:10:59):
When a park tends to be a lot more conservative, and
I'm gonna leave it there.
Yeah, yeah.
Uh there's a lot of greatthings.
I'm not bashing into nuts orconservatism at all, but I'm
just saying that for people whoare a little bit more
liberal-minded and a little bitmore socially active as far as
activism is concerned, some ofthe stuff may actually make you

(01:11:20):
cringe.
Yeah.
And you just have to know that'swhat you're gonna experience,
but you can still enjoy it.
Yeah.
There is still some enjoymentthere for everybody.

SPEAKER_08 (01:11:29):
And and it's worth going back and taking a look at
some of those early ones becausethey are legitimately creepy.

SPEAKER_04 (01:11:34):
Oh, yeah.
Especially those early the witchhanging.
The witch actually has becomelike an opening ceremony.
She's brought out, and sometimesshe's brought in a huge black
carriage or a cage, yeah, andshe curses the whole town, and
that's when the smoke startsbillowing through Streets of
Calico.
That she's the cue.
Yeah.
Like she's uh the whole showpoint of the show is to tell the
monsters stop smoking cigarettesand shaking Facebook.

(01:11:55):
It's time to scare.
Yeah.
You know, here comes the fog,just the witch is cursed.
Let's go.
Yeah.
And it's a great mythology.
It is.
It's a great mythology.
Um, there are some prettynotable mazes.
Uh I want to talk about themazes, if I don't mind.
We have the chamber of chills,but we also have uh lots of
mazes, and there's a whole ummethod to the creation of the

(01:12:20):
mazes at not.
Yeah.
First off, they never ever dothemed mazes.

SPEAKER_08 (01:12:26):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (01:12:27):
As far as licensed characters.
Right, they never pull anyproperty outside.
Except for one exception, whichstarts in 1982.
Oh, okay.
Because Wolfman Jack is kind ofout.

SPEAKER_08 (01:12:40):
Yeah, Wolfman Jack's out in 81, I think.
Right.
Which is when Weird Owl takesover that job.
Right.
Weird Owl for one year.
Two two years, two years.
Yeah, then the second year isWeird Owl and Dr.
Demento together.

SPEAKER_04 (01:12:55):
You know, life doesn't suck.

SPEAKER_08 (01:12:57):
Man, that you know, if I had a time machine, I don't
need Jesus.
I need Weird Owl and Dr.
Demento.

SPEAKER_04 (01:13:02):
Well, it makes you think, like, maybe like I always
listen to the Weird Owl 3Dalbum, and I always wonder,
like, where did he get the ideato do Nature Trail to Hell?
Oh, yeah.
And it makes you think, did hewrite that for Knots?
Right.
Or was that inspired by Knots?

SPEAKER_08 (01:13:17):
Yeah.
Right.
By the way, quick tip of the hatto Dr.
Demento, who did his last everepisode about two weeks ago.

SPEAKER_04 (01:13:24):
Oh, time to wind down your radio.
Yes, time to wind down yourradio.
It's been wound up for so darnlong.
Yeah.
Oh, I'm gonna miss him.
Yeah, me too.
I'm gonna miss I I love Dr.
Demento.
He's one of the reasons Iperform doing characters and
silly races because of listeningto Dr.
D on uh Wild Westwood One radionetwork.

(01:13:46):
Yep, you know.

SPEAKER_08 (01:13:54):
Hey everybody, we were so excited about this
episode that we talked andtalked and talked and ended up
having to cut it down for size,but there was some excellent
material that we saved and wewanted you to hear anyway.
So coming out in a couple ofdays, uh, just before Halloween,
you should get an extra bonusbit of extra material from this
episode.
Really interesting, uh some ofit quite grim, deep dives about

(01:14:18):
haunts and safety violations,and uh really cool stuff like
that.
So keep your eyes out.
There should be anothershort-ish one coming in a couple
of days.

SPEAKER_06 (01:14:31):
See you soon, there is a new horror host who appears

(01:14:51):
on KTLA.

SPEAKER_04 (01:14:53):
Yeah.
And uh her uh she started off asan improv artist.
Actually, she was a showgirl inVegas and a dancer, but
eventually she finds herself inLos Angeles trying to make a
living, doing in uh improv workwith the groundlings.

SPEAKER_08 (01:15:07):
With the groundlings, which includes Phil
Hartman and Paul Rubens ofPee-Wee Herman fame, and John
Paragon, who's going to becomevery critical in both her and
Pee-Wee's career.

SPEAKER_04 (01:15:18):
Absolutely.
Yeah.
And uh she gets a job becauseMaya Nermi has been conscripted
to come back as Vampira.
They're gonna revamp the show.
Right.
Maya had a problem, which is shehad serious foot and mouth
disease.
If she didn't like you, shewould badmouth you to no no

(01:15:40):
avail.
Yeah.
And if she didn't like asituation, she would play the
victim.
Because you have to understand,by the eighties, she was
destitute.
Yes.
The band, the misfits, werehelping her pay rent.
Wow.
And she's living on SunsetBoulevard or whatever, selling
jewelry in a garage, you know.
And it was a sad ending forVampira.
But unfortunately, with Maya,she just kind of opened her

(01:16:02):
mouth one too many times andstarted ticking off the
executives.
Yeah.
So what started off as a we'regonna bring you back, turned
into we're gonna have you bekind of like an advisor.
Yeah.
And we're gonna find somebodythat you're gonna train, but
you're still it's still gonna bethe vampire show.
So they started holdingauditions.
Yeah.
Cassandra Peterson went off andauditioned for it.

(01:16:24):
She got the role uh because shehad been doing a character in
the groundlings, this kind ofvalley girl kind of character,
this bubbly, yeah, kind of goofyvalley girl character.
And the producers saw that andsaid, Come in and audition for
this.
And she did, yeah.
They liked her so much, theysuddenly realized she's got her
own character.
She doesn't need to be vampire.

SPEAKER_08 (01:16:42):
Yeah.
Well, and and I think that MyraNuri s said no.

SPEAKER_04 (01:16:48):
Yeah, she didn't she didn't like her.

SPEAKER_08 (01:16:49):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (01:16:50):
She said, absolutely not.
They're like, but she's great.
She goes, I don't care.
So whether it's professionaljealousy, you know, here's this
young bucksome redhead who'sgonna come in and take my act,
excuse me.
Well, knowing Maya, probably.
And she lost out and she waskicked out of the project.

SPEAKER_08 (01:17:07):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (01:17:07):
And Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, was born.
And she was not on for a longperiod of time when it comes to
horror hosts.

SPEAKER_08 (01:17:16):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (01:17:17):
But she made such a mark that within a year she was
already making publicappearances and cameos in TV
shows like Chips.

SPEAKER_08 (01:17:26):
Yeah, well, and it's interesting because this is why
earlier when we were talkingabout Vampira, I said there's
these fascinating parallels,because El Elvira was on local
TV for a couple of years.
And then she got on the TonightShow.
Johnny Carson had her on.

SPEAKER_04 (01:17:42):
Yep, with Vincent Price right next to her.
Yeah.
And I'm very impressed with yourneckline.

SPEAKER_08 (01:17:46):
Yeah.
And and Carson liked her.
And and but I mean she wasn'tbeing broadcast outside of the
LA area.
So that was an interesting thingto have happen.

SPEAKER_04 (01:17:56):
And she and what what really kicked off for her
was her marketing.
Oh, yeah.
And I think the thing thatreally kicked her off, really,
as far as her licensing of herimage was knots.

SPEAKER_08 (01:18:07):
Oh, I think so too.
I think it really dovetails withright when she's about to kind
of explode as a character acrossthe country.
Yeah.
And um, she does knots foralmost 20 years and then goes
away and then does it for a fewmore again later.
I mean, she is the figurehead ofKnot Scary Farm.

(01:18:28):
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
Like she's just she is the imageof it.
And she, you know, a lot of hercharacter was was developed as
as was Pee Wee Herman'scharacter, was developed with
the help of John Paragon.
Yep.
John Paragon, a lot of peoplewill know him as Jombie.

SPEAKER_04 (01:18:43):
Mecca Leka Hi!

SPEAKER_08 (01:18:44):
Mecca Hiho! But he was also very heavily behind the
scenes for both of these people.
Yes.
And uh when she started doingKnotch, she brought John with
her, and he performed with heron stage for years and years and
years.

SPEAKER_04 (01:18:57):
Oh, yeah.
She would sing, she would dance,she would introduce, she'd do
comedy, she would even do alittle burlesque dancing in her
earlier shows.
Yeah.
You know, like it was she was aphenomenon.

SPEAKER_08 (01:19:07):
You you watch her her shows, like video of her
shows compared to video of theWolfman Jack shows, and the
Wolfman Jack things just seemslike pure chaos.
Her shows are tight, they'relike a Vegas show.
Yep.
She's a good singer.
Uh Wolfman Jack is a singer, butshe's a good singer.
Uh she she knows what she'sdoing.

(01:19:29):
Yeah, she really does.

SPEAKER_04 (01:19:30):
Yeah.
And she knows how to pronounceC3PO.
C three CPO?
Yeah, she knows how to pronouncethree CPO.
So wouldn't that be great?
Like she actually had WolfmanJack come on as a like a guest
star.
Yeah.
But he's still in the sameoutfit.

SPEAKER_03 (01:19:42):
Does this look like the body is being afraid of you?

SPEAKER_04 (01:19:48):
No, it actually became pretty great.
Actually, his body is likesomething that's afraid of a
sit-up.

SPEAKER_03 (01:19:52):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (01:19:53):
Sorry.
I'm sorry.
I think I just wrote a new jokefor Cassandra.

SPEAKER_08 (01:19:59):
I think you didn't.

SPEAKER_04 (01:20:00):
You may use that.

SPEAKER_08 (01:20:01):
Um, well, she's she's done.
I actually saw a quote.

SPEAKER_04 (01:20:04):
No, she has retired.
She does not do Elvira anymore.

SPEAKER_08 (01:20:07):
I saw a quote from her just the other day where she
where someone asked her aboutit.
And she says, Look, I designedthe world's least comfortable
costume.

SPEAKER_02 (01:20:16):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 (01:20:16):
And she's like, I cannot get in that thing.
I can't walk in it anymore.

SPEAKER_04 (01:20:20):
Yeah, I know.
She's in her 70s now.
She has settled down.
She is very much an icon now.

SPEAKER_08 (01:20:26):
Yeah, but very nice lady as far as it's like.

SPEAKER_04 (01:20:28):
Oh, yeah.
I mean, I I've met her once.
I met her back in the 90s.
Uh my kid Emma desperatelywanted her autograph when we
went to Midsummer Scream thisyear.
Oh, yeah.
Because there was Cassandra, anduh Emma's like, oh my god, it's
Elvira! I'll get her autograph.
But she was charged like$80 foran autograph.
And I kind of went, that's kindof junky.

(01:20:49):
You know, I didn't know it is.
It's probably her sole income atthis point, though.
Kind of is.
I mean, I mean, well, she'sdoing what she always did, which
was to sell her brand.
Yeah.
She is a remarkably savvybusiness person.
Yeah.
And so I give Cassandra a lot ofcredit.
Absolutely.
And Elvira's a lot of fun.
Yes, she was one of those iconsof puberty.
Uh-huh.
You know, you got AdrienneBarbeau and Elvira.

(01:21:12):
Man, I like brunettes, right?
Like that's the thing.
She really is a savvy businessperson and a tremendous show
presence.
She's very talented, very funny.

SPEAKER_08 (01:21:21):
She really is.
And if the movies that she didare not great, but watching
video of her performing atknots, I get it.
Yeah.
Absolutely funny.
Anyway.
So I wanted, I think Iinterrupted you earlier when you
were talking about some of themore famous mazes.
And I actually wanted to hearyour your take on it.

SPEAKER_04 (01:21:38):
Okay.
So yeah, there's a lot.
I mean, the maze design processis the designers and builders, I
should actually mention thebuilders, many of whom are
actual like working contractors.
Yeah.
Some of which will basicallytake like a three or four month
vacation to go work at knotsbecause they love it so much.
Yeah.
So they just save up theirvacation time and they're going

(01:21:59):
to, I'm sorry, I'm going to workthe park.
But you have a lot of verycreative people and they they
come up with a story, they comeup with a pitch.
Right.
Here's your theme.
And uh then they pitch it at apitch meeting.
They talk about, okay, let's doit.
And they give them a heck of abudget and they take over back
alleyways.
They've now added like specialbuildings, show buildings where

(01:22:20):
they they can leave some of thestuff up.

SPEAKER_08 (01:22:22):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (01:22:22):
But sometimes uh I've been in mazes where they've
shut down the bumper cars andthey use the bumper car.
So you're walking on that metalfloor of a bumper car uh gazebo
and hope to god they don't turnit on.
Yeah.
Uh or or you're you'reunderneath roller coasters in
the boiler rooms and stuff.
Like you cram them into allthese different areas.

(01:22:43):
Also the log ride, which is veryterrifying.
If you're on the log ride atnight and the actors pop out at
you as you're slaloming down thelog ride, yeah, which is really
scary.

SPEAKER_08 (01:22:54):
Yeah, terrifying.

SPEAKER_04 (01:22:54):
Because you're moving it like 30, 40 miles an
hour in this thing with achainsaw going, and you're like,
oh god, that'll get me.
Yeah.
Um, but I've seen I've seen someof the mazes where you've got
you know carnivals where it'slike a creepy carnival.
Uh that's actually an oldtradition, actually, at Knott's
is Spidora, which is a very oldillusion, which is a half woman,
half spider illusion.

(01:23:16):
And it's one of the earliestmonsters of Knotts.
And Spidora was in the chillingchambers, and when they pull the
curtains open there, she'd belike, feed me.
Yeah.
And uh so she pops up every oncein a while, still to this day.
That's great.
Some of the other mazes thatthey've done wax museums.
Uh, there's one that Iparticularly love to this day.

(01:23:36):
It's called Dominion of theDead.
And it's all black and white.
It's a vampire maze.
Black, white, and you know, allthe grayscales, black and white,
and bright, bright red.

SPEAKER_08 (01:23:45):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (01:23:46):
Hammer film blood red.

SPEAKER_08 (01:23:47):
Okay.

SPEAKER_04 (01:23:48):
Otherwise known as Kensington Gore for you,
hammers.
Yes.
And it was extraordinary becauseit's kind of dreamy, very
gothic.
Yeah.
They have like this organ musicplaying, very Victorian and 18th
century attire.
And all the vampires, they'rebeautiful, but they're
terrifying at the same time.
Yeah.
They would have effects likescrim effects, where it looks

(01:24:08):
like this beautiful painting ofa woman, and then it becomes
this blazing um banquet of thedead where they're ripping apart
bodies and they're throwing itto each other while they're
drinking blood out of lyinggoblets, and then it goes right
back, and it's right next toyou, so it's like and all of a
sudden it's gone, and it's thepicture again.
You're like, whoa, that'sterrifying.
Yeah.
And other things, like there's agateway that you have to walk

(01:24:30):
through, and it's this bigstatue looks like a grim reaper
with his hands outstretched atyou, and then the hands start
coming towards you and then wraparound you, and then pull you
into the doorway that'sunderneath the head.
Oh, wow.
And it's puppets, yeah, likethey've got them on rods.
It's so simple, but it's reallyeffective.
And and uh this was 95 when Isaw it.
Yeah.

(01:24:50):
So that should tell you how muchof a staying power these, these,
these haunt mazes have.
And I've I've clearly ripped offa couple of them saying, I
remember this at Knott's, and itworked for me 20 years ago.
I'm gonna put it in my haunt.
And also they split up the parkinto different sections.
So you have the ghost town,yeah.
Uh, and then you have, um andall you knots listeners, please,

(01:25:11):
please give us notes, but bekind because there's so much to
know, yeah, so much tounderstand.
That's huge.
You can please leave a commentand please tell us all of the
the names and all of themythology.
Yeah.
But there's an area that's alittle bit more medieval and
gothy, and they have a you know,they have creepy pipers playing,
and it's all about knights andwizards and stuff.
Yeah.
They have other wandering areasthat are closer to the 1920s

(01:25:34):
area.
Yeah.
So that way they can theme thewandering monsters in particular
ways.
Right.
But the mazes are almost never,almost never licensed.
Yeah.
They're never like Universal,all they do it's only like very
few exceptions.
Like La Yarona, the La Yaronamaze at Universal was amazing.

SPEAKER_08 (01:25:54):
Okay.

SPEAKER_04 (01:25:55):
That's not based off of the movie, it was its own
thing.
So it came out before the filmdid.
And then uh another maze thatwould later be actually turned
into a movie, which was RobZombie's The House of a Thousand
Corpses.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Which he built a maze first, andthen he was like, I'd be great
to make a movie off of this.
Interesting.
Let's do that.
Yeah.
You know, and then you getCaptain.
Now you've got this last year.

(01:26:16):
I think they actually had, orthe year before, they actually
had a house of a thousandcorpses with Captain Spaulding
and all that.

SPEAKER_08 (01:26:21):
Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (01:26:22):
Knotts makes a point, and this is what makes it
so special.

SPEAKER_08 (01:26:25):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (01:26:26):
Is that they do five to seven mazes.
Yeah.
And you're walking all over thepark at night.
They've got creepy music,they've got monsters.
You're like, let's go to a maze.
Great.
Yeah.
Go get scared in the maze.
That's great.
Creepy clown maze, awesome.
The werewolf maze.
I can't remember if it's calledthe curse of the werewolf or
blood of the moon or somethinglike that, but it's it's a
werewolf maze.

(01:26:46):
Yeah.
It was set in Knottsbury Farm'sMystery Shack.
Yeah.
And so the whole point is thatyou have been cursed and you are
becoming a werewolf.
So all of those effects aremeant to disorient you as if
you're transforming into a wolf.
That's so great.
That was the premise of thestory.

SPEAKER_08 (01:27:03):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (01:27:04):
It doesn't quite come off, but that was the
premise of why the building istilting and forth.

SPEAKER_08 (01:27:08):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (01:27:09):
And they had wolves that are growling down.
You have to walk through thislittle gully and they're
growling.
You could hear them growling andthey're shaking.
Yeah.
And the red eyes are glaring atyou from above.
And then you've got people thatare half wolf or half boar
coming at you.
It was really good.
And they have like a largewerewolf that was like a puppet
that attacks you.
It was so good, but it was inthis nice, tight little space.

(01:27:31):
Yeah.
Very short maze, but it was verymemorable because the theming
just went with the mysteryshack.
Yeah.
So to this day, Knotts really isconsidered the great granddaddy
of them all.
And because of them, Universalstarted doing Universal Studio,
you know, studios started doinghorror nights.
Yeah.
And then Disney eventuallystarted catching on maybe we

(01:27:52):
should do something, but let'smake it for the kitties.
Right.
And he got, you know,celebration.

SPEAKER_08 (01:27:56):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (01:27:57):
That's good.
It's like we'll get the peoplethat aren't going to Knott's.
Because all of the ugly peopleare over here.
According to Wolfman Dack.

SPEAKER_08 (01:28:05):
Brings me to a couple of the what I will call
the dark side of N's knots.
Yeah, we should probably coverthis for a minute.
Well, and and the first one'sbecause you were talking about
them decorating the rides.

SPEAKER_03 (01:28:15):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 (01:28:16):
We will certainly do an episode on uh Knott's Berry
Tales.
Oh, yes.
Uh Raleigh Crump's the maybemasterpiece.
Yes.
A lot of the reason that Knott'sBerry Tails went away was
because of Knott's Scary Farm.
Yeah.
Because they kept redecoratingit, and the people who were
redecorating it didn'tunderstand the ride, and they

(01:28:38):
kept breaking parts of it.
And there was no there wasn't alot of money to go in and fix
stuff, or not enough will to goin and fix stuff.
And eventually the segment ofupper management at Knott's that
didn't like Knott's berry talesjust said too much of it's
broken now, and that's why theyshut it down and replaced it
with some dinosaur thing.

SPEAKER_04 (01:29:01):
The time machine dinosaur, yeah, land of
dinosaurs, whatever it was,which is in Beverly Hills Cop 3,
by the way.

SPEAKER_07 (01:29:06):
Oh, neat.

SPEAKER_08 (01:29:07):
That's that's one of the sad things is that Knott's
Scary Farm did cause Knott'sberry tales, the attraction, to
go away sooner.
Yeah.
Um but the other thing that Ikind of wanted to talk about was
Trapped.

SPEAKER_04 (01:29:22):
Yeah, let's talk about Trapped.

SPEAKER_08 (01:29:24):
Yeah, so Trapped is uh it seems to be from this
writer named Jeff Tucker.
He had been working at Not ScaryFarm for a while.
Seems like a totally decent guy.
Um not trying to say anythingbad about him.
He did a lot of great things forScary Farm.
He was a longtime fan of ScaryFarm.

(01:29:44):
Cool guy.
Yeah.
Um so he invented Knott's firstever separate ticketed event
within the Scary Farm, which isTrapped.
And Trapped starts off kind ofas an experience.
Extreme horror maze andeventually becomes an extreme
horror maze.

(01:30:05):
And it's have have you read muchabout this?
Oh yeah.
Yeah, I've heard about it.

SPEAKER_04 (01:30:12):
Oh yeah.
Someday we'll talk about those,but not with necessarily.

SPEAKER_08 (01:30:19):
So he, you know, the first year, you know, it's it's
an inside maze, it's a specialticket.
You have to go in with a group.
It's a little it's it's scary.
It gets a little more intense.
The actors are allowed to touchyou.

SPEAKER_03 (01:30:33):
Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_08 (01:30:34):
Which you're already you're dropping a taboo right
there.
Yep.
It's in it's intense.
People have to sign a waiver togo through it.
A lot of people really liked it.
And uh a lot of people thoughtit was too much.
Yeah.
So then they go to the secondyear, uh, trapped the new
experiment.
This one starts to add moreescape room-like puzzles.

(01:30:56):
Right.
Which is an interesting idea.
And and it's 2013 we're talkingabout.
So it it actually predates thekind of modern rise of the scare
of the escape room.
Right.
So that's interesting.

SPEAKER_04 (01:31:08):
Um trapped lock and key.
Well, that's the third one.

SPEAKER_08 (01:31:11):
That's the troubling one.
Yeah.
So so trapped lock and key, ithas some great ideas.
They sure don't feel like knotsideas to me.
There's extreme challenges thatyou have to go through,
including drinking simulatedurine.
Um there's a thing where youkeep running.
This is it's clever in somesense, but I don't think in this

(01:31:34):
setting.
You keep running into someonewho seems to be lost, who's
supposed to be another guest.
One of the challenges at theend, just towards the end, is
that you have to pull a leverand hang that person yourself.

SPEAKER_03 (01:31:46):
Right.

SPEAKER_08 (01:31:46):
And the whole thing climaxes with your entire party
getting on a hanging platform,putting nooses around your neck,
heads covered up, and the floordrops.
This is this is extreme.

SPEAKER_04 (01:32:00):
That's a little yeah.
Yeah.
Especially for knots, you know.
Yeah, and there are extremehaunts, and I'm not gonna I've
done a couple.
Yeah.
And they do push your buttons,they push your limits a lot.
There are several out there thatare too extreme even for me.
I mean, I'm if I was in mytwenties, I'd probably go do
them.

SPEAKER_08 (01:32:16):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (01:32:16):
But because I'm in my fifties now, I'd be like, mm,
I don't necessarily need to beimmersed in ice water and then
have you know bugs shoved downmy throat.

SPEAKER_08 (01:32:25):
No.
No, thank you.
No, or or as they they didn'ttrapped, like you being shoved
into a coffin and having itclosed on you.
I understand there's a place forthis sort of thing.
I have a problem with it here atKnott's.
Oh, yeah.
Especially at Knott's.
And it only lasted for threeyears.
Thank goodness.
Yeah.
And the so the the third one,trapped lock, and key, they had

(01:32:46):
a safe word.
So you didn't have to sign awaiver in this one, but there
was a safe word to get you out.
Do you know what it was?
Banana.
Oh, come on, you can guess it.

SPEAKER_04 (01:32:54):
Oh, uh uh oh no, uh uh Whittles.
No, very close.
Boys and Barry.
Oh, boys and berry.

SPEAKER_08 (01:33:01):
I like whittles though, but yeah.
The tricky thing was was that ifyou said it, your entire party
had to leave.

SPEAKER_04 (01:33:07):
Oh God.
Yeah.
Oh, dude.
So that And it was 60 bucks aperson.
That is a social gun to the headif I ever heard.
Yeah, man.
It's like if you chicken out,everybody goes.
I was like, what?
That yeah.
That's not fair.
Yeah.
Well, then don't chicken out.
Yeah.
You know?
Yeah, the the interactive thing,it's kind of interesting.
I'll bet you anything.
I mean, uh, Universal is nowstarting to do that kind of

(01:33:27):
thing with these fan nights,which they will recreate certain
movies like Back to the Future.
They had a whole Dungeons andDragons thing with a beholder.

SPEAKER_08 (01:33:35):
You know, what's funny is we did that whole Star
Trek episode, and we didn'tmention that Universal fan
nights this year had a Star Trekexperience.

SPEAKER_04 (01:33:43):
Right.
Yeah.
It's yeah, we were like, oh mygod, we forgot that one.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So there's uh there's verydefinitely a push for the
interactivity.
I mean, we talk about itconstantly here, but in haunts,
it's very difficult difficultbecause with a haunt, it is
already inherently interactive.
Yes.
To push a haunt even furtherinto interactivity, you are

(01:34:03):
running a razor's edge of eitherdanger, liability, or both.
And you have to be very, verycareful about how you handle it.
Yeah.
I mean, as a director and as anowner of haunts, um, I've been
very lucky, knocking on wood, orat least for Micah covered press
board, um, that I've never beensued for some of the gags that

(01:34:26):
we did in our haunt.
Yeah.
They were very tame compared tosome of the things that I have
seen some haunts try.
Right.
Uh, because I'm kind of an oldschool purist.

SPEAKER_08 (01:34:35):
And and you've built up a set of standards for these
are the things you can do andthese are the things you cannot
do.

SPEAKER_04 (01:34:41):
Right.

SPEAKER_08 (01:34:42):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (01:34:42):
Um, now that's to say, I I do have a couple of
designs.
I have them in like pads ofpaper that I kind of keep in a
little box where I have like Idesign the whole haunt and I go,
someday I'll do this, or maybeI'll hand it off to somebody
else.
Right.
There are a couple in therewhere I just go, what if I
didn't have to worry about thosestandards anymore?
What how far could I push peoplewhere people go, Whoa, that was

(01:35:03):
a bit much.

SPEAKER_08 (01:35:04):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (01:35:05):
But even then, when I look at what I do, yeah, it
ain't close to like some of theextreme haunts that are out
there still.
Um so yeah, so Knott's to thisday has set a precedent for
almost every single theme park.
Six Flags does it.
It's you know, so many people doit.
It has kept Knotts Berry Farm inthe black.
Yeah.
And there's a lot of theme parksout there where that is the

(01:35:27):
case.
Sometimes there are some SixFlags parks that are still open
only because they do Halloweenevents.

SPEAKER_08 (01:35:33):
There's one about 10 minutes away from us, which that
is absolutely the case.

SPEAKER_04 (01:35:37):
Yeah.
The Six Flags in Vallejo stillstays open because of their
Halloween show.
Fright nights, yeah.
Yeah, they're fright nights.
It's crazy.

SPEAKER_08 (01:35:44):
Yeah, Universal makes the vast majority of its
money during the Halloweenseason.
Yeah.
Um, and Universal is a big park,so that's saying something.

SPEAKER_04 (01:35:52):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Bring back Castle Dracula, guys.

SPEAKER_08 (01:35:55):
Yeah, bring back Castle Dracula.
I'm just saying.

SPEAKER_04 (01:35:57):
Go back to our last episode.
That's all about.
Anyway.
All right.
I think we're maybe at thatpoint.
We are at that point in our showwhere we ignore all tenets of
safety and economic viability.
Although I do want to say safetyfirst in this one.

SPEAKER_08 (01:36:10):
Yeah.
So we will try and stay safe.

SPEAKER_04 (01:36:13):
Yep.
So uh whose turn is it to do ourplus up this time?

SPEAKER_08 (01:36:18):
I have no idea.
I can go if you'd like.

SPEAKER_04 (01:36:19):
Why don't you go ahead?
Okay.
You you do your plus up first.

SPEAKER_08 (01:36:22):
My mine is pretty simple.
Mine is I appreciate that thisevent has grown and grown and
grown.
And it is a something of aparty.
It's a bigger and bigger party.
Yeah.
But I would like to get a littlebit of the seriousness back in.
I'm not saying you can't havelike fun and laughs and stuff

(01:36:43):
and and mazes.
And I and I don't think there'sany drawing back of the hanging
to to what it was when itstarted.
I think it's it's stuck there.
But I would like to see somestuff like l what the hanging
used to be.
Some serious, scary set piecesthat aren't joking.

(01:37:06):
That are really like we're gonnado something and then we're
gonna stare you right in the eyewhile we do it.

SPEAKER_04 (01:37:13):
Yeah, it's a horror movie, but it's live right in
front of you.

SPEAKER_08 (01:37:15):
Yeah.
And not in that sense that youget sometimes with the universal
horror mazes where it's likewe're just we're gonna go
extreme.
We're serious, but we're reallygoing over the top.
Right.
Not that.
No.
Something where you're you'rejust taking this horror set
piece e even if it's an oldstyle horror set piece, even if

(01:37:36):
it is something like the hangingof a witch or I don't know, some
sort of mad scientist thing,whatever.
But you're taking it seriously.
Sure.
Just to just to add some textureback in to not scary farm.
I th I'd I'd like to seesomething like that.

SPEAKER_04 (01:37:53):
I like that.
I like that a lot.

SPEAKER_08 (01:37:54):
What about you?

SPEAKER_04 (01:37:56):
For me, um now that Elvira is no longer working,
working as Elvira, um, I thinkwe need uh a rise of a new
horror host or a new host edit.
I I know a guy.

SPEAKER_08 (01:38:12):
Oh, you do?
Yeah.
Okay.
Have you have you met Mr.
Hives?
Oh god.

SPEAKER_04 (01:38:21):
I really didn't know where you were going with this.
Really?
Seriously?
I really didn't.
Like, wait, who would be goodenough for that?
Um I don't think I'd be goodenough for it.
I mean, I don't I don't have thechest for it.

SPEAKER_08 (01:38:33):
I mean Well, you would have to have a different
act.

SPEAKER_04 (01:38:39):
Oh, okay.
Yeah, okay.
So this if I were to do this asa plus up, okay.
I I do think that someone shouldkind of bring back that big
showmanship attitude that Elviraand Seymour and Wolfman Jack all
had.
Yeah.
Like they'll have their ownflavor to it.
Yes.
But they are definitely like thegrand marshal of this.

(01:38:59):
Yeah.
So whoever that is, whoever thatwinds up being, would it be Mr.
Hives?
I'd I'd audition, give me ashot.
Yeah.
You know, like for the okay, sofor those who don't know, God
help me.

SPEAKER_08 (01:39:11):
For those of you listening- You've got to get
better at self-promotion, Pete.

SPEAKER_04 (01:39:15):
I'm I am a horror host and I I do live shows that
are actually inspired by theworks of Seymour and of Zachary.
Yeah.
In which I make fun of themovies, I recreate the gimmicks
of the films, and we showclassic old monster movies and
we have fun with thesescreenings.
Um, I am going to be launching aYouTube show.
Uh we are filming November 14th,finally.

(01:39:37):
Yeah.
Got a place to film.
We're going to film the firstsix episodes and we're going to
start releasing them on YouTubefor fun.
Uh, but I do these live shows,and but they are heavily
inspired by um um Zacherly andSinister Seymour, with it's just
a touch here and there with thebody humor of Elvira.
Yeah.
Every once in a while anentendre will come through.

SPEAKER_08 (01:39:57):
Yeah.
And if if you're in the BayArea, look him up because he's
doing live shows these days, andyou have to get tickets early,
it turns out, because they sellout.

SPEAKER_04 (01:40:05):
Yeah, we recently did the tingler.
Yeah.
At uh the Alameda Theater inAlameda, California, and we sold
the theater out.
Yeah.
And there was a Disneyblockbuster playing in the big
theater, and there's only likesix people in the theater.
I'm kind of like smiling, going,Yeah, they took a look and they
were like, Who do we want?

SPEAKER_08 (01:40:19):
Jared Leto?
Mr.
Hives.
Yeah.
They went Mr.

SPEAKER_04 (01:40:22):
Hives.
Ah, yes, Mr.
Hives.
Yeah, Mr.
Hives presents not scary pharma.

SPEAKER_08 (01:40:28):
I would not say no to that.

SPEAKER_04 (01:40:29):
Yeah, I'm really I think I think it'd be a good
gig.
It would be I would be all overthat gig.
Are you kidding me?
I mean, that would be fantastic,you know?
Because Hives would actuallytranslate over between the the
stage show and the hanging, likeactually having Hives pop going
back and forth between the twoshows.
I'd be all over that.
Oh, it'd be great.
Um there's no way they'rethey're gonna do it.

(01:40:52):
There's no way Mr.

SPEAKER_08 (01:40:55):
Hives is gonna do it.
I'm gonna go later and look andsee if they're auditioning.

SPEAKER_04 (01:41:00):
But if they are auditioning, I'd get I'd give it
a shot.
I'd be all over it.
Because I I think the traditionof the host is really important
because it gives the show a faceand it sets a tone.

SPEAKER_08 (01:41:12):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (01:41:12):
And it and when you do that, when you have an MC
like that who really knows theirstuff and you really know the
culture of the people who go tothese shows, it just makes it
all the better for it.
So no matter who it is, findsomeone who's worth their salt.
Don't make it Jimmy Kimmel.
No, no, no.
Don't make it, you know, don'tmake it a late-night host who's

(01:41:33):
just gonna show up and go, wow,hi everybody, it's spooky and
stuff.
No, get someone who's apersonality.

SPEAKER_03 (01:41:39):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (01:41:39):
You know, like get a horror guy.
Get a somebody who's really astandout horror personality.
Yeah.
You know, someone who can reallyown it, doesn't mind being
tongue-in-cheek, but alsodoesn't mind getting really, you
know, vicious if they need tobe.
Yeah.
Depending upon the tone of thething.
Get someone who can who can bethat character and own it.
Yeah.
You know, and yeah, okay, I'llsubmit Mr.

(01:42:02):
Hives.
Is that possible?
Yeah, man.
But you know, but only ifthere's auditions, and I'll I'll
show up.
All right.
Yeah, give me, give me a call.
Knott's Berry Farm.
If you're listening, yeah.
I'll I will come down all theway down there to audition in
person and I will try my best toscare your socks off.

SPEAKER_08 (01:42:18):
Yeah, Knots guys, give give us a call.
We're sorry about what we saidabout trapped.

SPEAKER_04 (01:42:24):
Actually, you know, one last quick little note.
Um, as a as a haunt operator,I've had the honor of actually
hanging out with some of theguys who are directors of the
haunt.
And they're actually some of thegreatest dudes to chat with
because they know their stuff.
Yeah.
You can go beyond the, yeah,Halloween is cool, and I like to
do a haunt in my yard.
Yeah.
Like this, these guys are pros.

(01:42:46):
Yeah.
They are the best of the best.
I mean, that's the thing.
Why it scares me to go, like,yeah, it could be Mr.
Hives at the show, is becausethey are looking for the best of
the best because they know thatthis is the oldest institution.
Yeah.
So they have a reputation touphold.
And their their haunt shows it.
Yeah.
Their haunt really shows it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So all right.
Well, happy Halloween,everybody.

(01:43:07):
Happy Halloween.
And uh so go out there and puton your knee pads if you're a
slider.
Don't forget, and don't forgetto wear your steel-toed shoes.
Yeah.
And uh, and if not, go watchsome Elvira or Vampira or
whatever, watch some scarymovies, eat some popcorn.
Yeah.
And uh and check for sprinklersystems.

(01:43:28):
That's and get dressed up as 3CPO.
Or at least a cocaine-ladenWolfman check.

SPEAKER_08 (01:43:36):
Go see Mr.
Hives and show him that you lovehim.

SPEAKER_03 (01:43:38):
Yeah, Mr.
He-Vaze.
I like Mr.
Heaves.

SPEAKER_08 (01:43:43):
All right.
On that note, I'm PeterOverstreet.
I'm Kelly McGubbin.
And you've been listening to TheLow Down on the Plus Up.
We hope you've enjoyed thisepisode of The Lowdown on the

(01:44:06):
Plus Up.
If you have, please tell yourfriends where you found us.
And if you haven't, we canpretend this never happened and
need not speak of it again.
For a lot more thoughts on themeparks and related stuff, check
out my writing for BoardwalkTimes at Boardwalk Times.net.
Feel free to reach out to Peteand I at Lowdown on the Plus Up
on Blue Sky, Mastodon,Instagram, and all the other

(01:44:28):
socials.
Or you can send us a messagedirectly at comments at
lowdown-plus-up.com.
We really want to hear about howyou'd plus these attractions up
and read some of your ideas onthe show.
Our theme music is Goblin TinkerSoldier Spy by Kevin McLeod at
Incompotech.com.

(01:44:49):
We'll have a new episode outreal soon.
Why?
Because we like you!

SPEAKER_05 (01:45:16):
Oh we got a special surprise for you folks today.
We have some of the folks fromStar Wars with us.
Will you please welcome thejumper?

(01:45:49):
One of the superstars of StarWars! Superbacka!

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Knott's Scary Farm - Before Halloween Horror Nights, Before Oogie-Boogie Bash, Knott's Got Boysenscary!

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