Haunt Weekly - Episode 432 - February/March News

Introduction

[0:23] Hello, everyone. I'm Jonathan. I'm Crystal. And this is Haunt Weekly, a weekly podcast for the haunted attraction and entertainment community.
Whether you're an actor, owner, or just plain aficionado, we aim to be a podcast for you.
And I have two hopes for you as we enter this episode.
First, that those of you who went to Transworld had an excellent time and enjoyed yourself very thoroughly.
We have been devouring your social media posts the entire time.
Thank you very much for sharing with the world. Really appreciate it.
And we hope that you all also join us in raising our torches and burning this fucking time change thing to the ground.
The latter's way more important for the record.

The Dreaded Time Change

[1:03] This sucks.
Jesus, I hate time change.
Me too. I just, it's so bad because I don't even know what to say here. I have like no segue.
I have nothing to the next segment because I'm still pissed about time change.
Well, that's because, you know, it makes you tired without, you know, warning.
It's like jet lag, but for being at home.
Well, and it's really bad because, I mean, I do very well when I change time zones as part of a trip.
Yeah. Like, we used to go to England semi-regularly. As long as it's a long trip. As long as it's more than a day, I'm fine.
Because I can usually expose myself to some noonday sun, get some drinking, coffee at the correct time, beer at the correct time, you know, reset myself.
Myself and usually within 24 hours i'm hunky dory no big deal like it never happened but time change this messes me up and it sometimes lasts for weeks is what i have found yeah and i don't know why it's worse and i hate it so much we gain no benefit from it this needs to fucking die in a fire i don't care which one we stick with for the record no you like daylight savings time bravo bravo let's just do that run with it and forever does daylight not need saving in the winter? I mean, anyway.

Haunt Plans and Demos

[2:22] Sorry, I needed to do that. Yeah. Please, though, do check us out at the other places we are for less drowsy podcasts.
You can find more of our work at hauntweekly.com, hauntweekly on Twitter, hauntweekly on Facebook, and youtube.com slash hauntweekly.
You can also find us wherever you get your podcasts from.

[2:40] Let's see, before we get into the usual pre-show stuff, work we did for the Haunt, we actually did place some orders for stuff we need.
Yeah. Went out and got some measurements for a handful of things.
They're not exclusively for the Haunt, but they are for the Haunt, too.
It's kind of difficult to explain. We'll tell you more about it when we do the fucking work and have photos to share.
Yeah. Because also, we don't want the other person in the house to hear it.
Yeah, that's part of it. And if I say it too loud, she will.
Yeah, and we realized that all of the demo is done.
Like, everything that we had planned coming down is down.
So now we've got to figure out what our next steps are. Yeah, and that was kind of the problem.
We went back out there with the idea of, hey, we're going to demo a little more and clean up.
Then we looked around and realized, no, the things that are up kind of need to still be up. Yeah. Oops.
And so that kind of, like, fucked the plan a little bit. But, I mean, we've also been really tired and really sick lately, so we weren't going to do much no matter what.
I mean, we've also had some wonky-ass weather this weekend. I don't know what the fuck's going on with it.
I mean, global climate change is kicking New Orleans in the nuts is what I'm seeing.

[3:51] It's just dick-kick city every fucking weekend here. It's crazy. Yeah.
But, yeah, so we did get a little bit done, but not as much as we had hoped.
I will admit that openly.
So that's keeping you up to date there, as we promised. But every week we ask you guys a question of the week. And last week's question was, what is your big goal for 2024?

[4:14] And, well, y'all came through again. Derek Muehlberger said to enjoy it with the least amount of BS and unfulfilled expectations.
2024 haunt season, I should say specifically. Yeah. Sorry, continue.
Roberta McClellan said less rain and more professional development.
I will do an anti-rain dance. Yes. I don't even know what that would be.
I will wish for non-reign. Drought conditions will revert to...
No, wait. Let's not go that far. No, no, no.
Chris Gay would love to see more off-season events that are not specific.
They're not simply the Haunt in a Holiday costume.
We are testing a May the 4th Star Wars slash halfway to Halloween inclusive goth dance party. Those are cool.
That's fun. fun if it goes well we're also going to do an an equine an autumn equinox witch's ball right before season with recruitment in mind that sounds great you know what all these sound like interesting ideas um i would go to those be cautious with the witch's ball how you present remember paganism and wicca are actual religions people do practice yeah but in that uh yeah i think this is some great ideas yeah, Michael Arnold said that I can find a place.
The home haunt has gotten too popular. It's grown up too much.

[5:31] I'm very grateful for the turnout, but having over 1,500 people on a friend's private property has created a whole slew of issues. So they are looking to move.
And maybe go pro. Yeah.
Yeah. I got to say, before we had to shut down in 2019 to the road construction, we were pulling at about 1,000 people.
And we were getting at a point where we were looking at each other and talking, but we were at max capacity and then some and getting really worried about the crowds.
Now, when we were finally able to come out of everything last year or 2022, we were able to come out. Yeah.

[6:08] Our numbers were down compared to where they were pre-2019, which sucked.
And it hurt a lot because we did lose a good percentage but it also meant the crowd never got unmanageable and honestly in this context it may have bought us more time as being home haunters so yeah I'm kind of actually a little bit happy in this context about it Kevin Hopkins hopes for a less volatile presidential election good luck with that one I share your hope but good luck with that one we along with several other owners I know have already planned on spending less this year due to political and economic uncertainty.
Plus, ad spots are getting scarce and difficult to get because of political ads.

[6:54] Yeah, interesting, fun. This isn't a fun fact. There's nothing fun about this fact. It is a fact. It is a fact.
TV stations, radio stations, et cetera, places that do advertising, I believe that they are over-the-air broadcast, and I don't know if this applies to cable, but I know it applies to over-the-air broadcast.

[7:13] Are legally obligated to take every political ad that meets FCC compliance. compliance.
They cannot refuse to take ads from one candidate or another, no matter the content of the ad, no matter how much they dislike or like the candidate or whatever.
They have to take everything under their deal with the FCC. So yeah, those political campaigns are going to get first dibs on all the ads.
And you'd better believe they're paying full price because that's the only other reason they can reject them is if they don't pay.
So should people be starting to think about reaching out and asking for interview slots then?
Yeah. Because then it's not an ad. Yeah, I think the real answer to this isn't so much to change advertising. It might be to do more of a shift to PR.
And one thing that I have found has been great every election year has been haunted attractions have been a great diversion from the election.
And every time the news is like, and now on a lighter note, we're going to go to such and such.
Yeah. You can be that attraction is what I'm saying.
You can do that. And so, yeah, I'm with Crystal here.

Shift to PR for Advertising

[8:19] I think you go the more PR route. Seek out your TV, radio, newspaper interviews and get into publications that way. Yeah.
Paul Hoover said that we might have a bigger year than last year.
And they got their original venue back. Congrats. Great news. So they should.

[8:37] Well, and Sam Farrell said, as an owner, to break the 1,000 guest threshold.
It does feel very good when we did it 2018.
I remember that very well. Yeah.
And as a customer to see new concepts and situations at the Haunt's Eye Visit.
You're always hoping to see that.

[8:54] Well, this week's question of the week is about straightforward as hell.
Whether you went to Transworld or were just like we were, stalking on social media. Yeah.
What was the big thing this year? What do you think the big thing was?
Let us know. Hauntweekly.com. Hauntweekly on Twitter. Hauntweekly on Facebook.
YouTube.com slash Hauntweekly. Leave a comment. Send an email. Let us know.
I've got to say, as a stalker. Yeah, because I was about to say, I was going to ask you. What was yours?
I didn't see one. That was what was so weird. Oh.
I did notice, and this may be my own biases kicking in, because we're kind of on the lookout for this stuff.
We did see a lot of steampunk stuff. Yeah.
A lot of it looked really cool.

[9:38] But we're kind of on the lookout for that. So that could be my own bias kicking in. Yeah, it could.
I also saw the, I guess it was a cello, or the neck of an instrument stuck into the neck of a person.
Oh, like they were impaled on it type thing. Yeah, exactly.
And they were being played by a musician.
Shades of the Three Days Grace apocalyptic video. Yeah.
Yeah. So, yeah. I don't know. I saw a lot of great posts and photos and videos and everything.
But nothing really leapt out.
Yeah, it wasn't like the year of the giant id.
No, there was no one thing that really had everyone goo-goo-ga-ga-ing.
And I got to say, I didn't see anything really break out because we, obviously this is a news episode.
We did a lot of haunted attraction, haunted house news related searches.
Nothing really hit the mainstream that we found.
Yeah. Like you said, the Pennywise that with the forearms and eating the kids that went big all those years ago. There's nothing like that.
So I am curious what you guys think. What was the big thing this year?
Let us know. No, Haunt Weekly at all the places I already mentioned now twice, so I'm not going to do it again.

[10:55] Well, on that note, it is also an even number episode. That means we also do our conference reminders. And, oh, my God, Transworld's done.
Yay. So we've got to do something else to start?
Well, Crystal, why don't you do that?
Sphere Expo Live, April 12th through the 14th in Owensboro, Kentucky.

[11:17] At the Owensboro Convention Center, it is free admission, ultimate haunt tour featuring six haunts, costume contest, and more.
And that is fearexpolive.com. Hang on one second. I'm having an issue getting the conference reminders pulled up from the link I had. There we go.
And after that, April 25th through the 28th, it's East Coast Honors Convention.
I've been sitting around the past five fucking minutes trying to open the goddamn thing.
In Oaks, Pennsylvania, it's the East Coast Honors Convention. I'll say it again.
The Greater Philadelphia Expo Center.
Friday Haunt Tour featuring Eastern State Penn, Bates Motel, Pennhurst Asylum. Jesus Christ, what a lineup.
Otherworldly, Otherworld Party Saturday night. By the same people who bring to you Transworld.
So if you didn't get your Transworld fix fully, here's where you go.

[12:14] Eastcoasthauntersconvention.com Okay, April 26th and the 28th, it is the Spooky Swap Meet in Los Angeles, California at the Heritage Square Museum.
It's a great place to purchase those gently loved items, including costumes and decor, created by co-founders of Midsummer Scream.
SpookySwapMeet.com for more info. Yes, yes, yes.
And finally, this episode, May 11th, it is the Halfway to Halloween Expo in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
At the Washtenaw Farm Council grounds. My God, I gave myself an impossible one.
140 different vendors, a hearse show, food trucks, and more.

Halfway to Halloween Expo

[12:59] Sounds like a great time.
Halfway to Halloween.com. Great opportunity to buy some unique spooky items, too.

[13:05] All right. Well, on that note, everyone, as I alluded to before, episode 432 is visible before.
Therefore, it's so facto it is time to do the news. And let's be honest.
Let's be straightforward.
Not exactly a crazy busy news cycle. We were genuinely hoping that Transworld would really like boost the news stories.
And it really didn't. We do have one trans-world related we're going to get to.
But yeah, it was really frustrating trying to get news stories for this one.

Searching for Haunt News

[13:37] I don't know what's going on, but there just was not a lot happening in this space. Even for, I know we're about as off season as it gets, but.
We are. And the other problem is, is that the new search engines seem to be like going a little haywire lately.
Yeah. And they're trying to feed me things from four years ago.
Well, and the thing about the search engines is they've actually done academic studies and they are getting worse.

[14:01] It's like AI was invented and now our searches are just terrible. Yeah.
And then those two things are very much related, unfortunately.
So yeah, we're struggling a bit to find those stories. So one of the things I want to ask before we jump into our first story is if you see something and you aren't sure if we've seen it yet, please do let us know.
You know all the places to find us or leave comments, message us on Facebook, Facebook, send us an email via the website, whatever works best for you.
But if you see something or if you've got a press release you think you want us to cover, let us know. And the same thing goes with the conferences.
We don't know everything. We've added a couple of conferences that come further down in the rotation.
So we'll be getting to them in a couple of, maybe like a month or two.
But yeah, help us out with conferences too. So yeah, please, as usual, we're always helpful. We're always grateful for your assistance.
If the worst we're going to say is we already saw Thank you.
That's literally the worst we can say. Yep.

Hotel of Horror Property Debate

[14:56] Alright, our first story this week. Jump in. Springfield City leaders are discussing a proposal to end a year-long... They are disgusting, too.

[15:06] A year-long debate over the Hotel of Horror property. If you've got Scooby-Doo, I can do that one.
Oh, no, you totally have that one. I think you were right the first time.
Yeah, this is KY3.com, and it's by the KY3 staff.
The Haunted House has been a fixture... It's very impressive for a long wooden stick to write an article. Yes, it is.
It's been a fixture in the downtown for decades. We reported on the eminent domain that the city filed against them to make repairs to the Main Street Bridge, but also make it like little park areas, what they were talking about.
Some riverfront renovation type stuff. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
But it looks like Sterling Mathis, the owner of the hotel, and council members may be able to get a zoning change that would shift another property that he owns from a heavy manufacturing zone.
Zoning ordinance. Yeah, sorry. Yeah, we're not zoning experts.
We're zoning experts at Zoning Out. Yeah. Moving on, sorry. Sorry.
To a center city district. Whatever that means in their context.
Yeah, exactly. That's one of the reasons we don't know zoning is it's a completely different place to place.
I mean, Houston famously doesn't have zoning.
Yeah. That's why you've got a porn shop across the street from elementary school. That literally is true.
That is a true fact.

[16:33] As opposed to a fake fact. That is actually a fun fact, too.
Yeah. But the move would help pave the way for the hotel's relocation to Wall Street property. Yeah. And the city.

[16:46] And he already does operate a haunt from there. Dungeons of Doom with a popcorn bucket.
Dungeons of Doom at that location. And so they would just be bringing both attractions to the property.
The City Council will vote on the rezoning February 26th. They already did.
Oh, and? But we haven't had, because they voted on it February 26th, but we don't have the update. Nobody posted an article.
No. Screw you all. Or else we couldn't find it. We couldn't find, once again, we just heard our whole tirade about how much the search engines suck ass, so maybe that's the problem.
But yeah, this is the one we talked about. They actually went to the vote on this one, wasn't this them?
Yeah, and they got a petition and had a bunch of people sign it.
Yeah, and it went to a vote, and the vote was in favor of the hotel to not shut it down.
And that basically forced the council to sort of abandon that effort at eminent domain. main.
And now they're coming to the table with what actually seems like a productive fucking idea.

[17:44] Mm-hmm. You know? Yeah. Because the whole point of, he said, and the whole thing that this Mathis guy talked about in the earlier stories, was that he was fine relocating, but he needed the property to be paid for and valued at an amount that made it possible.
Right. That they were just really low-balling their eminent domain estimate. Yeah.
Which is not an uncommon problem for the record. Right. Right, and that they didn't realize that a lot of the haunt's value is in the decorations that are part of the walls and structure of the haunt.
And can't just be taken with. Yeah. You've got to redo them.

[18:20] And so it sounds like they're actually now coming to the table and trying to work on this, which is good.
Because, like I said, he was never against the move, was my understanding.
Yeah. He made it very clear. He understood the reason. The building was old, had issues. He was fine moving, but yeah, they were just low-balling it and making a move impossible.
Now it sounds like they're actually trying to make a move possible between this rezoning, and I'm going to assume other behind-the-scenes negotiations, we'll say, in terms of money and services and aid that will be provided.
My hope is that they're able to work this out and keep the hotel going for a long, long time to come, I'm going to also get this Dungeons of Doom.
Every time I hear of Dungeons of Doom, I immediately think of the wrestling tag team.
Mm-hmm. The Legion of Doom. Yeah, yeah. Well, then there was the Dungeon of Doom, too. Shit.
Yeah. That was totally different with Kevin Sullivan and the rest of them. Jesus fucking Christ.
Mm-hmm. I forget about that weird-ass stable that lasted way too long and tried to take down Hulkamania.
You don't take down Hulkamania, brother. Not during the early 90s.
No, not then. He took down himself. Yeah, well, he did that in the 2000s, 2010s.

[19:41] But anyways, I saw you were doing a surgery and was buying it a little time.
See, you couldn't find anything?
Nope, still can't find anything. So, yeah, if you have an update on how this went, we will slip it into an upcoming episode.

Lack of Update on Hotel Vote

[19:53] We could not find anything. They clearly met and had their vote on the proposal.
About two weeks before we're recording, just hasn't been a post.
It could be also that it got deferred or pushed back, too. So, we don't know. Yeah.

Willy Wonka Event Disaster

[20:09] Well, our next story this week has been every fucking where.
And look, I'm going to be straight. It's not the most direct haunted attraction story, but I'm going to argue that it is.
And I'm going to make that argument very, very strongly throughout this.
But basically, the less-than-magical Willy Wonka event in Glasgow that took place over the past month.

[20:33] The article we're reading now is by Lee Zhu at Vox.
But basically, you've heard about this. You've seen the photos. You've seen the memes.
I'm 100% sure you've seen this. There was a, and I'm trying to word this carefully.
Thankfully, there was a Willy Wonka-esque event held at Glasgow where parents paid basically the equivalent of $45 fucking dollars a ticket.
Which is... Insane. Steep. I would expect a good show for that.
Yeah. I would expect an immersive experience for that. Well, they said it was an immersive experience, so you expect that anyway.
Exactly. It's kind of what we're getting to. And what they got to was an empty fucking warehouse with props scattered around. Mm-hmm.
A limit of two jelly beans per child, even though it was called Willie's Chocolate Experience.
Which, A, I live in New Orleans. and Willie's chocolate experience here means something very different.
It's a totally different thing. You would not bring kids to that one, for example.
But anyways, a limit of two jelly beans, no chocolate, and half a cup of lemonade.

[21:49] They only had two characters, well, three characters, actually.
They had two not Oompa Loompas, as we'll get into.
They had one not Willie Wonka, as we'll get into.
Two and one the unknown the mysterious figure that hides behind a mirror yeah were there two not oompa loompas sorry yes there were two not oompa loompas i've only saw seen photos of the one yeah i think the other bailed like super early is what i'm getting the feeling they were smart they were clear well the other one bailed like very early too so yeah the first one probably Probably walked in, took one look around and said, nope.
Yeah, there was one boy, what was a wonkadoodle, I think, is what they actually were.
We're going to get into it. I'm not making this up.
I know, but it's such a fun name.
I know, ruined absolutely by all the stuff that went in around it.
But yeah, there it is. Okay, I'm pulling up my article on it to make sure I get these names right. because I wrote about it on my day job.
And yeah, I was right. It's Wonky Doodle. W-O-N-K-I-D-O-O-D-L-E.
And specifically the one that was photographed was Wonky Doodle 2.

[23:09] I'm not making... It just sounds like they took words.
Oh, they didn't do this. Oh, okay. They didn't do this at all.
Because as we're going to jump into, and I guess this is as good of a point to start as any, everything about this that could be generated by AI was...
Oh, AI came up with a name.
Because here's the thing. The site, last I checked, which was admittedly a few days ago, is still up.
You can go to the Willie's Chocolate Experience website right now.
There's nothing stopping you other than common sense, logic, and good judgment.
There's nothing. Well, you know, with this crowd.
So everyone just went. Yeah. Just pulling it up now. Some of you while driving, I'm assuming.
But yeah, basically all the art for it was AI generated.
And the art, I mean, I can glance at it and tell it was AI-generated art.
They weren't putting in effort to hide the AI-ness of this.
No. It was one of the things I noticed. So basically, they did that.

[24:24] All the text for the website was AI-generated, supposedly, as were the scripts handed to the actors.
And and one of the things i well obviously my day job dealing copyright and ip issues what i talked about was that side which is fucking fascinating in a terrifying funny kind of way yeah because okay i'm like everyone else on the planet i'm only human i saw the oompa loompa of meth lab memes yeah and i laughed my balls off too i'm gonna be honest yeah i am completely ball us right now yes they haven't grown back since i laughed them off.

Discovering Coffee Zilla

[25:03] But but man i had all the fun too but then i saw um and um coffee zilla famous youtuber who covers uh spammers and scammers i've really gotten into his work like he has a second channel called void zilla he covered it and he talked about how they changed the names and i'm sitting there watching this video going why would they do oh wait willy wonka is still in the public domain i mean still in copyright not in the public domain yet it's got like two or three more decades, before it lapses into the public domain and then i looked up the uspto the trick us patent and trademark office and found all the filings related to willy wonka i could and they're all owned and active by warner brothers which makes sense because they just put out that wonka movie the The prequel, I think it is. Yeah. I haven't seen it. I don't care. No.
It doesn't have Gene Wilder in it. I don't give a shit. Can't force me.

[25:59] Gene Wilder is Willy Wonka. I'm sorry. That's the Alpha and the Omega of it. No. I don't care.

[26:06] Johnny Depp got points for being his own kind of creepy Willy Wonka, but no one's creepier than Gene, man. I mean, it just doesn't work.
Yeah, and, you know, thinking back to them both, the ride in the boat from Gene Wilder, from the original, that one just is what leaps to mind.
Yeah. And maybe it's my age. That's probably true.
Probably, yeah. I mean, if you saw the other one as a kid, I'm sure that there's something that leaps to mind there.
Well, what leaps to mind there was the cannibalism joke. That was fucking hilarious.
Well, yeah. That's because I'm fucked up and need help.
And instead I watch movies and play video games all day.
But no. So, yeah. But basically what they did is they never called it Willy Wonka.
They called it Willy's Chocolate Experience.
They wanted everyone to think Willy Wonka. They wanted everyone to believe Willy Wonka, but they didn't want it to actually be Willy Wonka.
So basically, it was Willy's chocolate experience.
And he wasn't, if I recall, he wasn't Willy Wonka. He was Willy McDuff.
Yep.
I mean, it is Scotland. I mean.
I'm sure that that's why the AI chose that. Isn't Willy McDuff the name of the landscaper from The Simpsons?

The Risks of Overpromising

[27:34] Possibly yeah so yeah basically willie mcduff then you had like we talked about earlier the wonka doodles not oompa loompas and well the unknown wasn't from any fucking willie wonka shit i know i've read the book and seen all the movies that aren't the most recent one and they weren't in any of those either and no groundskeeper willie's last name is mcdougal, oh come on that is way closer than it has any right to be like that joke should not have had had any it shouldn't have landed in the same zip code yeah oh man so yeah but here's the thing about this and the reason we bring it up here is because when this event did the same thing a lot of haunts do every year unfortunately and that is they really really really over promised, what they were going to do now one of the great things there's there was some discussions in and haunt groups about this.
One of the things I saw, and I'm actually very happy about, was there seemed to be a lot of agreement that you shouldn't be using AI for public facing stuff.

[28:39] No. Kidding. Absolutely not. No. If it's an ad, if it's a script.
Christ. Bless you. Thank you. Jeez Louise. If it's an ad, if it's a script, if it's marketing copy, if it's customer facing, you should not be leaving it to AI.
I'm sorry. AI just is not good enough.
It flatly isn't. And the proof is in the pudding here, right?
Go visit the site. Look at the image. You can tell in 10 seconds that they're AI-generated.
Only 10 seconds. You need like half a second to tell they're AI-generated.
It's very obvious, and the text doesn't make any sense. I don't know how they sold any fucking tickets to this personally.
I'm not blaming the victims, and for the record, there are a lot of real victims.
That includes the people who bought tickets, and it also includes the actors.

[29:31] Who were misled about what the event was going to be.
And my understanding is none have been paid at least not in full yeah so they are victims too don't beat up on the poor wonka doodle though apparently she's now launched a cameo and is willing to do a cameo type thing where she's doing like voice recordings and personal greetings for people which hey lean in sister i'm on your side here yeah lean all the way in that's great shit Hopefully you make more money than whatever you were supposed to be paid for this. I hope for the best.
I hope they're giving Daria energy whenever they do that. Oh, they need to, yeah.
Yeah. And the thing that makes me sad is, like, everyone's seen the photo of her being sad in the Oompa Loompa Meth Lab.
Yeah. But there are other photos of her trying her fucking best to keep kids happy, to comfort them, just to be a decent human being in a shitstorm.
And I feel so bad for her because... Yeah. And the guy that played Willie McDuff, I mean, watch his bit. He is trying.
Very hard. He put more into that than any of the organizers did.
I will guarantee you that.
Yeah. And because it's really bad, because when they realized the AI scripts suck, I mean, shock, I know, they told the actors to ad-lib it. Yeah.

[30:56] I don't know how, as an owner or as an event organizer, you don't read the script before you give it to people.

[31:04] Like, how does that happen? How do you say, AI, generate me a script for a Willa Wonka-esque character.
Yeah, not an IP infringing Willa Wonka event thing. Yeah.
Oh, my God. It's so bad. It spits out gibberish.
And then you just hand it over without even checking it. And then an actor who I'm assuming has done nothing but apply for a job online somewhere is now told to ad lib.

[31:33] Yeah. Yeah. No, I, I, I. Well, and wasn't the Wonka Doodle, wasn't, weren't they not supposed to be an actor in front? Yeah.
Of people? There was a whole thing and she wasn't supposed to get the sexy Oompa Loompa costume.
I mean, technically it was an Oompa Loompa costume, not a Wonka Doodle costume because a Wonka Doodle costume does not exist.
Yeah, I know. So they bought an Oompa Loompa costume, which really isn't helping their trademark arguments, by the way. No.
Because a trademark, for the record, is all about preventing confusion in the marketplace.
So it doesn't really matter if you don't say the words Willy Wonka.
If everyone goes in there believing it's Willy Wonka, you're still fucked.
And especially if they're doing it because of the marketing you put out.
Yes. so I think the only reason Warner Brothers isn't completely pwning a bitch right now is because it was such a failure yeah I'm pretty sure Warner Brothers no no that's just not right we don't want that stank on us.

[32:34] We're already too close to it over here.

[32:39] No, no. I have a feeling that's literally it, though. I'm pretty sure they looked at it and went, no.
That makes sense. So, yeah. But yeah, that's the main thing here is I want to have people think that you don't want to be this attraction come haunt season.
And I've been to haunts where I felt like they did this. Oh, yeah, me too.
And we avoided haunts because in the reviews online of it, customers put that they felt like they did this. Yeah.
Bait and switch them, misled them about what's there.
And we've had minor issues with haunts. We talked about the mortuary one year using characters in their ads that were not in the haunt.
Yeah, but that's still not this. That's not good.
But like on the scale of badness, that's like a 2 on the Richter scale, where this is an 11.
Yeah, and you've heard us talk before about how people will advertise, it takes you an hour to get through our haunt, and then it takes like 15 minutes.
I'm not going to be happy with that. No. No, you have to set up, you have to deliver the expectations you promise.
You get to defy the ones that the customer creates. Yeah. They bring with them.
But anything you promise, anything in your marketing, you need to back up.
And this event did not do that.
If you have not seen the memes, if you have not seen it, hey, I don't know how. They were in Transworld.
This happened before Transworld, though. This was a week before. Yeah.

[34:05] If you are Patrick Starr and we're literally living under a rock, go look it up. It is worth your time because it is the saddest, funniest, saddest, funniest bangle ever.
Like I said, I keep fluctuating between those two extreme emotions.
So, yeah, just basically look it up.
Take some time with it. We need to move on, though, because we got a story from Galveston and a haunt we've been to. Yes.

[34:30] So, a coffin. Okay. Okay, so the headline says a coffin. It's actually a casket.
Caskets are square, coffins are tapered. Never forget this. Yes.
Wound up on a beach in Galveston, and it stirred up social media.
There was speculation about whether this photo was even taken at Galveston.
There were 3,000 people that commented on it, and 1,200 people shared it.
Like, this got a lot of buzz. and while that's exactly what it was designed to do and i say that because ceo craig corbell took the photo after staging the casket and put it out um as a marketing gimmick So, the news article ends with an invitation to go and find out more about the casket at the Baywatch Dolphin Tours.
Wait, the Dolphin Tour? Yes.
Motherfucker owns a haunted attraction. Yes. Yes, the Haunted Mayfell Manor, which opens this weekend. Because this is one you put in.
So I didn't read the article. I just read your excellent notes, by the way. Yeah.

[35:55] The fuck? Yes. This is why I don't read, so you get organic reactions.
Yeah, he's the CEO of the Baywatch Dolphin Tours, Pirates, Legends of the Gulf Coast, which we also went to.
Yes, there are two things in one building, basically.
Yeah, and the Haunted Mayfell Manor. Yeah, but okay, so the Baywatch Dolphin Tours, just ride the ferry, you're going to see dolphins.
I'm just going to save you money there. Actually, don't ride the ferry, because that takes forever. Fucking ever.
It is a big joke out of your day that we were not planning for.

Casket on Galveston Beach

[36:27] But we did see dolphins. You are correct. We did see dolphins. Yes.
And of course, we did the exact, we were like five, Dolphin! Dolphin!
Just like a five-year-old kid yelling at the water. We see dolphins!
I was just as excited as when I was a kid taking the ferry. Oh, God.
What the fuck are we on about now? Oh, yeah. Let me make you a minute.
Yeah, this is not a good look. I mean, yeah, it generates a lot of buzz.
But the thing about it and what I am a little bit is Galveston's a heavy tourist market.
Like having been there, I will confirm three people and a goat live there.
And the goat actually commutes from lands from the mainland. Yeah.

[37:13] But so, yeah, they're very dependent upon tourists.
Does this kind of shock lend itself to tourists? Well, not only that, but I mean, imagine if the people who have seen caskets after storms and things come out of the ground.
Like, that's a trauma response.
And it's not respectful to the living or the dead. Yeah, luckily that's not something that happened here in New Orleans. Because of our tradition of burying above ground.
It happened in areas around. Yeah, around us we did have some people popping out. You get it toward the river parishes and also further south.
It did happen there. But in the city, it never happened because of our tradition of burying the dead above ground.
Turned out to be a smart thing to do in a city that floods. Yeah.
But yeah, that is a thing that happens during hurricanes. And Mayfield Manor, Haunted Mayfield Manor, is about, in large part, the Galveston Hurricane from, I think it was 1904.
It's over 100 years ago. Yeah. So it's admittedly a disaster that I think the expiration date has popped on in terms of using it. And it's 100 years plus old. I think that's old enough.
Yeah. But...
But, yeah, in a town that still has hurricane issues and hurricane fears, a casket on a beach is kind of a not good look. Yeah, no, I... Not a good look.

[38:39] Well, and because they use TikTok mostly, I wonder how many targeted audience they got.
Yeah, that's... How much targeted audience they got in the area that's actually...
Or coming to Galveston imminently.
Yeah. Yeah, I just, I think it was a bad move.
I can't see this helping much, and I can see ways this could hurt a lot.
Yeah, exactly. And honestly, I think what's going to wind up happening is it's going to kind of be a wash where they don't really gain or lose much, just because it's TikTok and everyone will move on, probably by the time we've recorded this.
But it seems like a high-risk, low-reward bet.
Because like you said with tiktok and the fact that it's very much international focused um yeah you're not going to reach a lot of people that are super relevant to this issue yeah so yeah i mean that's frustrating but true well this article oh that article by the way was uh by mark menard at audacity.com A-U-D-A-C-Y dot com.
This article coming up is Chris Owen at W-Y-R-K dot com.
A haunted amusement park is coming to New York. The state. Not the city. Basically.

[40:09] It's happening in Clarence, New York, which is 30 minutes outside of Buffalo.
And as someone with With no concept of New York geography. I'm just reading here.
Yeah. But basically.
It'll be opening up as the Haunted Forest. It's opening night will be a VIP event. One night only.
They do not really say that much. About what it will be.
They keep saying it'll be a haunted amusement park. But it's unclear how many attractions it'll be. What kind of attractions it'll be.
Details are very very vague. But in 2023. They partnered with the Great Pumpkin Farmer. Um.

New Haunted Forest in New York

[40:47] And Newfane, which I have absolutely no idea where the fuck that is.
But they are now moving to their own location and starting up this brand new attraction. I guess we'll see what comes of it.
But I do like the fact, and this was something you noted in the notes, because you did this one, was that they really are touting this early. As in February early.
That's when this press release went out. So I'm happy to see, like you said, getting a good head start on that.
It's going to look like real dickheads if it doesn't open for some reason but other than that, good job you better fucking open is what I'm saying the reporter is expecting a huge announcement coming soon because they're already talking about it and putting out press releases hopefully we hear more about it maybe next news cycle March 16th through April 7th Scream Break Spring Break is returning.

[41:44] This is from MSN.com. Well, it's from the reporter. It's on MSN.
Sorry. Okay. Corinna Meyer, the reporter. Yes, obviously you wrote this one. Yes.
Yeah, we screwed up the order. Yeah. Anyway, moving on.
So the Six Flags Discovery Kingdom in California is bringing its Spring Break event back.
We just talked about events and talked about Spring Break being a...
An excellent time. Excellent time.
You've got young people being tourists. Yep.
It gives visitors a chance to see the haunt in its spooky setting.
Oh, to see the park in its spooky setting. Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead.
Sorry. I'm correcting myself through you. Yeah.

[42:29] Not just being a man stepping all over a woman speaking. Well, you know, what else is new? Oh, fuck.
I'm kidding. Ouch. Finish the fucking story.
I'm going to go cry. Oh, I'm sorry.
Okay, so it'll feature additional haunted attraction that wasn't open for the season, which is pretty interesting.
Yeah, even if the attraction is really boring sounding.
It's Club Fear 3D, Scream Break Edition.
And I'm wondering if this is basically a club for the spring breakers to come in and have spooky people walking around. Did AI generate this name for the club?

Club Fear 3D: Scream Break Edition

[43:11] Possibly like i like i challenge you to come up with a more generic name for a haunt that isn't already in use that's spring break related it doesn't even have to be spring break like just a more generic name for a haunt that isn't already in use by other haunts then club fear then club fear 3d um yeah yeah it's real hard isn't it.

[43:38] Yeah, you out there in the podcast land, you participate too.
I want to hear what you think is more generic that isn't already in use.
Oh, that one's in use by tons of haunts. Yeah, I know.
She just pointed to a Chamber of Honor horrors poster in my office.
There's like 17,000 of those.
No, no. I don't think you can claim statehood until you have a Chamber of Horrors open somewhere in your state.
Yeah. That's why Puerto Rico hasn't been... Oh, God.
Okay. Okay, costume advisories are in place if you decide to go.
No full-face costumes or masks, and no fake weapons, or real weapons for that matter. Obviously not real weapons.
They're not allowing fake ones, they're really not going to allow fake real ones.
Well, yeah, but I think a club is a fine setting for college-age kids to go to.
It is, and I'm admittedly being a little hard here. Yeah, I do still think that a sorority or a fraternity house would also be a good setting for this.
Yeah, I still think they could have done more, but I also don't disagree with that.
I'm being a little bit of a dick, you know, because I'm me. That's what I do.

[44:54] I wouldn't be me if I didn't do it, but still, yeah. All right, well, this story next to the last story, what are penultimate stories?

Peaches Christ: The Legend

[45:01] This is very, very interesting because we're in New Orleans.
We're based in New Orleans, and we know a fair amount of drag queens and drag performers in general.
And this is a city with a very, very rich drag culture.
But I don't know a whole hell of a lot about drag culture elsewhere.

[45:20] But one name I have heard repeatedly thanks to this podcast and thanks to general exposure is Peaches Christ, a San Francisco drag performer whose non-drag name is Joshua Grinnell.
He goes by He for the record, so I'll be using He throughout this.
But yeah, this is an article about how Peaches Christ got his start and talks about the Midnight Mass series of events that he held, which basically think Rocky Horror, including shadow cast, call-outs, audience participation, all that, but any film you can think of.
They did it with Showgirls. They did it with Xanadu.
They did it with Carrie. They did it with a whole bunch of films.
And the performers, the troupe, would do various reenactments, all deliberately with no rehearsal, for the record.
They were literally just kind of winging it, which is half the fun to see what wackadoodle shit they could come up with. And it was profane. It was vulgar.
It was limited to adults only for a very good fucking reason.

[46:25] It's exactly my cup of tea. And I would absolutely have gone to this.
Yes. There's a thousand percent chance I would have been there.
It began in 2000, but this launched the career of Peaches Christ, which led, as we've discussed in previous episodes, to the terror vault, his immersive haunted attraction inside the San Francisco Mint.
And they came back. They made a brief return at the end of February, seemingly apropos of nothing.
Yeah. Didn't need an event. Halfway to Halloween? No.
Valentine's Day? No. Spring Break? Not really. Too early for that.
Just brought it back for a weekend. Why? Why not? Yeah.
And he is also hosting Mosswood Meltdown, which is a punk festival.
He's hosting that festival's first drag competition, which should be interesting.
But yeah, basically all this has helped cement Peaches Christ Bryce is a legend both in San Francisco and elsewhere, including in the Hulk community.
Yeah. I encourage you to check this article out. It's by Amanda Bartlett at the San Francisco Gate.

[47:36] And finally...
For this week. Yeah, this episode. Yeah, for this episode.

Slider Jesus in St. Louis

[47:43] If you were at Transworld, you may have seen Slider Jesus doing his thing, you know, outside of the convention center.

[47:53] But there is an article in the Riverfront Times by Ryan Kroll about him coming to St.
Louis and sharing his haunted house tricks and how to be a slider.
Basically it goes into what a slider is gave advice to focus on social media and how to do that and how much it's helped his career and advised people going to trans world for the first time to stay hydrated you know that's not bad advice honestly no now what's weird about it is like the big deal about the slider coming to st louis first time i ever saw sliders in person was at the darkness yeah which is notably in st louis um so i i'm not really sure about that part but it still is a very interesting uh profile of uh one of our own uh and one of the few mainstream stories about trans world that wasn't trans world's coming exactly haunters are coming to st louis but lock up your women and children yeah because there were plenty of those articles that we didn't cover because we figured you probably know. We have the conference reminders.
We don't need to tell you in the news article, Bard.
Yeah. Yeah, basically there was a million, this weird-ass convention is coming to St. Louis.
Herp-a-derp, you know. Yeah. Berk-a-berk.
And then this one actually was about what took place there, so that's why we included it realistically.

[49:16] So anyway, it's still interesting and a fun profile. And yeah, I guess staying hydrated isn't the worst advice.
But remember, beer is not hydration. That's why you've got to alternate.

[49:27] Well, on that note, everyone, thank you very much for spending the past 50 minutes with us. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you learned something.
I hope you had a good time.
Especially hearing me bitch about daylight savings time. We strike at noon.
We strike at noon daylight savings time, by the way.
On that note, though, please do check out other episodes we have.
You can find more at HauntWeekly.com, HauntWeekly on Twitter, HauntWeekly on Facebook, YouTube.com slash HauntWeekly's YouTube channel.
All the episodes are there for easy access.
Click them. Enjoy. Boy, put them on in the background.
They make really great background music. We've been told we help people go to sleep a lot.
And I'm okay with that. I listen to quantum physics podcasts when I go to sleep.
I'm weird. I need my existential dread while I'm sleeping.
But definitely check us out there, any place you get your podcasts from.
Until next time, I'm Jonathan. I'm Crystal. And we will see you all next week.