Speaker 1: M Hey everybody, it's me your old friend Josh. And
Speaker 1: for this week's s Y s K SELEC, since we're
Speaker 1: nearing Halloween, I chose a wonderful little episode from two
Speaker 1: thousand and fourteen called How Haunted House Attractions Work full disclosure.
Speaker 1: I was thinking that this one's going to be boring,
Speaker 1: but to my surprise, it was not. So I hope
Speaker 1: you enjoy it as much as I surprisingly did. Welcome
Speaker 1: to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I Heart
Speaker 1: Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles w Chuck Bryant, and Jerry
Speaker 1: and this is Stuff you Should Know. The pre Halloween
Speaker 1: Spooktacular week of uh dark content. Although this isn't super dark. No,
Speaker 1: this isn't you know about attractions haunted attractions? Right, I'm dark?
Speaker 1: Although thank I don't want to spoil it, but there
Speaker 1: are some darkness. Now, is it dark or not? It's dark,
Speaker 1: but not all of them, just just the really creepy ones.
Speaker 1: So it's made mid level dark. What a train wreck
Speaker 1: this is. So for those of you who tuned in
Speaker 1: thinking that we're talking about haunted houses, sorry to let
Speaker 1: you down real haunted houses, uh, of which there may
Speaker 1: or may not be a thing. All the skeptics were like, shoot,
Speaker 1: this I wanted to ye, this is just about attractions. Yeah,
Speaker 1: these things are proven to exist. They are real because
Speaker 1: you can probably if you live near any kind of
Speaker 1: major metropolitan area, you can probably find one somewhere in
Speaker 1: your town. I think you can find them almost anywhere.
Speaker 1: If you live in a major metropolitan area, that maybe
Speaker 1: one of those really big daddy ones. But chances are
Speaker 1: your small town has some form of haunted attraction, even
Speaker 1: if it's the local uh if it's for charity and
Speaker 1: they're trying to raise money for the local j c's
Speaker 1: and it's uh it up in like a school gymnasium,
Speaker 1: or there's enthusiasts home haunters, um, and they will they
Speaker 1: basically set up a haunted house in their backyard. Yeah.
Speaker 1: There's some documentary about two guys that are I don't
Speaker 1: know if they do haunted houses or just take their
Speaker 1: Halloween um decorating two extremes. Well, I think that's one
Speaker 1: and the same for a home haunter. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: they're they're competing guys though in the same street that uh,
Speaker 1: someone did a documentary on because they just keep like
Speaker 1: ramping it up and ramping it up, have become obsessed
Speaker 1: without doing one another. But I don't know what's called,
Speaker 1: so it just came to me right now. Me either,
Speaker 1: But um, you do make a good point how haunted
Speaker 1: houses are everywhere. Apparently in two thousand fourteen, they expect
Speaker 1: they being the American Retail Federation who likes to put
Speaker 1: out statistics and figures about holidays, um, they expect thirty
Speaker 1: three million people to go into haunted houses across the
Speaker 1: United States. Yeah, about four thousand of them of which
Speaker 1: are the pay some money to go in professionally. Uh,
Speaker 1: about three in theme parks like you know, like amusement parks.
Speaker 1: And then about three thousand of them are the charity
Speaker 1: ones that I spoke of, right, which you'll still pay.
Speaker 1: But they they're not They're not going to the fat
Speaker 1: Cat Coke Brothers or whatever. The profits aren't there going
Speaker 1: to you know, your local community organization. Yeah, and those
Speaker 1: are fun, you know, you might get some light scares,
Speaker 1: it's not like these, um, the really super scary ones
Speaker 1: where you pay good money to, um, you know, to
Speaker 1: leave your body and wet your pants. Just one more
Speaker 1: one more, um, little bit of of data statistics if
Speaker 1: you know mine some numbers talk about roll reverse. Remember
Speaker 1: you used to be static, guy, I know, I got
Speaker 1: so bored it. Um. In two thousand and fourteen, again,
Speaker 1: the National Retail Federation expects Americans to spend eighty seven
Speaker 1: dollars per person on Halloween, for a total of seven
Speaker 1: point four billion dollars. Yeah, that's right behind Christmas, right
Speaker 1: behind Christmas. People love getting their scare on, they really do.
Speaker 1: I don't decorate at all anymore at the house, just
Speaker 1: because I think I've talked about this before. We don't
Speaker 1: have trick or treaters on my area of the street,
Speaker 1: so it just seems kind of pointless. Oh yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, what is the point at that point? There
Speaker 1: is no point. Emily thinks we could do it for
Speaker 1: people that drive by during the month of October, like,
Speaker 1: you know, to see the house. But I don't know, man,
Speaker 1: you gotta you gotta whatever you put up, you gotta
Speaker 1: take down that. And plus it's like you get no
Speaker 1: satisfaction from somebody driving by a sound like they honk
Speaker 1: at your declarations. With little kids coming up and trick
Speaker 1: or treating, there's some sort of payoff, I guess to
Speaker 1: your your effort, right, that's right, scarring them for life.
Speaker 1: All right? So, um, let's talk the history of this,
Speaker 1: because it turns out that haunted house attractions are relatively new,
Speaker 1: but they're probably not as new as trick or treating
Speaker 1: in the United States? Did you know that? Not as new?
Speaker 1: So they predate trick or treating by a little bit. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that makes sense. And when we look at um. At first,
Speaker 1: when I read some of this history, the ancient history,
Speaker 1: I was like, come on, this is from Fangoria magazine,
Speaker 1: by the way, o us. But then when I started
Speaker 1: really getting into us, like you know what, there's actually
Speaker 1: it actually did pave the way for what we see
Speaker 1: today in like ancient Egypt. To keep people from grave robbing, Basically,
Speaker 1: they would uh make little scary things like trap doors
Speaker 1: and um snakes and creepy insects and things to keep
Speaker 1: people away from robbing their ancestries, their ancestors graves. They
Speaker 1: put an old lady in a rocking chair who would
Speaker 1: go behold the ravages of age? What's that from the Simpsons? Okay? Uh?
Speaker 1: Greeks and Romans um uh kind of paved the way
Speaker 1: as well. They had um mazes and labyrinths set up
Speaker 1: with monsters and things. Even more than that, even more directly,
Speaker 1: they started stage effects. Yeah, like fake blood and things
Speaker 1: like that. Yeah, Um, they they And that's where a
Speaker 1: lot of this stuff finds its roots is in early
Speaker 1: stage special effects. Yeah, it was, and it's still his
Speaker 1: theater when you come down to it. It's just like
Speaker 1: an interactive participatory theater, right that you walk through. And
Speaker 1: then the the Dark Ages, that Medieval Ages. I think
Speaker 1: the Dark Ages, the Medieval Ages are part of the
Speaker 1: Dark Ages, but they're not one and the same. But
Speaker 1: during the Dark Ages, um, the the introduction of well,
Speaker 1: the syncretism between Christianity and Paganism that led to the
Speaker 1: adoption of Halloween, um kind of saw rise to this,
Speaker 1: uh basically a scare show. Yeah, these little plays that
Speaker 1: would scare people into meaning pious and remaining on the
Speaker 1: narrow path, right, which is still very big today. It's
Speaker 1: made a huge comeback. Um. But these these scare shows,
Speaker 1: if you want to call him that, I'm pretty sure
Speaker 1: that's not what they call them during the Dark Ages,
Speaker 1: but they were. They featured plenty of gore and fake
Speaker 1: blood and violence, and Um, so the the the people
Speaker 1: who went to saw see him weren't necessarily going for
Speaker 1: the religious message. They were going to you know, be
Speaker 1: grossed out right and get a kick. Yeah. Uh. During
Speaker 1: the Renaissance, Shakespeare was famous for um incorporating like demons
Speaker 1: and ghosts and monsters in his plays. He loved those.
Speaker 1: And in the eighteen hundreds, We've talked about this before,
Speaker 1: there was a big rise in spiritualists and conjuring sessions
Speaker 1: and mediums and fortune telling and communicating with the dead
Speaker 1: was like a really popular thing during the Victorian era,
Speaker 1: so it was debunking it. Yeah, that's true. Um. The
Speaker 1: Victorian era also gave us um the wax museum, Yeah,
Speaker 1: which very quickly went from celebrities to include scary stuff too.
Speaker 1: So you could walk through a wax museum and while
Speaker 1: the stuff didn't move or jump out at you, you
Speaker 1: would come across like some sort of tableau of you know,
Speaker 1: Dr Jekyl and Mr Hyde and like kind of a
Speaker 1: room and it was scary and lit oddly, and you
Speaker 1: were meant to The intention was to scare you, even
Speaker 1: though it wasn't. Again, there wasn't an overt scare or startle.
Speaker 1: It was something that definitely laid the groundwork for haunted
Speaker 1: houses to come. They were to instill dread in the
Speaker 1: hearts of all. Uh. John Pepper invented something, um pretty
Speaker 1: neat in the eighteen hundreds. It was, uh sort of
Speaker 1: set up where here where you use mirrors to appear translucent.
Speaker 1: If you've ever been to Disney's Haunted Mansion. Um, I
Speaker 1: think Pepper's ghost is what they call. It is still
Speaker 1: a trick they used to. Uh, you know, it's when
Speaker 1: you it's like a hologram sort of smoking mirrors. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but using mirrors, right, It's not like the Tuopoc hologram.
Speaker 1: Wasn't high tech like that. No, but it still looks
Speaker 1: pretty awesome, that's right. The twentieth century, then, Chuck is
Speaker 1: where we really find the progenitors of the modern haunted house.
Speaker 1: The dark Rides. And there's this really neat um article
Speaker 1: on Collector's Weekly. You ever read any of their stuff.
Speaker 1: They write a lot of really cool long form articles
Speaker 1: about like stuff that's come and gone, like all dads
Speaker 1: and things, And one of them was, um, it's called jeepers, creepers.
Speaker 1: Why dark Rides scare the pants off of us. But
Speaker 1: the Collector's Weekly article, it's an interview with the guy
Speaker 1: who collects old dark rides stuff. But dark rides were
Speaker 1: like if you went to some rinky dink amusement park
Speaker 1: or whatever. They couldn't afford to have a roller coaster,
Speaker 1: but they could afford a little dark building with the
Speaker 1: walls painted black inside and a little train track or
Speaker 1: maybe a little boat or something that roade you through,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden a skeleton popped out of
Speaker 1: the wall, or you know this, the a strobe light
Speaker 1: went off or something like that. And these were the
Speaker 1: direct progenitors of, uh, the Haunted House. Yeah, and between
Speaker 1: that and the traveling freak shows, um, it really, like
Speaker 1: you said, everything was in place, and a couple that
Speaker 1: with the fact that a lot of these houses from
Speaker 1: the eighteen hundreds were starting to crumble and there was,
Speaker 1: you know, narry a neighborhood that didn't have some creepy
Speaker 1: old vacant house. And to keep their kids out, you know,
Speaker 1: people would say, parents would say, you know that place,
Speaker 1: you don't want to go in there, Well, it's all
Speaker 1: on it because you may not come out, which is
Speaker 1: that was an interesting point that I definitely wasn't aware of. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but the if you think of the modern conception of
Speaker 1: when you think of a haunted house, what comes to
Speaker 1: mind typically is uh dilapidated old Victorian mansion with a
Speaker 1: story around it. You know, it's never just like, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: that was where Mr Johnson, that he was a farmer
Speaker 1: and kind of a good guy, died quietly asleep. No
Speaker 1: reports of his ghost at all. That well, what's probably
Speaker 1: funny is that was the real story. But what you
Speaker 1: heard was that he killed his family and had their
Speaker 1: name written on each knife blade. Um, that's what I heard.
Speaker 1: The first official recorded haunted attraction according to this person
Speaker 1: who wrote this article in Fangoria, Beckham McKendry. He says
Speaker 1: that Orton and Spooner, the Orton and Spooner ghost House
Speaker 1: in the UK uh and the Edwardian Fair in nineteen
Speaker 1: fifteen was the first UH like genuine haunted attraction. Yep,
Speaker 1: that was the first ghost house. And in France they
Speaker 1: had something called the Grand uh guen All and um
Speaker 1: that was sort of similar, I think, and around the
Speaker 1: same time. So you've got that haunted house, you've got
Speaker 1: the dark houses that are coming up in places like
Speaker 1: Coney Island and stuff like that. And then finally you
Speaker 1: have the first big time permanent haunted house as we understand,
Speaker 1: to which you've already mentioned, the Haunted Mansion that that
Speaker 1: was first built in the nineteen sixty nine at Disneyland,
Speaker 1: and apparently it was supposed to go up at Disney
Speaker 1: Oh no, it was so Disneyland, the one in California,
Speaker 1: and the one in Disney World that came up in
Speaker 1: the seventies, right, uh, late seventies, early eighties. I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: Actually I've been to that one though, if you want
Speaker 1: to know more about that stuff. Though, I think, um,
Speaker 1: Stuff you missed in History class did like a whole
Speaker 1: episode on the Haunted Mansion Ride. Oh Holly from Stuff
Speaker 1: You miss in History Class is an absolute Haunted Mansion fanatic,
Speaker 1: So I think they have a whole episode on. She
Speaker 1: knows more about it than anyone, more than Walt Disney
Speaker 1: himself knew, I think. But here's a little known fact
Speaker 1: besides what you just said about Holly, she knows more
Speaker 1: about it than Walt Disney. Um. Originally, the the Haunted
Speaker 1: Mansion Ride was a walkthrough ride like today's Haunted Houses. Um.
Speaker 1: But instead they found that the I guess the people,
Speaker 1: the ushers couldn't get people on a pace easily enough
Speaker 1: and so there'd be traffic jams and backups and everything.
Speaker 1: So they said, we'll turn it into a dark ride.
Speaker 1: That's what they did. Yeah, which we'll get to this later,
Speaker 1: but that's a big part of running your own haunted
Speaker 1: houses is the flow. Yeah. Also, the Haunted House and
Speaker 1: the Haunted Mansion in Disney was based on the Winchester
Speaker 1: Mystery House as far as the look. Yeah, they didn't
Speaker 1: want to have some credit old, dilapidated psycho house in
Speaker 1: the middle of their lovely park. So they says, well,
Speaker 1: we can make it creepy on the inside, and let's
Speaker 1: just make it like a really lovely Victorian on the outside. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And if you haven't listened to that podcast on the
Speaker 1: Winchester Mystery House, I recommend it's pretty neat this one
Speaker 1: of ours. Yeah, yeah, man, that was a good one.
Speaker 1: Not the Disney podcast, right. Um, So then you mentioned
Speaker 1: that j C's Chuck and I didn't realize this, but
Speaker 1: the idea of a semi permanent so not not located
Speaker 1: in like an amusement park or something like that, but um,
Speaker 1: they an annual attract action that just comes up around
Speaker 1: Halloween and then comes down in November. November one. Um,
Speaker 1: as far as haunted houses go in the United States
Speaker 1: was created by the j c S, which is the
Speaker 1: United States Junior Chamber, which is like a community organization
Speaker 1: with chapters across the country. And in the seventies, the
Speaker 1: j c's hit upon this idea of well, why don't
Speaker 1: you guys create haunted houses in your town as fundraisers,
Speaker 1: and it just took off like a rocket, and the
Speaker 1: j CS became synonymous in the seventies and eighties and
Speaker 1: up to the nineties with haunted houses. Like if you
Speaker 1: went to a haunted house in your town, it was
Speaker 1: probably put on by the local chapter of the j c's. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I remember specifically going to some of those as a kid,
Speaker 1: as well as my church would have their own haunted houses,
Speaker 1: not hell houses, yeah, just vary like kid oriented minor uh,
Speaker 1: spooks and goblins. Um, we'll get into hell houses later.
Speaker 1: But um, even though I did go to Baptist which
Speaker 1: it wasn't anything like that surprising. Yeah, I mean that
Speaker 1: was before the concept of the hell house. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was just like we would have like a Halloween carnival,
Speaker 1: you know, bob for apples and did that little fishing
Speaker 1: game where you get something clipped to your fishing pole
Speaker 1: behind the curtain. It's so funny. Do you remember when
Speaker 1: you were a kid just being like, God, this Halloween
Speaker 1: carnival is really well done. Yeah. Man, if you go
Speaker 1: to one as an adult, you're like, this is really junkie,
Speaker 1: Like are these kids really falling for all this stuff?
Speaker 1: And yeah they are. It's wonderful. Yeah. My elementary school
Speaker 1: had a pretty rock and Halloween carnival every year too.
Speaker 1: It was one of the highlights of my year. But um, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're right. And now the concept of bobbing for apples,
Speaker 1: there's no way I would put my face in that
Speaker 1: disgusting water, you know. Yeah. Um. Anyway, out of the
Speaker 1: j CS in there were a couple of guys from
Speaker 1: a chapter in Bloomington, Illinois named Jim Goulden, Tom Hill
Speaker 1: Gas and they says, you know what, let's just create
Speaker 1: our own Haunted House book basically like a yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't know if it was a book. Yeah, I guess
Speaker 1: it was a book, And let's teach people how to
Speaker 1: open these up and sell it. And they distributed about
Speaker 1: twenty copies, and it was they formed the Haunted House
Speaker 1: Company and it was the first real U group of
Speaker 1: outfit to kind of just sell the plan and the
Speaker 1: stuff that you needed, the props right, like details like
Speaker 1: how to do special effects, a starter kit exactly. UM.
Speaker 1: And because of the success of the j cs UH
Speaker 1: in the seventies and eighties, private companies finally were like, oh,
Speaker 1: we can make some cash off of this. Starting in
Speaker 1: the nineties, and so the haunted houses that we think
Speaker 1: of today, the sure profit ones like Another World in
Speaker 1: Atlanta or Thirteenth Story of New Orleans is another big one.
Speaker 1: UM that that they came out of the nineties. Do
Speaker 1: you go to those? No interest? Yeah? Do you now?
Speaker 1: Emily and I we still may go. She she has
Speaker 1: a hanker in this year to go to another world
Speaker 1: just because we haven't been to I think we went
Speaker 1: to one in l A that was pretty decent. Um.
Speaker 1: I'll go, I guess if she wants to. But it's
Speaker 1: not my favorite thing. I mean, I don't I like
Speaker 1: I like scary movies and stuff. I'm not I don't
Speaker 1: avoid that stuff. I am depressed. Chuck on Twitter the
Speaker 1: other day, I said the best scary movie or the
Speaker 1: best horror movie. I haven't seen go and I have
Speaker 1: heard of Vampire Brooklyn, Eddie Murphy, every single every single suggestion,
Speaker 1: and there are a bunch of suggestions that everybody shot back.
Speaker 1: So I realized I'm really running low on good horror movies.
Speaker 1: But there they aren't around much anymore. Like the ones
Speaker 1: that are to me, the ones that are genuinely scary
Speaker 1: are the ones that get into your head. Um, And
Speaker 1: I'll take a fair amount of jump scares, because that's
Speaker 1: a part of it if it's got the tension ratcheted up.
Speaker 1: But um, the ones these days, man, just that the
Speaker 1: disgusting torture important thing. I'm just not into that. No,
Speaker 1: I'm not either. It's just such an easy, cheap Yeah.
Speaker 1: They don't scare me, just repulse me exactly, which is
Speaker 1: a totally different sensation, you know. But that's fine if
Speaker 1: you like to be repulsed in whatever like that's it's
Speaker 1: great for that. But that's not true fear. It's not
Speaker 1: um being scared necessarily, it's different. Yeah, I do have
Speaker 1: a recommendation for you, though. It's called either the Lady
Speaker 1: in Black or Woman in Black, and it's a it
Speaker 1: starts a growing up Harry Potter, so it's fairly new.
Speaker 1: I think it's that came out in the last couple
Speaker 1: of years. Daniel Ratcliff okay, and he does a great job.
Speaker 1: It's almost exclusively just him in the movie Lady and Black.
Speaker 1: He does double duty. And there are some like um
Speaker 1: like Conjuring esque style like c g I ghost graphics,
Speaker 1: but it's not overdone, and it's not overblown, and it
Speaker 1: is genuinely frightening ghost story. Conjuring was okay, it was okay.
Speaker 1: This way, I would say this one might be better.
Speaker 1: And and that guy is it I don't know if
Speaker 1: it's Tie or t West tis his name. He's a
Speaker 1: director that did Um The Innkeepers and oh yeah, that
Speaker 1: was a good one too. Yeah, and then I can't
Speaker 1: remember the did he do House of the Devil? Those
Speaker 1: are pretty good because he's a little more old school.
Speaker 1: He's not just trying to outgore you or shock you.
Speaker 1: It's um. He tries to build genuine suspense. And Dread
Speaker 1: the same guy to both of those movies. Uh not
Speaker 1: the Conjuring, No, No, The Innkeepers and the House of
Speaker 1: the Devil. I think so because both of those were
Speaker 1: good movies. Yeah, they seem totally different though. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: may be wrong in that, but Innkeepers that was a
Speaker 1: slow burn that managed to pay off, but it took
Speaker 1: a long time to build. That was a little slow,
Speaker 1: Like he didn't even try to start the scares until
Speaker 1: like thirty minutes in. Yeah, you know the lady that's
Speaker 1: in that is uh Kelly McGillis, did you realize that? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I didn't know till the end of the movie, it
Speaker 1: said Kelly McGillis was like, Oh, she's got the same
Speaker 1: name as that lady from Top Gun. Yeah, but then
Speaker 1: it's really her. She looks so different now. So that's
Speaker 1: our Josh and Chuck's for a movie corner. You know,
Speaker 1: we should we should have done a Maybe next year
Speaker 1: we'll just do one of those, like a total horror
Speaker 1: movie talk fest. Sounds good. Those are fun. But back
Speaker 1: to the more boring subject of haunted house attraction. Um,
Speaker 1: the industry is huge, Like you said, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of money to be made and uh no too. Haunted
Speaker 1: houses are going to be alike Sometimes these folks that
Speaker 1: opened them by an old home or something and own
Speaker 1: it and do this every year. Sometimes they rent out
Speaker 1: of space. Uh. The ones I've been to haven't been
Speaker 1: in the actual space. Wasn't some like cool old house
Speaker 1: or like a penitentiary or apparently Eastern State Penitentiary is converted.
Speaker 1: Yes here and that is a scary, scary place. Just normal. Uh.
Speaker 1: The only ones I've been to are the ones that
Speaker 1: is it's like it's in a big open like a
Speaker 1: shopping center where there used to be a oh like
Speaker 1: a sales jewelry closed down right, yeah, yeah, the ghost
Speaker 1: of capitalism. Um. And then you have themes, some of them.
Speaker 1: I think the better haunted houses have themes because when
Speaker 1: you talk about scares, you can be all over the map.
Speaker 1: Um from doing something like with a movie theme, where
Speaker 1: you have classic horror movies or serial killers or crazy scientists,
Speaker 1: or like vampires and monsters and ghouls and goblins. Yes,
Speaker 1: those are two very different kind of themes. Apparently, Um,
Speaker 1: Rob Zombies got his own jam going and called his house.
Speaker 1: Yeah pretty much. Um it's called Rob Zombies Great American Nightmare.
Speaker 1: I think it's supposed to be a play on the
Speaker 1: American Dream. But one of the rooms is the John
Speaker 1: Wayne Gayzy Room, and it's like a guy dressed up
Speaker 1: like John Wayne Gacy's Bubbles the clown. I think that
Speaker 1: was the name of his clown, wasn't it. Uh that
Speaker 1: sounds right. Um, just kind of hanging out in like
Speaker 1: a recline or whatever. And this is Chicago, and that's
Speaker 1: where John Wayne Gazy killed his victims, and a lot
Speaker 1: of the victims families are still around, so everybody's up
Speaker 1: in arms and rob zombies like could not care less.
Speaker 1: Thank you for the free press, right exactly, Well, clowns
Speaker 1: are I posted something on our Facebook page a day
Speaker 1: because that new clown and um American horror story. Have
Speaker 1: you seen this clown yet? No, Twisty the clown? Huh.
Speaker 1: The guy that made that show is like just wait, Like,
Speaker 1: I know clowns can be scary, but I have got
Speaker 1: the scariest clown ever. And it's pretty scary, dude. Yeah. Like,
Speaker 1: I'm not bothered by it by things like that much,
Speaker 1: but I saw this clown and I'm not into that show,
Speaker 1: but I did watch the scenes that that clown was
Speaker 1: in just to see what it was. Like. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: pretty frightening. I'll have to check them out. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: and there's a broad Daylight killing which are always super
Speaker 1: scary to me. Oh yeah, like they don't care about
Speaker 1: there's no hiding it or any Yeah. Thats like a
Speaker 1: beautiful blue sky out in a beautiful field, and those
Speaker 1: kind of creep me out more. Yeah, because the whole
Speaker 1: idea of like, oh, it's a good day to die
Speaker 1: to me, that doesn't mean it's beautiful out. It means
Speaker 1: like it's like the world's already ending. Now it's a
Speaker 1: good day to die, right, you know, the earth is
Speaker 1: opening up and magma is pouring out. That is possibly
Speaker 1: a good day to die. Then the serial killer can
Speaker 1: come along. Uh So, if you're opening one of these
Speaker 1: huntit houses, you can count on spending because this is
Speaker 1: a good idea. You can make some good dough if
Speaker 1: you've got the funds to get it going. Um per
Speaker 1: square foot for decorating in special effects is what just
Speaker 1: that alone is what you're gonna and that's not counting
Speaker 1: the renting or buying of the structure itself. Right, so
Speaker 1: you have five thousand foot scare footage. Okay, that's what
Speaker 1: I was going for. That's good. You can be spending
Speaker 1: up to a grand just in decorations and scares and tricks. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you may be able to reuse a lot of
Speaker 1: that from year to year, but you probably shouldn't put
Speaker 1: out the same thing every year because if you're in
Speaker 1: the same space doing the same thing, you're not going
Speaker 1: to get repeat customers. So you want to turn over
Speaker 1: like that each year it's a new stuff. And like
Speaker 1: you said, themes often change, So just changing the theme
Speaker 1: alone is going to require that you change this this, um, well,
Speaker 1: your layout, I guess to an extent. Yeah, Like, if
Speaker 1: you're doing scary clowns, you're probably gonna have to get
Speaker 1: rid of your O R setting or whatever, unless you
Speaker 1: do a clown doing surgery, which is kind of scary,
Speaker 1: but it just seems a little off. Yeah, you clown
Speaker 1: doing surgery, that's just um, that'd be pretty scary. The
Speaker 1: clown hospital, Yeah, yeah, well don't they have that children's
Speaker 1: hospital has a clown character? That's what I'm thinking, Rob Cordrey, Yeah, sure. Um.
Speaker 1: And by the way, this is written by Kristen Konger
Speaker 1: from Stuff Mom Never Told You, and she actually interviewed
Speaker 1: a few owners of haunted houses to get some good
Speaker 1: inside poop and um, that's where we're like getting these
Speaker 1: numbers and they say to open one up. I was
Speaker 1: just making mine, not oh you are, Um, they said
Speaker 1: to open one up. You're not only obviously it's it's
Speaker 1: a fun job, but you've got to have a lot
Speaker 1: of business acumen too. It's not just like, oh, this
Speaker 1: will be a hoot, Like you've got to be super
Speaker 1: focused and have a good business brain or you're not
Speaker 1: gonna make any money. Plus also, um, safety is a big,
Speaker 1: big deal, especially after a fateful of four. At six
Speaker 1: Flags Great Adventure in New Jersey, there was they had
Speaker 1: a seventeen trailer interconnected modular haunted house dark ride basically
Speaker 1: but a walking dark ride. So it's a haunted house. Um.
Speaker 1: And it was basically a fire trap and it went
Speaker 1: up and eight teenagers got trapped inside and died in
Speaker 1: the fire. There were no fire sprinklers, there were no obvious, um,
Speaker 1: emergency exit signs or anything like that. And um, that's
Speaker 1: what happened back then. Yeah, but you'd think like by
Speaker 1: the time the eighties rolled around, people would have figured out, oh,
Speaker 1: if somebody likes a match in here or doesn't put
Speaker 1: their cigarette out, because again it's the eighties, so people
Speaker 1: smoked everywhere. The whole thing's gonna go up because it's
Speaker 1: all plywood and foam, and maybe we should put fire
Speaker 1: sprinklers in. But apparently it took this tragedy to really
Speaker 1: change the industry, but it did. Yeah, and safety is,
Speaker 1: like you said, a huge, huge part of it. Because
Speaker 1: you're in the dark. You've got things flying out and
Speaker 1: props swooping down and people jumping out and uh, I mean,
Speaker 1: anything can happen to go wrong and someone can get injured.
Speaker 1: So yeah, And actually, did you hear about the girl
Speaker 1: In two thousand eleven, there was an employee at one
Speaker 1: of the ones outside of St. Louis called Creepy World,
Speaker 1: And um, she worked there and somehow got caught in
Speaker 1: a noose and accidentally hung herself. That sounds like a
Speaker 1: story that you hear, you would think, so it is
Speaker 1: so well documented that it actually did happen. I'm quite sure.
Speaker 1: But she survived. Oh Um, she suffered some brain damage
Speaker 1: to it to an extent from what I understand. Um,
Speaker 1: I don't know if it was extensive or not. I'm
Speaker 1: on a roller coaster of emotion, right, but she, I mean,
Speaker 1: she did survive, but she she accidentally got caught in
Speaker 1: the noose and hung herself, and it's possible some patrons
Speaker 1: passed her by thinking that. She was like, that's what
Speaker 1: was is to be going on. Yeah, I've I've heard
Speaker 1: some story that is not that of someone who hung
Speaker 1: themselves on Halloween and everyone thought it was a just
Speaker 1: a decoration in the front yard. My friend, you need
Speaker 1: to go watch the most recent don't be dumb. Oh
Speaker 1: it comes out this week. Is it about that? Yes?
Speaker 1: Is that an old Well, don't spoil it. Okay, people
Speaker 1: should go watch it. Go watch don't be dumb about that. Man,
Speaker 1: Go and tell him Josh that you know. Um, so
Speaker 1: after you've got your safety system worked out, you've got
Speaker 1: your fire safety, got your sprinkler system, you've got flame
Speaker 1: retardant material, you've got camera set up everywhere, everyone assigned
Speaker 1: a lengthy waiver. Even if they do get hurt. Um,
Speaker 1: they could probably still try and see you, but you're
Speaker 1: trying to avoid that at all costs. What you're gonna
Speaker 1: have is some sort of amaze like structure where you're
Speaker 1: walking around sort of lost but really just getting shuffled
Speaker 1: along a path. And there's, like you said earlier, there's
Speaker 1: this thing called through put. So there's a lot of
Speaker 1: thought put into it because apparently the worst thing you
Speaker 1: can do in a haunted house, and this makes sense,
Speaker 1: is to let the group behind catch up to the
Speaker 1: group ahead. Yeah, that ruins the whole thing, ruins everything
Speaker 1: because you're in a group. It depends, but I don't
Speaker 1: know six or right people. But and you don't want
Speaker 1: the scare that already happened to be apparent to the
Speaker 1: group that hasn't gotten there yet, Like you see the
Speaker 1: chainsaw guy crawling back into his little tree right exactly.
Speaker 1: So UM, this throughput is basically a calculation of how
Speaker 1: many people you can push through at what intervals to say,
Speaker 1: meet your nightly ticket quota. So the numbers that Conger
Speaker 1: gives UM is to to get five people through in
Speaker 1: a night. You can put a group of six. You
Speaker 1: can set them out every to thirty seconds, and they
Speaker 1: shouldn't bump into one another. And then one of the
Speaker 1: ways that that UM employees make sure that these groups
Speaker 1: don't bump into one another is the way that they
Speaker 1: scare people. Yeah, it's called scaring forward, which makes sense,
Speaker 1: it does. It's kind of an interesting, boring term, UM.
Speaker 1: But what they're doing is usually jumping behind you as
Speaker 1: you walk through the group to make you go in
Speaker 1: a forward They don't want to jump out in front
Speaker 1: of you and have you move in that in the
Speaker 1: direction you just came from backward. Yeah, so they want
Speaker 1: to scare you forward, and that is a little tip.
Speaker 1: If you are not into being the the lead person
Speaker 1: being scared, then you should be in the lead because
Speaker 1: it's probably going to come from behind you. It's pretty counterintuitive. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I think I'm going to be in the back
Speaker 1: and I'll be just fine. Yeah, you're the one that's
Speaker 1: gonna get grabbed because if they jump out at the
Speaker 1: front of the group again, it's going to push the
Speaker 1: group backward and the group ahead is going to run
Speaker 1: into the group behind, and that's very bad. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I say get grabbed, you probably won't get touched. Now.
Speaker 1: There apparently are some haunted house attractions that do light touching.
Speaker 1: But you're going to be fully informed. That's so crazy.
Speaker 1: He really does light touching. You're gonna be fully informed,
Speaker 1: Like it's not gonna you're not gonna not know that
Speaker 1: it's coming. Like in line, they're going to be like
Speaker 1: sign this an initial here, an initial here, an initial here,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna give you a heart detect test first, Yeah,
Speaker 1: just to make sure please step on this treadmill that
Speaker 1: kind of thing. See, that's how I would really scare
Speaker 1: people to say, you know, none of the actors are
Speaker 1: allowed to touch anyone, so if you're getting touched, I
Speaker 1: mean something has gone horribly wrong. Right, And then have
Speaker 1: people craving, well, well we'll get to in a minute. Um,
Speaker 1: the new extreme ones where there's not only touching, like
Speaker 1: it's beyond anything that you could imagine. But we'll get
Speaker 1: to that soon. Uh. And since we mentioned actors hiding,
Speaker 1: those are called scare pockets, Yeah, where they hide and
Speaker 1: jump out from. Yeah. So like they're hiding behind that tree,
Speaker 1: and they may distract you with a bat swooping down
Speaker 1: in the other direction. There's a lot of distraction going
Speaker 1: on because what they don't want is you to be
Speaker 1: focused on the clearly placed fox tree trunk that has
Speaker 1: the smell of a chainsaw. Yeah, but there won't be
Speaker 1: any blade on that chainsaw, by the way. No. And
Speaker 1: a good actor also will scramble back into place very quickly. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: Because the longer they hang out and they're like yeah right,
Speaker 1: the more you're gonna be like you're just some teenager, yeah,
Speaker 1: who who doesn't scare me? Yeah, And if you're looking
Speaker 1: to save a little money, you might want to double
Speaker 1: up and have that scare pocket have a couple of
Speaker 1: different ways that it can go, Like I can jump
Speaker 1: out on these people on the right who are in
Speaker 1: this one part of the haunted house, and then I
Speaker 1: can scramble back and then hit these people on the left,
Speaker 1: not hit them, jump out and scare them. Um. And
Speaker 1: that way you're saving a little dough with your actors, Yeah,
Speaker 1: doubling or tripling your people and then apparently chuck lastly. Um.
Speaker 1: A lot of the attractions are run on compressed air
Speaker 1: that is set off either through motion sensors, which I
Speaker 1: think everybody expects, but also through touch pads, which makes
Speaker 1: sense because you can control that right well with a
Speaker 1: with a motion sensor. Every group is going to set
Speaker 1: off that effect at the right and what it does
Speaker 1: is it opens the valve and all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: the skeleton sits up in the coffin or comes out
Speaker 1: from the side or something right, some weird air exactly right. Um,
Speaker 1: that was a really good impression with a touch pad. Though,
Speaker 1: if you say place the square off to the left
Speaker 1: or something. Not every group is going to walk over
Speaker 1: the touch pad, so not every group is going to
Speaker 1: get the same set of scare, So it kind of
Speaker 1: randomizes the thing, which in turn makes the whole experience
Speaker 1: even more frightening, because if you hear the group ahead
Speaker 1: at the curve scream and scream exactly when you get
Speaker 1: to that curve, you're gonna be prepared. And if nothing happens, well, then,
Speaker 1: my friend, you're just even more keyed up for the
Speaker 1: next one. That's right, Yeah, And you're keyed up to
Speaker 1: begin with walking in there, because a good haunted house
Speaker 1: will put a little bit of money into getting you
Speaker 1: all ramped up in the parking lot in the line.
Speaker 1: They might have creeps dressed up roaming around. Uh. They
Speaker 1: may have sound effects and spooky music and like an
Speaker 1: airhorn blast, which is really uncool, and that's just got
Speaker 1: you on edge. By the time you walk in that place,
Speaker 1: you're ready to be scared. Um. Alright, chuck, Yeah, we've
Speaker 1: teased it enough. Let's talk about extreme haunted houses, which
Speaker 1: apparently are so extreme that people who are haunted house
Speaker 1: enthusiasts like people who are like in the industry, I
Speaker 1: don't even like these things to be called extreme haunted
Speaker 1: houses because they're so extreme. Yeah, that's what I gather,
Speaker 1: and these are to say these are interactive, is uh
Speaker 1: not really putting a fine point on it. They are.
Speaker 1: You're basically paying money to be treated like an assault
Speaker 1: victim for up to seven hours, like you might be
Speaker 1: put in a headlock, you might. Where's the one. There's
Speaker 1: one in San Diego. Yeah. Uh. McCamy. Manner is renowned
Speaker 1: as like the worst of the worst. The video that
Speaker 1: I saw it was like you are like covered in blood, dude,
Speaker 1: it was unbelievable. Put into like a coffin and somebody
Speaker 1: is like in their writhing on top of you in
Speaker 1: the dark, and you're trying to get out and they're
Speaker 1: pulling you back in right and and just like it's insane.
Speaker 1: How intense this thing looks. Yeah, they had a cage
Speaker 1: that locks your head in that they're dropping like fake
Speaker 1: snakes in, which is not as bad as life snakes,
Speaker 1: but it's still pretty bad. And apparently the um the
Speaker 1: the catchphrase of everybody who goes through these things is
Speaker 1: let me out of here, that they shout or cry it. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: but apparently supposedly mckami manner. It's open year round and
Speaker 1: they only take four people a day through this thing,
Speaker 1: but like you said, it's up to seven hours long
Speaker 1: in some cases, right, Yeah, so they'll take in I think,
Speaker 1: just one at a time. You have to come through
Speaker 1: by yourself, and they only do four people a day.
Speaker 1: It's only open on the weekends. And I don't know
Speaker 1: if this is true. Supposedly, the one rule, like you
Speaker 1: have to apply fill out an application to go through
Speaker 1: this thing and be super fit and super psychologically fit
Speaker 1: and um, because you're getting physically like abused in some cases,
Speaker 1: like nothing you can't walk away from. But you know
Speaker 1: they're they're mangling you without hurting you. Well, yeah, and
Speaker 1: they held I saw they held one guy's face in
Speaker 1: front of a toilet and it shot up some noxious
Speaker 1: stuff out of it, like stuff like that. So on
Speaker 1: one hand, it is like physically abusive. On the other
Speaker 1: it's like almost laughable that they like, these people really
Speaker 1: put their minds to it. Yeah, and they came up
Speaker 1: with shooting stuff out of a toilet in your face. Um,
Speaker 1: but supposedly you can't leave this one at all, Like
Speaker 1: there is no safe word. I just don't believe that.
Speaker 1: I don't believe it either, But it's free. The one
Speaker 1: in San Diego is really yeah, it's free. And the
Speaker 1: and that's the one hook is is that you're not
Speaker 1: allowed to leave what you You sign a document that
Speaker 1: says I'm going to go through this thing from beginning
Speaker 1: to end. That's what I say. I would trust me.
Speaker 1: I would get out of that place like I would. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would bust through a wall or something. That's what
Speaker 1: it took Chuck Murck. But that is McCamy manner, and
Speaker 1: that is was constructed by Russ McCamey, who's a terror fanatic. Uh.
Speaker 1: They also have one in New York and l A
Speaker 1: called Blackout, one called Gates of Hill in Las Vegas.
Speaker 1: And the common denominator or of all these is you're
Speaker 1: getting physically like you don't wear clothes you ever want
Speaker 1: to wear again, because you're gonna fake blood and vomit
Speaker 1: thrown in your face hopefully fake and be physically assaulted.
Speaker 1: I mean they have scenes where you're like where there's
Speaker 1: a rapist after you. Right, it's really dark, so disturbing.
Speaker 1: They with Haunted House enthusiasts who criticize these kind of things.
Speaker 1: It's usually because they say there's no story to it.
Speaker 1: There's very rarely build up. It's all just payoff, off, payoff,
Speaker 1: like all of it. It's just there's no there's no well,
Speaker 1: there's no ratcheting up of tensions. It's like those movies
Speaker 1: that we're talking about. It's the haunted attraction version of Uh.
Speaker 1: I don't even know what there are. I don't watch
Speaker 1: any of them. Like Hostile Okay, I did see that one. Actually,
Speaker 1: what do you think anytime if you're gonna pull out
Speaker 1: that rusty tray of medical instruments, you've lost me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that is such a trope by now you know you
Speaker 1: know who did do it well was the first couple
Speaker 1: of hell raisers. They used medical instruments to real was
Speaker 1: back in the day disheartening degree effect. Yeah, the ones
Speaker 1: that scare me the most. Again, to delve back into
Speaker 1: movies like did you ever see Wolf Creek and it's
Speaker 1: setting the Australian Outback is like, yeah, it's the kids
Speaker 1: whose car breaks down and all of a sudden, the
Speaker 1: rest of the movie is them getting traced chased by
Speaker 1: this homicidal maniac. Okay, that to me is what's called
Speaker 1: the psychological thriller. Yeah, that's not I mean, yes, I
Speaker 1: understand it is horror Friday thirteenth, that's like Hallmark Corp.
Speaker 1: But it's different. Yeah, the slasher movie is just it's
Speaker 1: just different. I mean there's not enough true, genuine horror
Speaker 1: movies in my opinion, which amount to basically supernatural horror.
Speaker 1: I guess that's how you'd put it. That's what I
Speaker 1: meant too. You should check out Wolf Creek. It's the
Speaker 1: the will. I have no problem with it. It's just
Speaker 1: as far as horror goes. I'm not scared by that.
Speaker 1: I want to be scared. You might be scared. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'll check it out. The the Murderous Guy is a
Speaker 1: really like kind of a great character, and I think
Speaker 1: he falls into the pantheon of classic like Michael Myers characters. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like yeah, one of the good slashers. Um which brings
Speaker 1: us to the hell houses, which um, like we said,
Speaker 1: was sort of started back in the dark ages of Christianity. Uh,
Speaker 1: they they do this today. The most famous is in uh,
Speaker 1: Cedar Hill, Texas. And there's a documentary called hell House
Speaker 1: on these things. I think from like two thousand to
Speaker 1: camp and uh, the idea of these is run by
Speaker 1: churches usually and they are too just like in the
Speaker 1: old days, scare you into walking the straight and narrow, right,
Speaker 1: And actually they were they were originated by Jerry Folwell
Speaker 1: back in the seventies. Yeah, those are the first ones,
Speaker 1: I think. Yeah. And then in the nineties that church
Speaker 1: in Texas you mentioned took over Abundant Life Christian Center, um,
Speaker 1: and they took over and they started actually packaging it.
Speaker 1: They started selling hell houses for like tucks, and it
Speaker 1: was kind of like do you remember those j c's
Speaker 1: in the seventies that came up with the Haunted House package.
Speaker 1: These are the same things, but for hell houses. And
Speaker 1: then there's modules that you can buy that cost additional
Speaker 1: amounts of money, so you can add rooms to it,
Speaker 1: and so like a room you might buy as the
Speaker 1: abortion room. And in the abortion room, UM, you're taught
Speaker 1: how to use raw meat that's like a stand in
Speaker 1: for a fetus that you throw into a glass bowl.
Speaker 1: You've got to make sure it's a glass bowl so
Speaker 1: everybody can see through into it, dude. The quote literally
Speaker 1: from the manual that they distribute on how to run
Speaker 1: these says, quote, purchase a meat product that closely resembles
Speaker 1: pieces of a baby to be placed in a glass bowl,
Speaker 1: so that their suggestion, that's a room from hell house. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and this is to keep you from having premarital sex exactly. Obviously,
Speaker 1: subtlety is not a hallmark of the hell House. Um.
Speaker 1: So for example, like if you there was, there's one
Speaker 1: from New Destiny Christian Center. Um, it's called the Rave
Speaker 1: scene and basically it's about um club drugs and death,
Speaker 1: teenage death. Like pretty much everybody dies or takes their
Speaker 1: own life. Um, as a result of of sin, Yes,
Speaker 1: of their sin. Yeah, like the lesbian suicide Room, where uh,
Speaker 1: you know, a young lady succumbs to lesbianism and uh
Speaker 1: is so mistreated and um, she she goes to she's
Speaker 1: she's not a lesbian, she's just saving herself and is
Speaker 1: mistaken for a lesbian confusingly, and then uh it then
Speaker 1: kills herself because her best friend rejects her and calls
Speaker 1: her a lesbian when she went to go hugger. That
Speaker 1: was that was from the Vice article you sent at least. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a great article. Um, but it's all repercussions of sins.
Speaker 1: So there's the lesbian suicide room. There is the aide room,
Speaker 1: the abortion room, the domestic violence room, the d u
Speaker 1: I room, and they're all just enacting these horrific scenes
Speaker 1: and until you get finally to Hell is at the end,
Speaker 1: at the very end. Um in Hell is where they're
Speaker 1: you know, displaying what Hell looks like with ghouls and
Speaker 1: demons and uh. And then finally you get to go
Speaker 1: to Heaven. Well, this is what makes the Hell House.
Speaker 1: The Hell House end through these different types of sin
Speaker 1: into Hell, and then when you come out, you emerge
Speaker 1: through Hell and then the real life preachers there, yeah,
Speaker 1: saying hey, how about you repent and for those of
Speaker 1: you who aren't saved, why don't you come on over
Speaker 1: to our church and we'll save you. Yeah, they call it.
Speaker 1: In the Vice article, they call it the it's a
Speaker 1: really cool pastor who jumps out and is the good
Speaker 1: cop to Hell House is bad cop. And he's like,
Speaker 1: you can avoid all this scary stuff if you, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, take the Lord Jesus as your savior. And
Speaker 1: sometimes they'll do that right in the room and have
Speaker 1: you signed something? Oh, I can imagine, and uh, that's
Speaker 1: the Hell House. And in that Vice article, it's crazy. Um,
Speaker 1: the author mentions that a little boy goes off in
Speaker 1: vomits during the hell house, so apparently they're very effective. Well,
Speaker 1: if the object is to make you sick and vomit, yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess so vomit from fear for your soul. And
Speaker 1: they're still around. It seems like something that um might
Speaker 1: have gone by the wayside. But yeah, you can still
Speaker 1: go to hell houses in one of places. I have
Speaker 1: one more thing for you, Chuck what you got. Go
Speaker 1: to BuzzFeed dot com. You may have heard of that website, uh,
Speaker 1: and search for forty four best picks of scared brows
Speaker 1: at Haunted. Yeah. I can't remember where the Haunted House is,
Speaker 1: but it's all the same background, but very much like
Speaker 1: roller coasters. They take a photo of this one spot
Speaker 1: and it's like the scariest spot, and um, the people
Speaker 1: are they're wonderful, hilarious photo and like it's been around.
Speaker 1: I think they first started publishing them in two thousand eleven,
Speaker 1: so they've been around for years and they're still just
Speaker 1: as funny as ever. It's great that the scared face
Speaker 1: is just so pure to me, because it's just pure reaction.
Speaker 1: Like the toughest dude in the world, like trying to
Speaker 1: climb over his girlfriend or push her toward whatever he's
Speaker 1: afraid of. Yeah, it's whatever is happening in that two seconds.
Speaker 1: It's pretty great. So that's Haunted House attractions everybody I know. Uh,
Speaker 1: if you want to know more about them, type those
Speaker 1: words in the search bar at how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: And since I said that, it's time for listener mail,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this Karate Kid an email Awesome, which
Speaker 1: was the scariest movie I've ever seen. Uh. If you
Speaker 1: listen to Karate episode, we wax philosophical about the Karate
Speaker 1: Kid movie and we got a lot of emails of um,
Speaker 1: people feeling great ways of nostalgia uh and talking about it. Um.
Speaker 1: So here we go. I imagine guys will get dozens
Speaker 1: of versions of this similar email. Uh. Just listened to
Speaker 1: Karate and Uh, I have not finished it yet, but
Speaker 1: I'm writing about the first seven to eight minutes, specifically,
Speaker 1: your ode to the Karate Kid was beautiful. I got
Speaker 1: goose bumps along with Chuck. I may have also had
Speaker 1: a tear in my eye when he described that magical
Speaker 1: moment in the film where it all comes together and
Speaker 1: we realize. Along with Daniel son that Mr Miyagi is
Speaker 1: truly a genius. Um. By the way, Ralph Maccio is
Speaker 1: named his son Daniel after himself. Yeah, I guess so,
Speaker 1: after the best version of himself. I recently sent The
Speaker 1: Karate Kid to my six year old nephew to ensure
Speaker 1: that despite what his friends and media try to tell him,
Speaker 1: he will know that Ralph Maccio is the original and
Speaker 1: only Karate Kid. When I called him and asked what
Speaker 1: his favorite part was, he actually started singing, You're the
Speaker 1: best around, nothing's ever gone and get you down. It
Speaker 1: was the proudest moment of my aunt hood so far. Now, Chuck,
Speaker 1: I implore you to watch The Karate Kid too, after
Speaker 1: all the other films that attempt to be a part
Speaker 1: of the franchise or a travesty to his an in
Speaker 1: credibly good. It is very good. The Peter stera song
Speaker 1: Josh mentioned Glory of Love was my first ever favorite
Speaker 1: song when I was six because of the film is
Speaker 1: a classic, and I think you were missing out. I'll
Speaker 1: watch it. I'll check it out anyways. Thanks for sending
Speaker 1: me to work this morning with an extra bounce in
Speaker 1: my step and a song in my heart. That is
Speaker 1: from Nicole Beal at Jed's barber shop. It's a Lake City, Utah.
Speaker 1: Go get her to cut your head. Nice hair, not
Speaker 1: your head. It's doing a terrible job. She's cutting your head.
Speaker 1: Thanks a lot, Nicole. Um. Did you know her friend
Speaker 1: Van Nostrin? Uh, does his band the Bangalore's do a
Speaker 1: cover of your The Best Around? I knew he loved
Speaker 1: that song. I don't know if I knew they actually
Speaker 1: covered It's good. You can go to SoundCloud search Bangalore's
Speaker 1: and You're the Best Around. It's on there. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: do that right after this. Uh. If you want to
Speaker 1: let us know that we nailed something, we want to
Speaker 1: hear about it. You can tweet to us at s
Speaker 1: y s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook
Speaker 1: dot com slash Stuff you Should Know. You can send
Speaker 1: us an email to stuff podcast at how stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com, and as always, joined us at our home
Speaker 1: on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot Com. Stuff
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