Page 7 - Pop History: Elvira

Episode Date: October 13, 2020

We explore the story behind the Mistress of the Dark.Want even more Page 7? Support us on Patreon! Patreon.com/Page7PodcastKevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of Page 7 ad-free.Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

With the sheepies, is it Holdaira? Oh, just goes. Wait, is this like a Mario thing? What's going on right? It's the me. I don't know. It's a Bodaira! And I'm here to tell you to eat your vegetables.

I think you thought I said Wallooigi, and that's not what I said. I didn't call you Whole Diji. But if you want me to call you whole Diji, I will. Welcome to Pop History, everybody. Yeah, we're giving you unpleasant dreams. with my big old spooky cleavage. No, it's not Jackie Zabrowski. We're talking about Alvira.

Unpleasant wet dreams. My God, I had a horniness fit doing this research. I was honestly struggling. I am so into Alvira on so many different levels. I'm holding McNally. Natalie? Is it the breasts that do it for you? It's the whole thing.

Honestly, I love like pale, super pale. I love like the whole aesthetic just makes me go, I get it. Well, I would normally get offended by that, but I think she is fine with you being horny for her. That is what she's after. She's completely cool with it. But she's also so,

I don't want to just make it like, oh, she's so, such a smoke show, because she's also so fucking charming and so funny. She's hilarious. I love her whole thing, and I love her character that she created and stuck with through all of these years. She's such, talk about, like,

we talk about, you know, important figures in the history of pop. And she is just such an icon of pop culture that I almost like, I never really watched like the show she hosted even. I definitely remembered catching some of her movie on. But she's like outgrown all of that just to become this like Halloween October mainstay. She was a little bit before our time. Whenever she first was becoming Alvira and was.

doing the show and stuff. We were too young for that. I don't think we would have been able to see it. Because I don't think they were like replaying it or anything in our lifetime. No, but we definitely had a lot of them on VHS. And I know that we watched them. But it was also because our, we weren't allowed to watch Elvira as kids, which I think is very funny.

And it shows how my family values horror versus sexuality. But we're not going to go down that. Because therapy isn't until later. Oh. But the fact that we were allowed to watch all the nightmare on Elm Street, we were allowed to watch it. We could watch anything. We couldn't watch Elvira Mistress of the Dark because I think that my parents were worried that it was all sex. And then if you watch the movie, there's no sex in it.

Oh, it's very silly. It's such a silly movie. It's like a Mel Brooks style comedy. It really is like Mel Brooks. Yes. Super cute. And like, you know, and I mean, there's all. the double entendres and everything, but they're so innocent.

You know why? You know why? Because her breasts hold so much power in them. And that is one of the reasons that I do kind of, I'm not against people revealing the nipple. That's cool if you want to, but I never would because I think breasts hold magical powers, and you have to utilize them to control people. If there's anything Alvira has taught us.

Magical milk and magical fat. Yep. And I love both of those things. pour them down my throat until I explode. Well, and also what's so cool is to watch someone. Yeah, I'm moving, I'm just gliding right fast. I think that it's so amazing as someone. So it wasn't really until the Pee Wee Herman episode that we did,

that I even thought about the fact that Elvira came from an improv and comedy background. I never thought about it before. And the DNA of Pee We and Elvira are. so mixed together because they were in the same class. Of course, Cassandra Peterson was in Pee Wee's Big Adventure as part of the biker gang, and she's fucking awesome as that character. I say, let me have them first. Yeah.

Yeah, and I love that they were friends, and they are this, they're so similar. What happened, because it was all created in the groundlings, which we'll go into more detail with, but yeah, that, you know, she, she, it's, I, I wish I had something like this in my life in a way. I mean, I could understand in a way being trapped by the thing I created, but how cool would it be to create something so young and such, and it's such a specific aesthetic and then, and then to develop it and be able to like, just explore that character in all these fun ways and just consistently get to enjoy that character for the rest of your life. I mean, I have nothing like that unless you want to, you know, testicles for hands, man, and murder fist,

you know what I mean? But that wasn't good enough. You're still a boy, hold on. You're still a boy, hold on. You're still. young man and you'll develop your character that you'll turn into. He's not a boy, not yet a man. And you'll strut out at 70. You're all back hurts and you're all arched over and you're just going to come out in your costume

and the people will clap and clap and clap. Don't worry. It's going to happen. It's me, Ricky Pickles. And I'm here to tell you children about the way the internet used to be. Is that maybe something like that? Ricky Pickles? Yeah. Already canceled.

I just, if you could come up with something, thing like Elvira though because Elvira did declare herself the illegitimate child of Vincent Price and Anne Margaret and I think it like what a hybrid. What if you did a version of it where you have a low V on your

penis so on the top of your penis stick it out. Do I go where are we talking with the bush now? So we're going to give a little bit of trunk is what you're saying? I think you have to shave. I would go full. there's not enough shaft out there.

I just want to see, I don't want to just see the hairs. No. I want to see more. I want to be tantalized the way Elvira tantalizes us. This is what I'll do. I realize this is what I'll do. I'll pull my balls up above the trunk. Okay.

So it'll look like Elvira, like in the sense they'll look like little brass stout. Okay. And will your song be, how thick is my shaft? Is my shaft? How thick is my shaft? People complain. I sexualized the show too much, so I'm going to just push right through into the history. This is a sexual show. This is an episode. I did this, too, Holden. Isn't it fun how I was the one who sexualized it and you're going to get yelled at?

At least we get a little bit more free reign today because we are talking about Alvira. And sex, I mean, sex appeal is such a huge, unavoidable part of this character. And also talk about inspirational of a woman that knew what she had. had used it and made jokes about it and never was made to feel bad for doing what she was doing. Yeah. Totally. And I, I, somebody who developed early, I don't know if you got your bazooms as early as I did, but I was like 4th, fifth grade.

And I wish that I would have had that level of confidence because I was so insecure about it. Like, I felt embarrassed about my body and I wish that I could have found a way to make jokes about it instead of like, yes. feeling the biblical shame that I'm supposed to feel. Which is this is why at this point in time too, like during the 80s it was so, it was still shied against, and she was kept to like the midnight showwigs.

And like, you know, I like that she created the persona into making her like a woman of the shadows. But I also hate how we were raised to look at that and be like, oh, you don't want that in your life. You don't need that. Yeah, that sucks. This woman is putting all of her bazooms out there.

You can't, like, worry your eyes with it. It's like, what are you talking about? I also was very ashamed of my body, always was very ashamed of my body. I needed to see Elvira when I was a kid. I needed that. The patriarchy coming along again and say, Holden? Holden.

You get this. What is happening? They're afraid of the power. of the female. Shall we? I am definitely frightened to both of you too. Shall we and my wife

and my mom? Yeah, most of the women. Yeah, for sure. As you should be. Yes. And speaking of fear, let us talk now about the history of

Cassandra Peterson. It's not a scary sounding when we use her real name, but her name is Cassandra Peterson and she was born in Manhattan, Kansas in 1951, and when she was a top of, She was scalded by boiling water and had to get skin grafts to over 35% of her body,

spending three months in the hospital, which was a big element. This is where the humor comes in. This is where the humor comes in, but also something that I never realized before. It is why, even though everyone says what she wears is so revealing and it's like, no, if you think about it, her tits are exposed and yes, she's got a high slit. but most of what is covered on her body. And also, if you notice in the movie, she uses body doubles,

it's because she's burned over 35% of her body. No idea. I had absolutely no idea. And then looking, you do realize, like, oh, those are like, I believe leg doubles. And she made it very clear that, like, she was never to take her wig off because she needed to cover her back.

But she got the scalding burn. She got scalded because her mother was boiling Easter eggs. and she was two years old, and she climbed up on a chair, and she pulled the whole pot of boiling water on top of his own. Oh, my God. And also, as a parent, what a fucking nightmare. Yeah.

Peterson said, I used humor as a way to deflect comments the kids made about me, calling me a monster and running away from me. And I eventually started using self-deprecating humor, making jokes about myself. And that made people kind of like me. So that's where that comes in.

The need for attention comes in very early on as well. She was drawn to entertaining from a super young age. She's got a button. Now, Jackie was talking about this before we started. She is such a great storyteller. And she's such a great interview to the point where I'm going to try when she's not in her busy season to actually get to talk to her.

We'll see what happens. I would love that because all of every, everything that I have is like pages long of a story that I tried to pull things out. Let me, shall I have one right here. Let me tell this was, this was, when I was in Kansas, And around one and a half years old, my dad took me to a parade, and he pushed me up in front of the crowd and stuck me on the horse with Hopalong Cassidy. And suddenly I was in a parade and everybody was yelling and clapping at me. It was like, oh my God, this is fantastic.

I just wanted to be the center of attention. I would do anything to get attention. My parents had me up dancing on tables when I was a little kid. They'd go to restaurants and stick me up on the table. And I would sing, how much is that doggie in the window? And people would throw pennies and change at me. And I was like, ah, this is awesome. I don't want.

I don't know, but I kind of got bitten by the bug. The rest of my life, I just continued pursuing, like, what can I do to get everybody to look at me? See, whenever people threw pennies and nickels at me in high school, they screamed white trash, and it wasn't fun. Yeah. That or when someone made it hail instead of make it rain on you, you ever had been hailed on instead? Oh, I never, no, my bullies were not that clever, but they definitely threw money at me, like, change. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Well, I got food thrown at me. Oh, me too. Because it was fat. So I was always, so at least it was softer. I said it was very funny. Why do you think I'm so funny now? So, Jackie, do you want to tell the queen of Halloween story to get us into the how Halloween and how her early love of horror and October and Halloween comes in?

Well, I will say that I did definitely, I fell in love even further with, because Cassandra Peterson because she grew up, and this definitely rang true in my life, but not in the same way. Her mother and her aunt ran a costume shop. Yes. So Cassandra was often used as a model, but also what I really loved. And what I think makes me okay with how she gets to her stardom status is that her mother was, and her both of her parents were very supportive of all of her dreams and all of her hopes and anything. that she wanted to do, they encourage, including the fact that anything she wanted to dress up as, her mom and her aunt would make her that costume. So even from a young age, she was dressing as

Mortisha Adams. She was dressing as Samantha from Bewitch. She was dressing from Ginger from Gilligan's Island. She said they never refused any costume. There was nothing too sexy or too strange for my mom and aunt to make me that costume. I never got turned down. And Peterson has said in interviews that she always knew she would one day grow up and have a job that required being in costume. Now, this is why they referred to Halloween as like the huge event, her entire life of the entire year. And that's what's so cool. She said she was a Halloween dressing up full and that she, I won my first Halloween costume contest when I was in second grade dressed in fishnets, high heels and a canned can, dress, dressed as Miss Kitty from the Gunsmoke series.

I mean, how cool is that to have a family with a costume shop? And that was the time where a lot of kids, like, there weren't extravagant costumes the way there are now. They just would have, like, a plastic sheet over them with, like, something made out of, like, asbestos on their face. Well, because that's why I get, I know I'm pretty sure I've talked about this on year before, but it changed my life when my mom made me my little mermaid costume with the, like, with a nude body suit. And the bodysuit had the like big purple shells over, you know, what would someday be my breasts. But then also the, she like stuffed the tail and my legs went through the bottom of the tail. But she attached the bottom of the tail to my wrist to like an invisible like fishing line. So that the tail came up as I walked.

And then I had like the long hair and she made me like a little sea crown. And it was my favorite costume of all. time. Yeah, dude, I didn't know that. That's amazing. That's a fucking cool. That was my first ballet, too, but Little Mermaid. Really? I didn't know that. Yeah, my first costume was a mermaid costume. What a couple of fucking aerials. Well, she had, I mentioned this earlier, but she had, she had a fond costume memory as well at the age of five. She told her mother she wanted to be the queen of Halloween, which consisted of a crown and scepter made out of orange and black paper. She was always wanting to be like a mascot for this holiday.

This is her on her love of Halloween. It's a fantastic holiday, the best best holiday of all holidays. There's no religion involved. You don't have to buy anyone, any presents. You don't have to have dinner with your relatives. It's hedonistic. It's about going out, having fun,

and doing things that you wouldn't ordinarily do. Dressing up as a hooker or something. I love this line. I love it. There's no religion involved. You don't have to buy anyone present. I mean, it really is. It's true.

The only reason why Thanksgiving tops it for me is because I get to cook for. people because I'm obsessed with cooking. But Halloween close second. You know what's also great about it is that you can either make it a big party holiday and go to all these parties and be out of the town or if you're more introverted,

it can be this super fun, let's all get together and watch a bunch of scary movies and stay in holiday. It's like both and there's no expectations. You can make it whatever you want. Do whatever you want. Yeah. I will say most of my Halloween's especially ended in me crying

somewhere either on a bus or on a train in New York in my costume which is usually what ended up happening most all weeks. Absolutely, absolutely of course. She also in elementary school she saw her first horror film, House on Haunted Hill. She said I was both repulsed and intrigued. I couldn't think of doing anything else but going to see the next cheesy Edgar Allan Poe ripoff movie by

Roger Corman. And then I got into collecting horror magazines. My sisters were playing with Barbies. I was playing. I was playing. with Dracula. I also have a love-hate relationship with Vincent Price. I loved to see every movie he was in, but then I suffered for weeks afterwards with nightmares. Her favorite TV shows were Twilight Zone and the Adams family. She's just, I love that it's not just a bullshit character. Like, she fucking lives here. She's a Halloween lady. Yes, she is the real deal. She's not just stuck in this spooky character. Like, this is her personality. And that's what I love too over and over again with people like, Are you sick of being Alvira?

And her answer is always, no. I will never be sick of doing this. I love having an alter ego that I get to be, which is what I always wanted. I wanted to, because also if you look at her and something that she enjoys is that you wouldn't notice right away that she's Elvira. She's got long red hair. She doesn't dress like that normally. She just looks like a mom. She never gets noticed.

And she's also. She's still the reigning Halloween queen for 40 years. Yeah. How could you be mad about that, you know? Yeah. And it is great for her. She speaks about this. Like, unless she's, like, at a convention or something,

if she's out of costume, like, nobody recognizes her. And that's fucking rad. So she's, like, both famous and not, which is the ideal, really. I'd recognize her. Right. I would. I would now, probably, after doing this research. Peterson said, as I got older, I went into tap dancing lessons,

modern jazz lessons, then later on singing lessons. I was really bitten by the show business bug. It was something I always wanted to do. I started at 14 dancing and nightclubs and kind of just continued on from there. I didn't know what I wanted to be exactly, but I knew I wanted to be, like I said, the center of attention. And during her teen, she also worked as a go-go dancer at a local gay bar, and she's very LGBTQ friendly and we'll get into more of that as we go.

but yeah, do you want to talk about Jackie her intro, her foray into showbaz? Sure, I mean, 14 years old working as a go-go dancer. She definitely was very open about the fact that she wasn't topless, you know, was it. But a lot of the times when she was this young, she was working in gay bars and worked with a lot of drag queens. And the drag queens actually in the whole community embraced her and helped her like herself and learn how to grow.

grow and also how to lose yourself in a character. She said that drag queens are who taught her how to dress, how to wear her hair, how to do her makeup, how to walk. And she said, the next thing she knew, she was in a drag show. She said, one of the guys didn't show up one night. So they put me in as a third drag queen doing a Supremes number. I was a woman being a man being a woman. Fun.

Also a child being, pretending to be a man being a woman being a child. Oh, yes. But it's really, those stories are fascinating with her and like Tracy Lords and Rose McGowan, who started in these really precarious sounding situations where they were like 13, 14, already doing like very adult things, but somehow managing to like make it out and then succeed and thrive this high. Well, because I think that these people that like the dragweds that she surrounded herself by are the ones that took care of her and made sure that nothing was going to happen. I think the gays really protected her in her younger years. I'm like frisky hands Elvis.

Let's talk about it. He actually, no, friskey hands Elvis is what? Well, we'll get there. We will get there. Let's go there. I mean, unless you have anything between here and Vegas, I was about to jump on to Vegas. No, I mean, she just, I know that she was so, well, started off is that she had a dream of being a show girl in Las Vegas because she was obsessed with Ann Margaret. and Margaret also had red hair.

It was super sexy. And then she was with Elvis Presley in the movie Viva Las Vegas. And so she was obsessed with that movie. But then she said, the next thing you know, my parents were on vacation. And they took me and my sisters to California. But we stopped in Las Vegas. I begged them to let me go to one of these shows with them. So I dressed up to look super old and sophisticated, you know, like I was actually old enough to get in to see the show.

I put on all kinds of wigglets and eyelashes and a push-up bra and I went to see the show. I guess I had so much makeup on that the dance captain came out and asked me if I'd like to audition for the show the next day. She says it was the weirdest thing that ever happened. My parents were in shock. They thought it was a joke. I was in shock and then it broke down and told them, I'm only 17. I thought I would get arrested, but instead I did the audition and they hired me and said, how, and I said, how am I going to be in the show when I'm 17?

But they had my parents get a lawyer and sign a document, and I was able to do it. I wasn't able to enter the hotel except through the back through the kitchen. I couldn't drink or gamble or go in the casino, but I could dance in a G-string on stage. Can you imagine that happening now? I know. No. Because that sounds like child trafficking. Yeah, yeah, for sure.

It's pretty wild. Like, again, it seems like somehow she made out on Skate there wasn't horribly taken advantage of, at least that we know of. Well, except for when she loses her virginity, but we'll get into that. We'll get into that. Well, and, but the craziest thing is so she ends up being a showgirl in the pioneering Viva-Less Girls show at the Dunes Casino, which is a musical review that became wildly successful, and she actually meets Elvis Presley. And they end up actually, I guess, I wrote they briefly dated, but I think the way she tells it, I think you might have the story, Jackie, but the way she tells it,

it was really just like one night, crazy night with Elvis. Yeah. What it seems like, and at least, again, you can read at least minorly different versions of this story from Elvira herself in many different interviews. But the one, of what I figured out is that it was after a show, Elvis had come to see the show, and they were in the hotel, and she went up with all of the people that she's in the show with. and she sat down with Vegas and so apparently her first ever gift

was a copy of hound dog so this is how upset like she is obsessed with Elvis she's always been in love with Elvis and they're sitting and he's playing the piano for all of them up in this huge hotel room and he was very open about the fact and also his team was very open

about the fact that she is 17 years old so she claims that they kissed but went no further And I think it's also because she's in love with him, but you know, we'll never really know. I'm just saying what she said. But what I do think is cool is that she said that Elvis said, quote, let me tell you, Vegas is no place for a young girl like you. You need to get the hell out of here.

You don't want to stay here and be like all these other girls and end up in your 30s and doing God knows what or just working at the blackjack table. If you really want to be in showbiz, you've got to get out of this town. And I was like, what? I just got here. I love it. And he said, no, no, no, no. You just sang with me.

And you've got a really nice voice. You should get voice lessons and go into singing. When you're 24, 25, you're going to be too old to dance. You need to start thinking about a different career path if you want to stay in show business. All right. Which I don't know if that's any of that's true. But she did follow his advice. And then she started, she got herself a singing coach.

And then she started singing. And she said it was Elvis that had changed her life that told her to do a different path besides just be a go-go dancer. There's just so much good and bad advice mixed in there at the same time. Yes. I also like that if you're 17, the kissing's okay. Yeah. You're allowed to French them.

You don't allow to go anywhere else. What did you say earlier, Natalie? You can lick it, but you can't stick it? Yeah, you're allowed to lick. You're not allowed to stick. Back then. Now neither, neither. No, neither.

And at one point two, when she finally had to leave, Elvis said, if that plane leaves the ground and you're not with him you'll regret it. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life. And then she said, but what about us? And he said, we'll always have Paris. We didn't have it before. We lost it until we came to Casablanca.

Wait a second. Wait a second. Wait a second. Also, I'm very sad nobody tried to do an Elvis impersonation during any of this. Oh, oh, I'm not there. I will say when he saw her, when he saw her, he was like, Oh, that's good.

He was violently masturbating. He was gripping himself with such a violence. And they were like, she's 17 and he was like, oh, well, I'll just let him get her kiss. All of us are really good at this. Natalie, wow, that was a transformation.

Natalie, that was really good. I think you have a job waiting for you there. I will say, though, Elvira does wish she had lost her virginity to Elvis, and still wishes she had. I get it. Because who did she lose her virginity to? Tom Jones.

Wow. Apparently, Tom Jones, she said, seemed gentlemanly and nice. So when he was jumping on me, I thought, well, if I'm ever going to do this, might as well be with Tom Jones. Ew. It was painful and horrible. And apparently, Tom Jones is so well endowed that he hurt her during losing her virginity. Yeah, his reputation.

is that he's very large. Yes, he's very large, but also was not being very gentle with her either. And honestly, I'd never, I don't think I really previously had any thoughts about Tom Jones, but now I certainly don't like him. She said, I ended up with a little tearing, a little bleeding, and going to the hospital. I had to get stitches. Oh, God. And she said, I thought for sure we were going to run away together and get married.

I went backstage to see him the next night, but he was with two back. background singers and was all over them. I was disgusted. So she was very, now talks about that she just really wished she had pushed Elvis into having sex with her. God, that sucks.

I know, it's horrible. That super sucks. I didn't even have any of that, so good digging, Jackie. So after this, she gets a small role in the James Bond film Diamonds are forever as a showgirl, as well as the to topless dancer in the film, The Working Girls. She's also said to be the girl

on the cover of Tom Waits's album Small Change. In The Tassels, almost completely nude. I love it. She doesn't remember, but she's like, it looks like me, so it's probably me. I mean, that's a cool life if you can't even remember. That's a good life. Being on the cover of like an iconic album. Yeah, it's like incredible.

She was doing a lot of modeling at this point in time, and I love that the quote is, I've stared at it really, really hard, and I'm pretty sure it's me. I just again, such a prolific career that you can't really remember. It's amazing. This is the, I was blown away by all of this stuff before like just even getting into her career, Zalvira is so incredible. So now it's the early 70s. She moves to Italy. She becomes the lead singer of the Italian rock bands Latin's 80 and the snails, which just sounds rad as fuck.

In Italy, she just runs into Federico Fellini, like apparently literally on a street. corner just bangs into him. And she ends up getting a small part in his film Roma, which is like a classic. How did she end up in Italy? She just always loved Italy. Yeah. She wanted to go. She wanted to go.

And she went. I think she was making enough money. And so as she said that she actually, when she bumped into Federico Fellini, he said that she looked like his wife and when she was younger. So that's why he asked her to be in the movie. She said, I got the part in the movie Roma. It was bizarre. It was an experience of a lifetime.

I got paid. I was starving, literally. I didn't have any money or work. And to have that fall out of the sky was like a miracle. I don't know. I had these strange things happen to me when I was a kid and growing up. Thinking of things and then they kind of happen. I was manifesting things.

And I didn't realize it. That's what I tell people. Be careful what you think because you might end up getting it. And I love that, like, she just really is, I do believe in manifestation, but we won't go down that. No, I do too. And she was manifesting this for herself. She needed something.

She needed a job. And she literally bumped into Federico Felidian Street. She then, so after Italy, she comes back to the U.S. And now we get to talk about the Mama's Boys. Oh, baby. This is a musical comedy act. It is Peterson said it was seven gay men and myself, I was Mama. And we toured major, we toured major gay slash straight discos all over the country.

It was at the height of the disco era and pre-Aids. So it was pretty damn wild. This is then move, it's after she's moved back to Los Angeles, right? This is after she's in the United States. Because she moved here apparently for some dude and that fell through. But what I love, I just loved this line about working in the Mama's Boys. She says, I can't tell you what a big influence they were on me. Now it's funny.

I'm an influence on them, meaning the gay community. She said, it really came full circle. It's so funny how many guys come up to me and say, I had your poster in my room and it was fantastic because my mom thought I was straight. They were like, you were my beard for so many years. She laughed. She said, I've always said when guys have my poster in their bedroom, it's because they either want to do me or they want to be me.

And right around puberty, they decide which one it is. Hell yeah. That's great. Also, you know, she talks about how the Alvira character really is to her, like, dressing in drag. Yes. And we talked about, you know, her working with the drag performers way early on. I think that was such a huge influence for her becoming so, you know, taking it into this direction. Because it really is, the persona is such a larger than life.

It's a heightened, yeah, it's a heightened version of a female character. And it is drag in that way where it's the extra hair and the extra makeup. up and you're putting a layer on top of the person. And the humor, which I feel like you find so much in drag shows. And the camp as well. She's larger than life. And like the fact that when even she talks about her breast, she's like, they are my breasts, but they are definitely shoved into that dress.

You know, it's like, if you shove any, and no matter what size your breasts are, you can make them look that big with diligence. I like, I want to ask her about how she holds her boobs because she gets some stay in place and not move around when she's jumping and like the boobs don't fall out yeah and they just don't like pop out or anything I wonder what she does she does say it takes her exactly an hour and a half to get into the whole thing she she has it down to a science so I'm sure that those that whatever she does with them things is also down to a oh I'm sure yes science uh for sure can we just say for I know we'd probably get to it we get to her later on and I'm she is 70 she's

still is a smoke show. Oh yeah. Fucking goals, man. Yeah. I just, I think, and it's one of those things in life that I feel like you read about where it's like, oh, is being happy and doing what you want to do? Is that what makes you look so young?

Yeah. I really, it's like, wow. I do. I think so. Insane. Well, now we're going to get into the transition, the actual, her actually finding this character, because now it is 1979, and she decides in L.A. to join the Improv Troop the Groundlings. We have talked, of course, about the... I gave a bit of a history of the Groundlings in our Pee-Wee-Herman episode. I'll spare us that deeper dive into the Groundlings. Check it out on that episode.

Yes, please. She does say, I don't think there's a day that goes by where that training hasn't helped give me confidence to be on stage or confidence in my speaking. I just wouldn't be able to do what I do without the Groundlings, because improv teaches you to think on your feet. Look at how many people have come out of there who've gone on to successful careers. It's mind-boggling. Absolutely. And here she's not Elvira yet, but she does create this Valley Girl character. And this Valley Girl character is going to be the basis of the Elvira character.

Another little side note. Unfortunately, she did test shots for Playboy in the 70s as well, which were stolen and appeared in a bunch of different men's magazines without her permission, which super sucks. Yuck and a half. And I do say I think it's kind of fun that she was, asked what her specialty was in the groundlings. And she said openly, I was the worst at doing characters. She said, it was weird that I came up with this character.

I only had a couple of characters. One was called Pet Lady, which you can guess what that was like. One was a Valley Girl actress that kind of had the personality that I base the Lvira character on. And she said that Valley Girl song with Moon Zappa had just come out. She was like, I was just a sexy actress showing up for an audition. She said, people always. called me the sex symbol of the groundlings. I always got all the parts like hooker, showgirl, stripper, whatever.

I was usually the girlfriend, the sexy wife, the hooker of the groundling, which I think it's kind of fun. I think that in Murder Fist and our days of sketch, what I, no, no, what I appreciated about us is that I never just played the girlfriend. In fact, it was way more likely that you guys would play the girlfriend, the hooker. Like, I got to play the fun character. I thought you were going to talk about how somebody definitely gave us the heads up. They were like, every, like, this was like year one of murder fist.

They were like, it appears to me that every female character in your sketches is either a prostitute or, or I'm sorry, I should say a sex worker or a Nazi. So can you guys like figure out something else? And we were like, oh, right. But that was in the beginning, but you guys changed it. You learned how to write for women and I appreciate that. We had no idea. We didn't even realize. We were like, oh, man.

We should probably fucking fix that. There's a lot of mommy issues that come up in freshman year of college. Oh, yeah. I mean, I think we were all pretty upset about not actually having girlfriends. So I think that was probably a part of it too because we're all disgusting animals. More on that later. More on that later. But that was also like almost 20 years ago at this point.

Yes, so long ago. And I mean, it's good. It's learning. It's learning, guys. We're really learning a lot. It's learning. Women are way more than that. Holda McNeely says in 2020.

Oh, my God, he's so progressive. So this is where we get to her finding Alvira. I should say she was a personality on a Los Angeles radio station from 1982 to 1983. Do you have much on that before Fright Night? All right, let's talk about Fright Night because this is where it really all comes together. Fright Night was a television horror show that ran low budget horror and science fiction films in Los Angeles's. on Los Angeles' KHJ TV from 1970 to 1981. And the host was a man named Larry Vincent

who went by Sinister Seymour and notably criticized the film in an offbeat manner, appearing in a small window that would pop up in the corner of the screen while the movie was playing to throw like a little jab out at the movie. And this really is, this is such a relic, right? And Alvira really brought it back in the 80s, but this was something that was like,

a horror host like I want more of those in our world I mean I know we still have some of this We've got Joe Bob We got Joe Bob right I think he's kind of the number one right now But this was such a thing going on Through back in the 70s and before

To start the show A whiny voiced assistant would say The master of the macabre The epitome of evil The most sinister man to crawl across The face of the earth Seymour Seymour would then walk onto the set

and make fun of the audience for watching these quote stinkers. For a short time, Vincent was replaced by Mona Lisa, which is played by a woman named Lisa Clark who was a sort of Elvira prototype. She was a vampirist. She had a little bit of the cleavage.

She did the whole kind of knocking on the movie thing. Where is she now? Where is Moona Lisa these days? Lisa Clark, I'm not sure. You know, she's probably dead? Do you think she's mad? I think she's in the ground. most likely. She's not as mad as the person that created the Vampira show

we'll talk about in just a movie. We're about to get there. So Vincent died in 1975. He was replaced by another guy until 1979 and then the thing kind of went away. So in the spring of 1981 the producers decided they want to revive Fright Night. They want to

revive it but with a female host. And at first they brought in another horror hostess named Malah Nirmie, Malah Nirmie to revive her similar, the Vampira show, but quit over a dispute with the producers. So the Vampira show was between 1954 and 1955. So you want to talk, oh, gee.

So this woman created the Vampira show. So when she started working with them, she wanted to hire Lola Falana to play Vampira. And the producers did not want her to play Vampira, which is why Mila Nirmie quits. So what happens after they started taping, this is actually. after they bring on Cassandra Peterson as Alvira, they create everything. The producers received a cease and desist letter from Nirmie. She says, besides the similarities in the format and costumes of Vampira and Alvira, Elvira's closing line for each show, wishing her audience unpleasant dreams,

was notably similar to Vampira's closer, Bad Dreams, Darling's, uttered as she walked off down a Misty Corridor. The court ruled in favor of Cassandra Peterson. Holding that likeness means actual representation of another person's appearance and not simply close resemblance. Peterson claimed that Elvira was nothing like Vampira aside from the basic design of the black dress and black hair. Nirmie claimed that Vampira's image was based on Morticia Adams, a character from the Adams family. Right. And that...

Yeah, I mean, they're both ripped off from other things already. They're both ripped off from other things. And also, Elvira is funny. Like, there is a, the character itself is different from vampura. I love me some vampire. I've got to, like, Jeff made me a great painting of Vampira. Oh, sure. Cool.

You know, she is the OG, but that was also 30 or 25 years before this. And it's revamped. Literally. Get it? Hey! Hey, guys. That's what's up. Just came up with it.

Did you just think that's what's up? Oh, yeah. Bring them back. Bring the guys back from the beer commercial. Oh, right. All right. Either way, what a cool opportunity for Cassandra Peterson. The station puts out a casting call for which Peterson auditioned.

She gets the part. Producers then leave it up to her. to create the whole character, the whole look, that would never happen to do. She should have been paid more money. You should be paid more money to create the entire character, especially more than $300 a week, but we'll get to that. Peterson said, an artist's friend drew a picture, and I said, are you kidding me?

There's no way in hell they're going to let me on TV in that. And they did. The general manager's only comment was, can you make the slit on the leg a little higher? Higher! The friend was her best friend at the time, Robert Redding, who was in Mama's Boys. Peterson said,

Robert stepped in and said, Let me help you. He did drag. He was an artist, a singer, and a drag queen. He had just been working in Shakespeare's Macbeth playing one of the witches

and played a drag character that had similar makeup that he found in a Kabuki makeup book. So he did my makeup. He cut and styled the wig after his favorite singer, which is Ronnie Spector of the Ronnats,

who called the hairdo a knowledge bump. Then he made the, the dress as sexy and tight as he could. He literally cut and sewed the dress, hair, makeup. We worked on it together, but mostly it was his creation. I was going, oh my God, this is fantastic. So it was basically influenced by another drag queen. It's also, again, like the boobies,

it's impressive that she can move around in that dress because it looks very tight. Apparently, it is very uncomfortable. I bet. I do love as well that she just couldn't believe that she was allowed to be on television wearing this. She said every week we'd get complaints that my cleavage was too low, and I would come back in the next week, and they'd ask if I made the cleavage higher. I'd say we fixed it, and they'd say, oh, thank God.

And every single week, I'd tell them that we made it higher. And every single week, they'd say, great. And I never changed it. I also saw her say something along the lines. At one point, they did make her close up the cleavage. She did for, like, one episode, and they got, like, triple the complaints that she. she did that over the complaints of the cleavage. They were like, no, no, bring the cleavage back.

No, bring their cleavage back. We can deal with the other ones. Peterson said, I went on thinking, gosh, how will this last longer than a week? Because it's ridiculous. I'm being this Valley Girl character that I developed in the groundlings while dressed like a vampire, but I figured I'm making $300 a week. I shouldn't complain. Obviously, they didn't think it would run longer than a week either because they rented

everything on the set, the candelabra, the sofa, and all of that. Funny story. They forgot to stop renting the couch. Seven years later, they found out they'd paid like $25,000 in rental fees. What? Oh, my God. And I know that, I mean, $300 a week at that time was probably pretty good, right? Okay.

See, it was, except for the fact that, like, after a couple of weeks, in less than two weeks, Elvira was invited to be on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. Like, this, it exploded. Those are on YouTube, by the way, and they're a lot of fun. It's like she went viral. And she did. She went Enviro, Elviral. Elviral.

Yes. Oh, that's right on the table. I have to say this, though, because it is talk about another piece of advice that, because in looking at all of this, you're like, how did she and continue on, as we will continue talking about this, how does she live off of this? She was making $300 a week, and she kept asking for more money. She kept going in and being like, I think I should get more money. I think I should get more money.

They wouldn't give her a raise. So in lieu of a raise, she said this is the smartest thing she ever did. In lieu of getting a raise, her ex-husband, who was her manager at this point, asked for the rights to Elvira so that she could have a fan club. And the station said yes. So Elvira owns everything that is Elvira. Yeah. Everything she gets a cut from.

She says it's a fantastic advantage. Usually any actor who plays a popular character on something like Star Trek or whatever show, they don't have any control over their licensing and merchandising. They may get a small percentage, but in general, it's just pennies on each item. I get it all. Whenever you see something that features Elvira, I'm making the money off of it. That's why when people say to me, don't you feel typecast? Don't you want to stop playing Elvira? I say, hell to the no, are you out of your mind?

So she's making money If you let anything, Elvira And in fact, if there's anything that is not Asked by her, she does send out cease and desist Letters to make people stop Which I completely appreciate. She should get the money. Oh, and by the way, we'll talk about What comes of this licensing.

I mean, there is a version of Elvira On everything. It's like, it's like Rule 34, but for merchandise. Like she fucking capitalizes on this character. Elvira, the lunchbox. Elvira, the playthrower. Yeah, no, good for her You know what she is?

She's a real girl boss. Yeah, she is a real girl boss. You know what, though? Also, I have to say, $300, of course, is not enough, but it is... We were just watching Amniville Horror for 31 for 31 last night, and that's about the same time period, and their house cost $80,000.

And then when I heard that, I went to the corner and I wept. It was also haunted, Natalie. Yeah, so. But the ghosts also had to pay like 10G just to haunt the place. Yeah, just to haunt there. But this also goes to show of why it was so important since she did what she did. She said, I did the first 3D television show that had ever been broadcast and they sold 3D glasses at 7-11. I think they sold the glasses for $3 a pair and the show only aired in L.A.

And I think they sold something like 2.7 million pairs of glasses. So multiply that by three. That's a lot of money. And I got $300 a week. So when people say I cheated the station out of the rights, I say, I don't think so. Oh, no way. Fuck that shit. No.

I love the way she taught. She's so fun. She's so fun. She's so fun. Like in these situations. But either way, one more quote about her character that I loved. I figured out that Alvira is me when I was a teenager. She's a spastic girl.

I just say what I feel and people seem to enjoy it, which I think is so much a part of her great success. This character blows up through the 80s and 90s and becomes, of course, as we said, a brand in and of itself. There were, let's talk about some of the merchandise. Halloween costumes, comic books, action figures, trading cards. I fucking love the pinball machines. We'll talk about the pinball machines in a second.

Oh, we will talk about the pinball machines. Halloween decor, model kits, calendars, perfume, and dolls. Peterson said, I did one of those smelly things that hangs in your car. I was like, ew, what does Elvirus smell like? Luckily, it just smelled icky and overly perfumed, and they sold a bunch. And she also appears on the cover of Fim Fetal's magazine five times. Just pretty cool. Great covers, by the way.

Definitely worth a Google image search on that. A lot of Google image searching was done by this person. Oh, boy. He had to do it. it, Natalie. He had to do it for the show. I had to know what the covers looked like to speak towards it on the show, Natalie. Of course. No, no. Diligence, Natalie. You're just a really good researcher. Yeah, he's diligent. Also, in 1985, Elvira hosted a home video series called Thriller Video. And many of the films were hand-selected by Peterson. Was this what you had?

I'm thinking, Jackie, the VHS tapes. Was it Thriller Video? Yes, this is what we had. And many of these are pulled directly from episodes of the Hammer House of Horror television series, as well as television films directed by Dan Curtis. Hammer, by the way, we should talk about Hammer House. It's going to come back in a play in a little bit when we talk about movie stuff. But the Hammer films were big for her, just like the Vincent Price stuff and all that. Hammer was the British B-horror thing, B-horror House that was putting out a lot of, like, Dracula and stuff. what's his name? Christopher Lee

we did an episode of on Wizard and the Bruiser so we talked a lot about the history of the Hammer Horror stuff but... Yeah, Hammer Films is huge for the horror genre. Totally. It is like Britain's contribution. Bloom House. Yes. A Blue House but

way back in the day and all that. Isn't it Blumhouse? Blumhouse, yeah. No, I never say it allowed, I think, is one of it. It's just one of... I might be wrong. I don't know. I don't know. Jason Blum or Jason Blum. It's a Mimi. It's a Mimi and a Jiff.

But either way, she did refuse to host films in the cannibal, slasher, and zombie genres. She didn't love all horror films. She really was more drawn to that old aesthetic, you know. Honestly, we're watching them now. If you're listening to this close to the time of recording, we're doing these Saturday night watches on the LPN Twitch stream. On your house. Come watch with us. Yes, come watch with us.

like Twitch.TV backslash last podcast network. Forward slash last podcast network. But yes. And we're watching those types of films. Those just, those are like her comfort movies. She puts those on on sick days. You know what I mean?

But she didn't necessarily love slasher stuff, Uber violent stuff, the more modern horror stuff. But they, so they did release a bunch of those thriller video movies, not hosted by her that were in those genres. But either way, she did hand-select the ones that she hosted.

Shall we talk about Mistress of the Dark? The movie. Do you have anything before that? Yes. No, I don't. I was looking through her IMDB, and before she did this movie, she had so many credits that I didn't realize,

but she got her first Elvira credit really early on. So I guess that you were saying when she, like, exploded onto the scene, I just didn't realize that that's how it happened. Oh, yeah, real hard. She was everywhere. Yeah. definitely especially in the 80s so Elvira Mysterious to the Dark

we probably all watched it before this it is I was actually surprised I remember in you know in my memory it was like just a terrible film that you know whatever and rewatching it it's super fun super charming It's funny it's funny it's You know she's I think she's great in it

I think she actually acts well in it You know what I mean as her character But either way the It's like a little bit of of two Wong Fu, thanks for everything, Julie Newmar, where it's like, she shows up in this town and just like, I'm bringing some pizzazz back here. But for the most part, it was just her getting young boys to do things for her.

And also, throw it out there, Bob, not hot. Sorry, not hot. No. I had never seen it before. This was my first time. Did you like it? Oh, yeah, I had a great time watching it. It was super fun.

And the girl in the movie is the, she's from the original cast of Saved by the Bell. I had not seen her in other things before. That's just an exciting fact that you'll get on. Pop History. Well, I have another fun exciting fact about the Elvira Mistress of the Dark because it made me smile. Apparently Brad Pitt auditioned for one of the teenage boy roles. Ooh, saucy. Cassandra Peterson thought he was too cute and felt that Elvira would be not interested in Bob anymore if Brad Pitt was one of the teenagers trying to get her.

I get it, girl. I get it. casting notes of his audition, she wrote next to his name, Yum, Yum. And then she became the Elvis. She got to lick. She's got no sticks. No stick. The script was written by Peterson, Cassandra Peterson, of course, as well as Sam Egan and John Paragon.

Egan is known for writing and producing shows like Northern Exposure and the Outer Limits, as well as being a journalist that is written for Rolling Stone. Paragon started out in the groundlings and is most known as John. Jambi the Jeannie on Pee's Playhouse. It all comes full circle. The film was directed by James Signorelli, who is best known for being a film segment producer on more than 400 episodes of Saturday Night Live since 1976.

After several years of... So I don't have a ton much more on the movie besides that because it kind of came and went in a lot of ways. But... Well, she doesn't push it because she doesn't make any more money off of it. So apparently due to the bankruptcy of New World Pictures and bad financial contracts, Cassandra Peterson and Mark Pearson, who was her manager at the time, they don't make any money off of the video sales or the TV airings.

So she said, people are always saying, hey, that's so great that Mistress of the Dark is still out there. I go, yeah, it is. I'm thrilled for people to see it. They go, you must have money rolling in after all these years from that. And I'm like, no, I don't think so. I got paid to star and mistress of the dark and to write it and be a co-producer, but I've never seen one penny from it ever, ever, ever again. That's it. Even though it was one of the top rentals for a long time, it's crazy. You're in showbiz. You get it. Well, hopefully, yeah, at least then she gets, then people get pushed to her merch. They're like, oh, I like this lady. I'll go buy some stuff with her face on it. And it's all everything else. But it's really fun. It's very entertaining.

It's very, uh, it gets you in the Halloween mood. The end draws out a little, too long, I will say. Yeah, I feel like that last dance number is kind of where it kind of outwears as well. You're kind of like, this is a little cheesy. Like, it felt a little cheesy. But other than that, I really enjoyed just the whole vibe of that movie.

It's just a fun, you know, October, chill. Like, it's that movie you watch in between the harsher horror movies during your 31 for 31 months. Yes. Like, for sure. We paired it with a movie that was a lot more rough, you know? That's what you do. So after several years trying to get a sequel made, Cassandra and her then-husband, Mark Pearson,

we keep mentioning, decided to finance a second movie, which Peterson wrote with Paragon again, called Elvirus Haunted Hills. It was shot in Romania for just under a million dollars. It was released directed video in October of 2002. It lovingly parodies the Roger Corman directed Ed Grallin Poe films she talked about earlier in this episode. Oh, wait. No. Oh, I made, I gave a wrong podcast.

history fact. The Girl from Save by the Bell is in the Haunted Hills movie. Oh, okay. Did you see the haunted hills movie? Yeah, I did watch it. I got the two confused in my head. It's fine. I didn't catch it. It was cool. I mean, it's very silly, you know, but it's again, very fun Halloween kind of silly, spooky movie. I think I'll try to watch it like after this because I'm very intrigued because this is, I feel like her love letter to the movie she loves in the horror in the realm of classic horror. Yeah, totally. And of course, also in parodies as well,

the Hammer Horror films out of Britain that she spoke about. But it does also go to show she was 50 years old in that movie. She looks fantastic in it. It's not. Like even in the first movie as well, I was like, remember that she is like, this is at a time period where it's like, no, she's not just like a 20-year-old, like, oh, that's why it's something.

It's like, this is a woman. woman who's like fully comfortable in her skin and it like it's very sexy. She looks amazing. Did you watch Honnott Hills, Jackie? I haven't seen it since. I used to watch it a lot because it was a movie that we weren't allowed to watch. I never saw any of viral movies as a kid, so this was all new. I haven't actually kind of shot.

I hate being that person of like, I can't believe, but honestly, Nat, like, this is such your wheelhouse. I know. I know. It's so weird. And I still knew exactly who she was. I knew about her, but I had never seen her movies before. That's what makes her such, like, going back to talk about how she is such a pop culture icon.

Yes. So much so that she surpasses the media she's in. Totally. You just know who she is. You know who she is. She's been everywhere. Also, pop history, fun, exciting fact, alert. Rear, rea, rea!

The villain in Elvirus Hotded Hills is none other than Richard O'Brien, who wrote Rocky Horror and played. riff-raff, we just did the Rocky R-Hour episode. Which is really why I decided to watch that one, because I was like, well, we're gonna do, go, we just did Rocky Horror. We gotta do, I gotta watch this one. Yeah. I said it just like that. And Henry

asked if I needed to go to the hospital. Which you did, did. Get some blood blood work done. Then I did. And I'm glad you got that done. Yeah. Either way, I want to now talk about some of these fun spinoff things that she lent her brand to. First of all, there

is the comic books. There was a run of comics in the mid-80s called Elvira's House of Mystery. This was put out by DC Comics in a joint venture with Eclipse comics and Claypole comics until Claypole took over the series in the 90s. This led to a new series, Elvira

Mistress of the Dark, which ran for 166 issues. So that is quite a bit of content out there in comic book form. There were three Elvira novels put out starting in the mid-90s, Transylvania 90210, Camp Vamp and the boy who cried

Warwolf, which are all long out of print but available on e-book if you're curious about those. Peterson also published a 35th anniversary photographic retrospective in 2016 that she refers to as a coffin table book. Coffin table book! Love it. Which is fine. Now this is what I want to talk about,

the PC game. Elvira Mistress of the Dark. I'm so mad that I never played this. Oh, did I play the fuck out of this game. I'm going to look it up on YouTube while you talk about it. Go on. I completely, it was, this was like a blast from the past. I have not thought about this PC game since I played the PC game. It is a single player, first person adventure game. And the player moves through the castle, collecting and using items. And it's actually set directly after the events of the first movie. Because you have to rescue Elvira, or I believe

the second movie. You have to rescue Elvira from her great uncle's castle, which she inherited when he disappeared following their duel. Sorry, first movie. She had intended to turn the place into a tourist attraction, but the castle turned out to be inhabited by several monsters and a cult devoted to her distant ancestor, Queen Amelda. The followers intend to sacrifice Elvira to resurrect their queen, and the player must prevent this by helping her find a way, to defeat the sorceress before the ritual is completed. This explains so much of why I believe in what I believe in and how I feel about life. And you're helping Elvira so she won't be used in a ritualistic sacrifice. What other PC game is out there where you get to help a hot woman not get sacrifice? I imagine there are other ones I don't know anything about. But this blew my mind.

No, there's never been one, ever. I'm so sad that I never played that game. And I'm going to see if I can find it. Maybe it's on Steam or something, because I definitely want to play it. I bet you can find it. It looks really, really fun. Did you guys ever play the Elvira and the Party Monsters, the pinball game? I love, there's three pinball machines.

I think I've probably played all of them. So, yeah, I'm pretty sure I played Elvira and the Party Monsters. There's also Scared Stiff, which came out as well. That's like a boner. But this is what I love about Elvira and the Party Monsters. Apparently, it was one of the first pinball games to require two quarters per play rather than just one. And apparently, the marketing campaign made mention of this and that the entire tagline of this pinball series was Elvira's no cheap date. And they also came with modesty decals so that owners of it could cover her breasts.

Oh, my God. Wow. So they had the option of covering or not covering her breasts. breasts, yes. Jesus Christ. It's a good one. There's also in October of 2019, Stern Pinball released Elvirus House of Horrors. So very recent because she got a new pinball machine. But yeah, Elvira in the party monster is class. I feel like I've seen that one. I think I've played that one before. Oh, and she is still, I mean, she is still doing stuff. What I wanted to talk about, and if you have not listened to it, I think, Mary, could you please play a clip of two big pumpkins? Fellas and you girls too Because I got some Yes, Two Big Pumpkins

Was written by Fred Schneider of the B-52s And produced by Jack White's company Third Man Records And she's friends with Jack White She loves Jack White And it is Schneider captures the essence of Halloween Personified

As well as Alvirus humor in under three minutes Because you can imagine In the music video What she's singing about Where they're two big pumpkins Her music career is very fun. Please look up some of Elvirus music, Two Big Pumpkins.

Also, last year, she released a song, she did a collab Halloween song with Kim Petrus called Turn Off the Light. And I didn't realize that Elvira was a part of it. And apparently, Kim Petrus, I love Kim Petrus. Kim Petrus is a huge Elvira fan. And so when Kim Petrus was asked if she, wrote the whole speech herself because it's a very like thriller-esque Elvira inserted into the song.

Oh, what's that? Which is awesome. And apparently Elvira said, they came up with like the thriller-esque of it. And she said, I really liked it. Apparently she says, I get asked you a lot of thriller type things. It's so odd. You know, I was actually asked to do thriller instead of Vincent Price. And the interviewer was like, what?

And she said, yeah, it turned out that Vincent Price's wife was really good friend of Quincy Jones's wife, which is why they went with Vincent Price instead on the song thriller. So it could have been Elvira. Yeah, but you know what? I got to say, it should have been Vincent Price. Yeah. I get it. It definitely, he is the OG. And also, I think that they were just trying to bring like a feminine quality into it, which I get.

For sure, but he actually made it scary because that video is scary. I think she would have made it like campy. Yeah, yeah, totally. It would have like turned into more of a humorous direction for sure. Yeah, then you heard me, I hate women. And that's on record. She's always saying this. We're like, Natalie, please suppress.

We're trying to like not give that message out at all. I'm a men's rights activist. Ew, now we go. Gross. Mom, she's trying to be a men's right activist. Oh, my God. Get rid of that. You're grabbed.

I'm dead, says mom. Either way, Halloween is still definitely Xandra Peterson's super busy ass month. She said about her octobers, my phone doesn't stop ringing, and I don't sleep. And I'm working during the day and I'm working at night. It's pretty hectic. I love it. I'm happy. But I sometimes wish all my work didn't come in a one month period. She also laments that she only gets to wear one costume every Halloween for life, something I never thought about.

She's always working, yeah, because she's always working. the month, and so she's always Elvira. And so she almost damned herself with a person who loves dressing up for Halloween to only be able to dress up as one thing every single year, which is so funny to me. I do, she was asked at this time period, too, with her mastery of Camp Kitch and gender signifiers that are oversized, Peterson has noted that her interests often overlap with those of queer fans. And I never thought about this before, but I thought that she put it in a very interesting way. She said, I think a lot of the movies that gay men like, like mean girls and hocus pocus,

have a really strong female character. She said, Elvira's androgynous. She's all female, but she's also got balls. I think the Elvira character is a very androgynous character. She's sexy, but she's strong and she doesn't take any crap from men. I agree. It's the opposite of a David Bowie or Mick Jagger, male singers who are strong and sexy, but also feminine and wear eye makeup. And I never thought about it like that before because you think like, oh, well, she's got her tits out and like, oh, that's all. But I completely understand what she's saying when she says.

Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I agree. In the movie, in Mistress of the Dark, I mean, she gets like hit on left and right by like gross dudes and she's like doesn't take shit. She doesn't even flinch. Like, yeah, for sure. Which is a super cool role model in that way.

And Holden, I know that you touched on this a little bit about the, Not Scary Farm show that she did. On Nottsbury Farm. I don't know how recently she'd been doing it. Just like a year ago. She just retired. Last year. Okay.

She just, she recently retired. She did. So it's not Sparry Farm, but in October it's called Not Scary Farm. I've never gone. This is supposed to be the year that I was supposed to go. I know. I'm so sad. Can I be upset about it?

No, not going to be mad. But she did a three week long show every single night. every October from 1981 until 2001. Wow. She took a break because she was raising her daughter. And then she comes back from 2013 until 2018. It's such a drag show, too. She's singing, comedy, dancing.

She creates the concept. It's insane. She created the concept. She had hands on. She worked with the director, the costume people, the lighting people. She made this show different every year. year. I'm so upset. I am sad that we never went. That I never got to see it. Because we talked about, because we moved to L.A. back to L.A. in like 2016. You came Jackie the next year. We talked,

I remember us talking about going and we just didn't do it. I'm so upset. And now in the last version of the song, I'm sorry, in the last version of the show, she was writing it with Jackie Beat, who is a drag queen legend and also a comedy writer and actor. And, Jackie B. was asked why they love the queen of Halloween, and she said she loves working with her because she's an outsider. She's obviously beautiful, but she doesn't take herself too seriously. She knows she's a joke and she embraces it. What makes her different are the very things that make her special,

and that's an important message that the world will never stop needing to hear. And it's more important than ever in today's political climate. Oh, and her boobs. We can't forget about her boobs. Never forget about her boobs. And it's kind of amazing how over the past several years due to nostalgia and the internet and her incredible work ethic, she's actually more popular than ever. She said back in 2014 in an interview, I just found out I'm making the same amount of money this year that I made at the very highest point of my career. And let me tell you, I've had some extremely down years. Ten years ago, after a messy divorce and a bad stock market, I wondered for a while if I was going to be the end of Elvira altogether, if it was going to be the end of Alvira altogether. But I'm happy to say this year will be my biggest year since 1988 when I was starring in my own movie and doing a big publicity campaign for Pepsi,

which is pretty crazy. Also, she mentions her divorce. She was married to musician Mark Pearson in 1981, and then he became her personal manager, and then they had her only daughter, Sadie, back in 1994. However, they did divorce back in 2003. So that's amazing, though, that she came back with such a force. Well, and I really consider her to be a good role model for women in that she is an older woman who's still very vivacious and full of energy and life and, like, joy.

And she's very silly still. And I think that that's something that younger women can need to see as something that you can become. And that's, you can still have your life when you're older because we're given this image over and over again of like being, you know, like, dusty old hag. She's 70! Yeah, you don't have to be like that. That's insane. Insane.

That's so crazy. And also the fact that, I mean, I imagine she's definitely had some work done, but her, like, she's also letting herself age at least, like, semi-naturally. Like, she does look older than she did, and I appreciate that. Also, because it goes along with what you were just saying, Natalie, where it comes to a point where you have to embrace it. You are 70 and you're hot as shit. Oh, yeah.

But you can also embrace it. We should also mention 13 nights of Alvira in 2014. She got a run on Hulu doing horror movie hosting with the series. And of course, it is 13 episodes long. It's all on Hulu. Definitely check that out if you want some more modern day Elvira as well. She was excited, though, because she was allowed for the first time. really in a long time for Elvira to be a little bit edgier on Hulu.

She said there's a little more sex and violence. The movies have nudity. She said, that's interesting for me because usually they have to black all that out. I'm always on regular television where they have standards and practices. This time we have no standards. No standards entirely. You can say Elvira never had any standards. I've got a little final quote myself.

I don't know if y'all have anything else to say, but here is my final piece from Elvira from Cassandra Peterson herself. I'm surprised every time I see something with my face on it or come across another article TV show website with Elvira in it. I'm as shocked as anybody at it. I'm like, wow, I can't believe this is really happening. I mean, being such a horror fan and becoming a horror icon is just the best thing that could happen.

I love her. Please check out her stuff, find anything you can on YouTube. What a great Halloween and just in general life inspiration. Another example of someone that has, I don't want to use the word cobbled together, but she has so, like, she modeled, she was a photographer for a while, she sang in band, she's acted, she's all over the place, she's a dancer. But she did bring it all together into one package that is so just, just so able to come, continue and be just an amazing thing for decades.

It's definitely how to survive in this business. You have to become a Renaissance person. Yes. Yes. Yeah, it's the only way that you can maintain a career unless you make it really young. Yeah, for sure. I love everything about her and I'm so excited that we were able to open up a little bit more rather than just seeing the breasts.

There's more than the breasts. More by the press. but there's also the breasts. I mean, the breasts, though, but her breasts are amazing. But either way, I think that calls it. That's our episode on Elvira. Thank you so much, everybody, for listening.

If you'd like to support us further, patreon.com forward slash page seven podcast. Check it out. Five bucks a month. So much content. Check Jackie and I out on Twitch.com. On Twitch.tv. If you're listening to this in October,

we already mentioned it before, but Natalie, what do we got going on? We are every Saturday night. Different people from LPN are watching Halloween movies, horror movies with you guys on Twitch and we're raising money for some some great organizations so that's at 9 p.m.

I believe. Eastern standard term, yeah. Yes, and it's at Twitch.tv. Backslash last podcast network so come and hang out with us and throw a buck or two at some people. Hell yeah. But not in change, not in change. Don't throw it that way. Don't make it hail on us.

What do you got, Jackie? My name is Jackie Zabrowski. You can follow me on Instagram at Jack That Worm. And if you want more. Yeah, if you want to get scared of some vampires, there's some sexy gaslighting vampires in the form of twilight over on the page around. Come check it out. I'm reading it. I'm screaming about it. And I'm having a great time. We love you so much. Thank you for joining us on our spooky episode. We'll be back in a couple of weeks with another spooky episode. So get out your wee-wee pads because it's time to pee on yourself. All right.

Total disregard. It's done. The episode's done. Bye, guys. Bye, everybody. It's too late. This show is made possible by listeners like you. Thanks to our ad sponsors.

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