Podcast: The Ride - Mike Loves(?) Haunts 2

Episode Date: October 15, 2021

King of LA Haunts Mike Carlson visits Halloween Horror Nights, Knott's Scary Farm and a horror-themed escape room. Does it go as smoothly as previous years? The answer may surprise you. Muppets Haunted Mansion episode up at The Second Gate: Patreon.com/PodcastTheRide Listen to Podcast: The Ride Ad-Free on Forever Dog Plus: http://foreverdogpodcasts.com/plus FOLLOW PODCAST: THE RIDE: https://twitter.com/PodcastTheRide https://www.instagram.com/podcasttheride BUY PODCAST: THE RIDE MERCH: https://www.teepublic.com/stores/podcast-the-ride PODCAST THE RIDE IS A FOREVER DOG PODCAST https://foreverdogpodcasts.com/podcasts/podcast-the-ride Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

FOREVER! DOG! their arms wildly. All this, plus a peek at Southern California haunt season. It's Mike Loves Haunts on HauntCcast the Fright, the scary theme park podcast where sometimes scary haunts go well and sometimes scary haunts go very badly. My name is Mike Carlson. Joining me as always, Jason Sheridan. I'm so intrigued. I mean, I've been intrigued for days about this episode. I'll bring Scott Gardner in here real quick. Yeah, geez. I truly don't know.

We're all on the edge of our seats. I feel like I've hyped this up. So real quick, I'd like to just, we'll tease this right now, and then we'll do a little just general Halloween discussion. But my journey, my personal journey on this podcast this theme park podcast is starting out as a scared kid scared of halloween stuff scared of haunted houses yeah you did anything happen did anything change i'm walking through in case you're maybe this is your first episode something did change and all of a sudden i became the undisputed king of california haunts southern

california haunts i think i called myself that a bit of love i was being a bit facetious but then it took and everyone's been saying it everyone says it's not a joke anymore honking their horn they yell it out the window that's right leno drove by in the monster's car which i have been by the way i have to stop this real quick. Yeah. Did you see this? I saw this.

I saw this. This is shocking. You've been publicly griped. Oh, I got to look up. I forgot. I forgot. Everybody keeps falling into it with the 60s TV shows. Did you miss all the cars?

He's throwing out there. Yes. Oh. So regularly, Scott pointed out, I think, what, two weeks ago that, or maybe last week. Several occasions. Several occasions, he'll say something about the Munsters car. And before the sentence is even finished, I will say, Dragula. I guess Dragula, I guess Dragula.

Now, someone has pointed out, and I should find out who this gentleman is. Somebody pointed out that on our Facebook group, somebody has corrected me and that the monster's car is called the monster's coach and the dragula is actually grandpa's car that it's a different looking car than the regular monster's car which is um now hang on the monsters the monster's coach that's like a more hearse yes a bigger car for the whole family and it looks like a hearse uh grandpa's car is more of like a coffin in the front sort of a roadster coffin thing and this is part of the the film that i know that you were fond of uh what's the film called uh wait what do you go like go monsters go or something monsters go home yeah. That's what you're talking about. Okay, okay, yeah.

Yes, and the confusion comes from, and this person points out in the Facebook, and I will find the name, that Rob Zombie, in the video for Dragula, the song Dragula that he has, he uses the regular Munsters car and not Grandpa Munsters Dragula. So this is where the confusion

now has stemmed from for years. And now this is the guy directing the Munster's movie, the new Munster's movie. Having already made a fatal error. Yes, a fatal error. Mr. Robert Zombie. I assume somebody heard

that this happened and had a heart attack. That might be happening right now. Sorry, listener. Get some help. Yes. Don't make this a fatal mistake. But yeah, Rob fucked up and now he still gets the keys to the kingdom. Yeah, I guess.

They only give the best of the best. The Munsters franchise once every three years for some unviewed, unwatchable pilot. It is a prestige property. Nothing but hits since the first show came out. And the last time, they didn't even make a full pilot. They just made that Fallout Boy song, Uma Thurman,

that samples the Munster song. That's true. Nothing but the best for this property. Art has existed in the Munsterverse. Yes. Jeez. This gentleman, Matt Carr, pointed this property. The finest art has existed in the Munsterverse. Yes. Jeez. This gentleman, Matt Carr, pointed this out. So, yeah.

Well, you know why he knows it. He knows his cars. Very good. That last day. Very, very good. He's always driving his classic cars all around. So, I'd like to formally apologize to the listeners here. I hate to... There's going to be a lot of me humbling myself on today's episode and it starts here by humbling myself by saying that i have been incorrectly

calling the monster's car the dragula when it is the monster's coach not the dragula so we're answering kind of a spooky gripe yes yes right now how you what you call a horror a graveyard gripe uh graveyard gripe is good. Yeah. So, yeah. So, we're taking care of that up front. But we're going to discuss sort of, you know, what is Southern California haunts? What do they look like this year?

And I did a couple things. And I will just tease that one of them went very, very badly. Boy. I have no clue what very badly. Boy. And. I have no clue what's coming. Yeah, I don't, I don't want to overhype it. And it's nothing like serious. It's nothing like I, you know, got stabbed or something, but.

You didn't, I mean, you wouldn't be talking about it on the show, I guess, but there's no scenario where like you and three other people killed somebody and you had to enter some pact and there's some farce where you buried the body, but then it got worse, and you got found out. Yeah, I don't think I would say anything. That would be for off mic. I would tell you guys off mic and then say, hey, don't bring it up that I had to disappear a body.

You got to. We have to be honest on this show. This is honest podcasting. No matter what, even if you get sent to jail. Yeah. So, yeah. No, I'm not saying I wouldn't tell the listener if I committed homicide, but right now I'm not feeling comfortable enough to admit something like that.

So, the stakes are a lot lower. But in the context of me growing and going to haunts and, oh, look what you're doing now at age whatever when I started 35 look what you look how brave you are you man in his middle 30s uh it was really really defeating and like stayed with me for days oh man and after well after a year where you weren't allowed to grow right where we were all stuck in any no nobody really got to grow in any way in in 2020 sure um and now we're so like you're raring to get back out there i was could do raring yes so so before this i just i asked already but just to make sure you guys have you guys done any fun have you seen the halloween direct direction sky so you you dressed up the

front lawn a little bit it's a great little oh thank you yeah yeah i've got a little skeleton scene happening in the front what what a dream i'm so happy to have a place where i can make a little skeleton scene fantastic um that and some uh uh a couple pumpkin patches uh this is my first year with the kid, like, understanding Halloween. So we're, like, boy, the hype was correct. I have heard that little kids love pumpkins, and they sure do. He went around and gave a high five to every weird scarecrow at this one that we went to

who all had rubber Halloween masks that seemed to be either hillary clinton or mitt romney uh multiples of both i believe okay so yeah my son's high five and uh undead mitt romney's left and right okay we're having a great time but other than that you wouldn't you would not think to call that a haunt. He's going to be running the register at one of Burbank's two year-round Halloween stores soon enough, or any of the number of horror-focused memorabilia and DVD bookstores. It's a real district, yeah.

Yeah, you bring up a really good point, and I haven't really thought of it. It's all on the street in Burbank called Magnolia, named Magnolia, which is what the paul thomas sanders movies named after that street which i think factors in i think some of it is set on but not that stretch stretch of magnolia but magnolia runs through the whole valley so and he loves the valley as we know yes we know that a whole new valley coming out yes uh but

it's off it's full of kitschy nonsense. Yeah, Magnolia Park. Old toy stores on Magnolia. Toy stores, a lot of vintage stuff, a lot of antique shops, a lot of little coffee shops. And I was like, oh yeah, that's also why I like Burbank. I had that thought driving down Magnolia. I'm like, oh yeah, it's all right here. Car-specific bookstores where you might just be suddenly biking around with your kid and run into Jay Leno. Of course. It's magic. Herbank is

magic. Model train shop. Very specific stuff. That kind of stuff. And where you ask, are there tangible locations for things like this? And again, we're not talking spirit Halloween. We're not talking spirit halloween we're not

talking no no no uh these these fly by night operations that come and go although they're around too but yeah year-round halloween stores that is very yeah highly themed rooms let's say like don't take photos in here haunted mansion stuff yeah disney stuff yep um so yeah that's fun so that's you just did a few pumpkin patches That's been thus far Jason pumpkin patches Anything Halloween Well I finished that book Ghost Story And I started a Ray Bradbury

Spooky Ray Bradbury book Now you read Now you're a reader Is what we discovered about you last I am a reader So you read Interesting He loads that over us

Cause Scott and I Can't read a book One of my little little quirks i i'm trying to watch more horror movies for when i eventually brave become a big brave boy right because that was supposed to we scheduled you to become brave last year right and i was brave i came out yeah we were brave. And because, yeah, you were citing some physical problems. Like this year you said, okay, I can't be brave this year. So can we schedule you to be brave next year?

I sure hope. I'm like, you know, the physical therapy seems to be slowly working. Okay. Yeah, so walking distances is getting a little easier. So we'll pencil you being brave now can you declare will it just be horror nights next year or would you be willing to go to fright fest and not scary farm i think i would start with horror nights because my impression has always been it's the most polished it's a good you want a good you want a good show i well i love a good show but also like

oh i is a little more predictable uh you are right about that it is the most predictable they do a very similar scare each time yeah so yeah you will be getting a rhythm of getting yelled at or not yelled at just like arms some basically all you do is you walk through a little hallway and somebody flails their arms at you yes unexpectedly while a loud sting plays um now i I did, I was telling you beforehand, I watched a lot of the house walkthroughs at Horror Nights. And I watched some live streams the opening night of Horror Nights, which in Orlando was very funny because it started before the sunset.

Sun's still pretty out. And then a massive thunderstorm blew through. So everyone's scattered. Yes. uh sun's still pretty out and then a massive thunderstorm blew through so everyone scattered yes uh and there really wasn't a ton to do outside you either got in line for a house or you tried to eat limited run food and the live streams were mostly vloggers saying hi to other vloggers who were also vlogging and if you jumped back and forth between them you could you could figure out spatially where everyone was this was kind of a fun uh jaunt but okay i bring this up my impression watching videos of a lot of the events and reading about you know uh the the vases and scares it feels like a very meat and

potato like there we're we're playing the hits yeah people are we know people are hungry to come back um none of us are cash rich right now so but we want to put on a good show we want to have some big houses yeah yeah in universal's case some very recognizable names sure of properties and stuff um but like i i i didn't get as much of the impression of like 2019 people felt like they were between the us house and the Ghostbusters house. It felt like... It was definitely lower key this year. So we will get to that.

And I guess it'll be a little bit... The story will be a little earlier because we will just talk about just generally the Hollywood Horror Nights houses and some of the stuff that I did get to do. So that will be in the episode as well. But I'm going to weave a tale, I guess, for as well um but I'm gonna weave a tale I guess for everyone here please yeah um so yeah let's just let's start this should we turn the lights

off and get some flashlights I was feeling anxious even about telling I have told the story but I am feeling anxious about telling story but if you guys want I'll do it in the dark I can handle it I'm still I'm still brave well can I just say I so you you I don't want to give anything away maybe you had a way to get to that but you you did not make it to Fright Fest this year correct I did not make it to Fright Fest hopefully

next year we remind which one it because I can't even keep it up sorry Fright Fest is Six Flags at Magic Mountain at Magic Mountain that's if you've heard show, Anthony Gio was on that. And I'd like Anthony Gio's schedule to free up to be able to go again so we can do a good Fright Fest 2. Can't do it without him. Can't do it without him at this point.

I'd love all of us to go so we can all go to the Full Throttle Lounge beforehand. Oh, sure. Book a block of rooms at the hilton garden ain't out there or something rooms go to the wendy's next to the decrepit uh rotting six flags greeting a like visitor center that doesn't former gift shop in the base of a gift shop in a sign in a wendy's parking lot i don't think so weird more expensive wendy's a wendy's where they like the price is a little more wow they would get people i don't think so weird more expensive wendy's hey wendy's where they like the price is a little more wow they would get people i don't think even scott like i don't even think like i

wouldn't even pressure you to do anything you literally maybe like we just tell you sit outside full throttle lounge and watch the teens and see what they do if i'm allowed to mainly stay in full throw but full throttle lounge is closed at least regular. Yeah, that's true. So if there's no Full Thrower Lounge, then I demand Full Thrower Lounge and I demand Anthony Geo. Yeah, yeah. These are my demands. So maybe we can all go and we all have different beats. It's all different.

Like, we all report on different things. That's a nice idea. We all go to the running of the scare actors at the start where they all run out into the audience and everyone shrieks so i bring this up because i was wondering if you had at least glanced at the website to learn that the willoughby's resurrected house a house that you in 2018 spoke pretty highly of um this year is brought to you by discovery plus's ghost tober event discovery plus ghost tober presents willoughby's resurrected mike seems exceedingly sure what you're talking about he was like what is that the one with the big pile of shit there was one who was like supposed to be in the sewer and there was like a giant thing that was supposed

to represent a big pile of shit that a man made no this was like an old mansion like oh i know oh yeah i do know i do know i know i know that one actually was pretty good. That was like their own version of the Haunted Mansion. Yes. Yes. Okay. Willoughby. Yes. I remember Mr. Willoughby.

They were original characters. Sorry. I, you know. Mike loves haunts and he remembers haunts. And. Fright Fest. Some of the, one Fright Fest made us wear 3D glasses while walking through it. To completely, my memory is totally gone.

I think that might have been the shit one though and all i remember was the shit um ghost over uh also kind of the sister event to another streaming uh event this october uh peacocks has a lot of horror movies for october and they're calling it peacock tober okay october all right peacockctober yeah all right got it got it thank you so but i'm excited yeah um great anyway on to your story of course so so last week we were talking about what's this because we we've have a couple other episodes planned you can guess one of them obviously um and was like what's this episode going to be and i have an ambitious idea i would also say next next year fright fest 2 jason becomes brave and then this ambitious idea

i had that scheduling wise did not quite work out but it's a very good idea and we will do it next year so i was thinking okay i want to make sure when we go and do a haunt report that i do a couple things and maybe a thing that i've never done and wednesday morning something fell into my lap that was unexpected i got a text physically no no did you get crushed no no figuratively edwin uh what are you doing and when you've crushed my genitals like the twisted colossus roller coaster at Six Flags Magic Mountain. Getting you ready. Woof, woof. Woof, woof. Happy Halloween.

So I got a text from friends of the show, Eva Anderson and Jason Wollner. Oh, boy. They, on the text chain, invited me to something called Project Minotaur. I was invited to Project Minotaur. And I remember I looked at it. I'm like, what is this? Project Minotaur. Now I remember I looked at it. I'm like, what is this? Project Minotaur. Now I have done, I should say this. I've done a couple of these other like smaller haunt scary things with them.

We've gone to a place called Zombie Joe's. I saw a show there and I did like a, basically like a simulated dark ride. It's over on Lancashire. And I was like, that's one of those where you have to like sign a waiver and then they can touch you and stuff which is weird yeah but i actually found that pretty cool not the touching part i mean the actual overall experience you felt free for the first time in your life i didn't like touch i didn't like be touched by strangers that's not a weird kink i have no don't look into that anymore uh so I've done a couple of these things we have done a delirium with Eva which is a

little more of a like an adventure and immersive immersive play experience very long that was great which is really cool and it was a little they're a little you know scary but nothing like it's not a it was not a horror based thing where sure throw you in a I heard they like throw you in a coffin and other ones I

think they're coming back and I think it is a straight haunted house yes that is correct uh a friend of the show Andrew Grissom did it and he said that is the case it is a horror uh theme this year is that a company you're saying yes they do a show or I think it may be one I mean obviously a lot of people put it on but i think there's one man in charge i could be wrong don't quote me okay so they invite me to project minotaur which is a horror themed escape room and i go oh okay and i'm like i guess i've never really i've never actually done an escape room i don't know have you guys done an escape room i'm not you know we have not touched on this area at all. It's almost weird we haven't gotten there.

Yes, it is weird, because that's a themed experience that's pretty popular in a ton of them. Yeah, in many cities across the country, not just here. I did one. Oh, you did? You were out, I think, for Zach Reno's bachelor party.

You were out of town, I think. I was out of town um it was cool and um i'm not um particularly good with puzzles so i was just kind of admiring the theatricality of it i forget the thing was like escape room la somewhere downtown um and yeah i i thought it was pretty yeah yeah, that was pretty neat. Sure. Which I assume, yeah, I was like, okay, it's Halloween. I go, well, you know, this is perfect because this is exactly what I wanted to do.

Because, well, I'll have material. Because as you guys know, you're living your life for this show. Your life is now content for the show. It's disappointing when you're sleeping and you're not, unless a dream counts as a themed experience, but besides that. I left one episode at a time. Yeah, exactly. So I go, okay, this is perfect for the show. I'm a little like,

it's like a kind of an enclosed space. It's still a COVID situation, but then I'm looking at the website and it's like, you're just with the group you come with. There's maybe like one or two performers and you got like a mask. I go,

I'll just bring the good like mask, the N95 mask I have that I wore on the plane and stuff, which is like a heavier duty. It's not my target mask. You know, it's not my breezy target mask. It's like, okay,

this is like a legit, like I can feel my breathing being restricted from this. So I go, okay, sure, sure. So it's down on like Santa Monica monica and it's part a part of like it's not in santa it's on santa monica and like what you call east hollywood i guess

and it's one of those places where you cannot park anywhere yeah there's just nowhere to park so i'm early but very quickly i am not early it's one of those situations where like oh good i'm here 15 minutes early do do let's take my time to find a spot la la la la la la oh my god it's three minutes till we're supposed to that we have the time that we're supposed to check in so i'm like oh shit everybody is like eva and jason are both like there's nowhere to park okay i'm like at least i'm not like you know like really holding everyone up but i was they all seem to be there before me so i end up running like seven blocks away or something and i'm like jogging oh god oh god okay okay i get there we were talking there's a couple other people there's

gonna be six total people a couple uh or one person i met for the first time this other guy uh landon who we met before i've done a couple he's a great guy i haven't seen him in forever no uh i took him to wrestling blah blah blah and i haven't seen him like hey good to see you whatever amy nicholson shows up i haven't seen her and like god maybe we saw her at comic-con two years two or three years ago ages ago at this point that's the last time i saw her hey this is great or whatever so we go in and it's a very i've heard like they're all talking because they're all in this scene i get invited once in a while to the scene but they all know the d i mean like deep into immersive yes uh theatrical experiences eva walner and landon

are all like experts on this scene yeah which you have to be in the scene seemingly like it's it's it's close niche in these yes and they get really enveloped in them yes yes and that's a whole nother like yeah they know like names of performers and what's happening in that scene uh which i can appreciate because i love a niche scene uh as you know when we talk about any like theme park media people i love i love uh people that no one else has heard of that there's 30 people that have heard of right you know so so yeah they're talking about like oh you know we did this escape room i did because there's like this place is uh it's called quest room and they do multiple different escape rooms so they're talking oh we did this one whatever we did this so we get in there and it's a pretty small like i don't want to

say rinky i don't want to make it sound like it's it's obviously like a good one if they all like this company um but it's like a pretty small like even like doctor z waiting room so i'm sort of like pacing around and then the guy comes out and uh's kind of like, he's a little theatrical, of course, because this is, you know, an escape room. And he explains now that we have to get in jumpsuits. We have to all wear jumpsuits. I'm like, okay. And then he's like, we have to wear knee pads as well because there'll be some crawling and there'll be some this. And they're like, and that was all I think in the disclaimer.

So we're putting it on. And all of a sudden i realize i'm getting anxious and i'm and i'm i'm like oh hmm now at this point i'm sure we all have had this in the past my brain decides it wants to sabotage me and it's sometimes hard to get out of a weird like feedback loop in your brain i'm sure we've all had versions of this yeah yeah yeah you're speaking my language now i've never felt closer to you at this moment so i all of a sudden go oh no because he's explaining like You know tight corridors 90 minutes To 2 hour long experience

And all of a sudden I didn't even think of this This wasn't even on my radar All of a sudden I'm doing like paper bat Like and now the mask I'm hearing my own breath in the mask In the heavy N95 mask I'm going

And I'm going oh my god is this no and then i remember when i was when i was on a plane a few weeks ago i sat down in the plane and for like a couple minutes i had kind of the same feeling like oh i'm stuck here and then i remember i have like facial claustrophobia which i don't What? I don't know what the term is, but I think I've said this before. They were putting like a fat suit on me at Conan and it got stuck on my head and I had like a mini anxiety attack.

That seemed like a horror show. There was a Funny or Die video with Jeremy Piven that I was in where I played an anonymous race car driver and I had to put a big like, you know, that race car. Oh, it was a branded, like they were, it was like the Honda dudes.

What were they? I was a Hot Wheel racer. Yes. Hot Wheels racers. And Jeremy Piven was there and he had nothing to do with my anxiety that day. I don't know if that was the case for everybody. I don't know if that was the case for everybody i don't know if that was the case for everybody but i had to wear a helmet and those you know race car driving

helmets like you have to really cram them on your head and i remember having the same thing so now i'm reliving all of this like i'm going i'm like kind of like just trying to like get all this bad stuff out of my head so i go over there's like a water cooler and i must have looked completely crazy i'm like pulling the mask down and i'm like okay i'm drinking water i'm like and the guy is like doing his whole spiel now the theatricality has really started the lights go down in the like in the waiting room or everything now he's kind of doing like a now what i must tell you and he's like he's like so you will be he like, you will be, you know, groups of three and three, and then you will go through the corridor, and you must beware of the Minotaur, or whatever. He's talking about the Minotaur, because it's Project Minotaur. If the Minotaur catches you, you will be taken, and you will be put in a jail cell, and you will not be able to enter the, he's doing this whole thing.

And I'm just like, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. And I go, hey, he's doing this whole thing and i'm just like and i go um hey uh he's like does anyone have any questions i was like hey uh if you have to like get out of the game or anything like what hat what happens or how do you do it he goes ah yes well you have to put up the x like which is uh you know professional wrestling sign for a guy is hurt for real. Okay. And I go, okay, all right, got it, all right. And he tells like, ah, yes, great question or whatever.

And I'm like, okay, great. So I'm sitting there and everybody's like, we've like gone three and three or whatever. And I go, okay, that made me feel a lot better. I take a big deep breath. I'm not perfect, but I go, it's fine. Everything's fine. Like, it's so stupid

i'm so mad like i'm mad too which i'm sure everyone has if you've ever had like an anxiety attack like you're just like mad you're like you're my why is this happening it's just this this is what's doing but you do have you know look we're like everybody's at different covid comfort levels but the idea of being in a group you know in like headquarters and i don't even know if it has anything that part has anything to do with covid but maybe it does maybe it's sort of a left like some like a even the mildest percentage the kick show yeah yeah um so so i go all right jesus fine or whatever so i kind of like i kind of get my bearings uh a little bit and then he goes, all right, we're all ready. He goes, here, place these hoods over all of your heads.

And I go, uh, um, and here is where I turn into a third grader. And I go, um, I think I'm going to need, uh, I'm having, uh, and I think what I said was a mask-based anxiety attack. I need to, I'm going to, I'm going to, he goes, and he like drops character. Everybody's like, are you, are you going to tap? What's up, man? Tap out? Are you tapping out?

And I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm tapping out. Everyone in the group turns to look at me. Like, is it like. Oh, good. Oh, good. Like, is it funny? Just like screamed or something like screamed or something and they're like oh oh like everyone's nice and like i'm like and of course now i'm trying to get ahead of the humiliation oh no it's fine everybody you go ahead like i'm just yelling stuff and i'm like stop talking i keep telling myself stop talking you're only making it worse i'm like no everything it's fine have a good time you go in everything's fine no you go or whatever and i go and sit like on a

booth and then they just like all okay well and we'll go and everybody goes inside and i'm just like oh fuck and i'm sitting on a booth and again it's like i'm trans i'm a third like in third whatever that the worst memory you've ever had about being like left out or being too scared i immediately just regress everything every bad feeling i've ever had comes up and i'm just sitting on this like charlie brown on this fucking bench in this stupid little room. And I'm like, what? Oh God. Why?

And then like, cause after five minutes or whatever, even less, I'm just like, it's fine. I'm fine. Like it's, I wasn't even,

it was never a, like a major, like crazy anxiety tech. I was just having this weird, as I was saying, feedback loop of like, you're going to get stuck in a little place and you're going to be breathing. Like,

it's going to be weird. Like that's not, that voice came up like, hey, it's Beetlejuice. Oh, geez. You're going to be in a tiny little space, and you're going to flip out and embarrass yourself. It's also a good morning DJ. It must have really freaked you out when you met Bugmane. You are the evil voice in my head. You're a real person.

I'm meeting you're gonna embarrass yourself and also attack of the clones is good uh yeah so i sit down and i'm just uh it all i have not been embarrassed on this level in years i have not humiliated myself everyone was so nice and then would be continue to be nice later uh so i'm sitting here and i'm just like fuck and to make things worse i had sort of even a vision of like this is some sort of expansive building past where i can see not really everything's happening just past the door i I'm hearing muffled. Oh, the Minotaur.

Like I'm hearing like dialogue as if I'm literally standing next to everybody. I'm like, it's right off the fucking door. It's not even like in some deep cavern where you're going underground. It's right over there. Oh, no. Scary. Oh, but it's turning out to be a rewarding experience. Actually the most fun I've had in a long time.

Yeah. This is cathartic. Yay. And I hear like like i hear eva like she's like uh help help help and i'm like that sounds like not real help which it was not of course it's part of the thing she got captured by the minotaur and she was put in a jail cell eva no she was captured and i was like oh it's like when she went to the underworld with us it's exactly the same thing so i was also like should i burst in would that be inappropriate if i go into the game now probably not they probably wouldn't like that now the guy who kind of took everyone in never came back out i was i was expecting him to sort of come back out but i would later learn he's part of the show so a different escape room is going on, and then that lets out.

Like two people come out just elated, so happy, everything was so fun. The guy who was helping them out, he comes out and he looks over and he goes, whoa, whoa. He's like freaked out that there's a guy in here. He's like, whoa, are you okay? And I go, yeah, yeah, no, I'm fine.

And he goes, well, if you need anything, he's never seen a person in the waiting room who's tapped out like it's as if he's never i mean i'm projecting a little bit here but it's as if he's never seen this before he wasn't just like oh yeah you know you had to tap out huh it was like oh god do you need anything what do you need do we have to call the ambulance or uh are you pathetic now oh you're pathetic now aren't you so i'm like no no it's fine i had this weird like i was breathing heavy it's fine i'm fine everything's fine he's like all right well if you need anything let me know bro dude hey don't worry about it now what's funny about this i'll say this part of the story because i don't think it matters when we were asked when when

somebody was asking him about like a location for like a bar or restaurant around here he goes oh you know what i don't know i don't know uh i'm 19 and i go oh great east hollywood teens are factoring in this year i love it yeah uh so i'm sitting on the so i'm sitting on this this cushion or whatever this bench and i'm sitting and now i have an important decision to make do i leave or do I stay to try to save face? Do I try to say, hey, look at me, I'm okay. Because there's people like, first of all, obviously everybody wants to be liked. I like all these people.

I want them to not like their first thing of seeing me in years is not to be like, oh yeah, that guy that chickened out before he met the Minotaur in a tiny little space them having already built you up as the undisputed well right so you're gonna go from there yeah down to this yes is the head that wears the crown scott and obviously that's why you never even uh look at the crown don't even even investigate if there is a real crown. That's how we play it. I'm like a Icarus, haunted Icarus,

spooky Icarus who flew too close. Spookerous. Spookerous who flew too close to the haunted sun. The moon. The full moon. The moon melted. Brought to you by Snickers. The moon melted my wings with its light, with its ghastly light. So I decided, you know what, okay, maybe The moon melted my wings With it's light

With it's ghastly light So I decided you know what Maybe people go out afterward I can save some face But you said this is a 90 minute to 2 hour Well I sat like kicking myself Mentally for about a half hour So that took care of some of it down the drain

Self abuse And then I said you should just leave You're Self abuse. Exactly. And then I said, you should just leave. You're pathetic. You should just leave. And then I go, no, I go stay. Stay. Because if everyone's going to go hang out, then at least you can feel a little bit better about this.

Because at least people will, again, we'll see that you didn't like just curl up in a ball in the corner of the room. So I do. I wait. Everybody gets done. They come out they're all surprised everyone's like hey carlson's still here look at that whatever and then one of these guys comes out and he's like dressed as like the doctor the mad scientist it's not a different guy than the guy who did our intro so he goes hey you guys did great everyone's talking there's like a big

like wrap up every you know everyone went to the school dance except for me this is what it feels like uh although i never oh no i missed one dance whatever that didn't i'm just saying that's the the vibe of it so he goes hey he goes hey let's get back in there and uh we'll take a photo inside and uh oh wait i saw the i saw the photo too yes yes you did stolen valor for the escape room well that's true yes that is true i didn't think about it like not for a group hang you were part of the group hang well right so take that away from you so i go ah you guys go ahead and they go no come on i go well i'm out of the costume i'm out of the fucking jumpsuit or whatever they're like doesn't matter come on so now we go through and it basically looks like an aisle at a party city with like just you know not that i was scared of the actual idea it was just more of like the

enclosed spaces i was not scared of being attacked by a minotaur i swear that is not actually what it was um but it makes you feel even dumber when the lights are on. There's a tiny like two room building. It's got like wallpaper with brick, like just cheap looking wallpaper with brick. And then a guy who is apparently our original guide wearing just a fucking shitty minotaur costume, just standing there. And then we go over by like this,

like operating, like, you know, bride of Frankenstein operating table and take a photo. And I'm just like, this is, this is what your brain kept you from this these two dumb little shit rooms which again i'm sure it was middle school halloween seemingly well done oh very well done i just mean like when you see it with the lights on you goes what is wrong with you so imagined fears i guess i mean i'm sure there's a lot of stuff going on subconsciously too but

i really i guess just sort of just a general nervousness mixed with whatever that weird face thing i have where i get like weird and if i am i'm feeling anxious and i have something on my head you know this is an insane what's what's what's so weird about this is how it's like, it's such a specific phobia that I haven't heard of and it just provokes like these serious situations for you. But every one of them involves something stupid. One, you're in a bunch of like floppy fake flab prosthetics. One, you're in a race car helmet with Jeremy Piven. And another, you turn out, you find like a guy in a cheap Minotaur costume. Every one of them has something really silly

to contrast with the very not silly feelings you're feeling. I definitely know what you're talking about with the race car helmet, though, because here in beautiful Burbank, there is an indoor go-kart warehouse, and the go-karts go to, they're normal-sized go-kart uh like warehouse and go-karts go to like they're they're normal size go-karts but they can get up to like 40 miles per hour sure and they put you in a race car helmet and then they're like and here's your neck brace and i'm like excuse me oh boy so it's like a padding that

goes around your neck to supplement the race car helmet and no one it was fine because you're just kind of going like in you know slightly more uh complicated in the circles basically than and you get hang of it you do like 10 laps and after the first lap or two everyone kind of gets it but like one or two people were suddenly perpendicular in the track so i get why there are uh helmets but similarly yeah you do it with your i was hoping jeremy piven popped up in your story too though yeah jeremy piven yeah you ran i put it i started pinball and i dropped my like keys and when i popped up he was playing my pinball game well that's a real nightmare he steals quarters yeah who's in a california role while he did it too he knows that makes you sick

that is that joke is it what 10 years old now at this point neat yes jeremy uh pivot claimed he had mercury poisoning from eating too much sushi while doing a production of david and i'm at speed the plow on broadway but it was like maybe just to get out of doing it. Yeah, he said he had mercury poisoning because he ate sushi like every day. Every day. And the other three, it's only a three-person play.

The other two people were Elizabeth Moss and Bobby Cannavale, I think. Like real, capital A actors. Do you don't include Mr mr piven in this list no further comment uh so look again i didn't want to say like something it's crazy it's obviously just a funny dumb thing that happened uh you know we went out everything i said i think i saved face i ended the night by um telling amy nicholson about the John Travolta Pitbull video, Three to Tango, that I'm very fond of. And I think I also sent her Every Little Step as well from Old Dogs.

Oh, great. Yeah. Which you had not seen before. And they're covering all those on Unspooled now. Exactly. They're inserting them in the top hundred films of all time. I told the anecdote about Pitbull inspiring John Travolta to take the to pay off, which is a real fact. So anyway, so everything is everything is fine. I think the same face was that you told this story to someone.

Yes. So it was a happy ending. So it's a happy ending. Ultimately, I mean, I don't know what they're saying on their own text chains. So at the end of the day, the damage is done. I do need to go back to, I guess, conquer the Minotaur at a certain point. But I was not prepared to do it in the days following. Because the feeling would linger.

The next day, I went to try acupuncture for the first time. Oh. You're so afraid of hellraiser i made a joke about hellraiser i was like hellraiser but it was in my achilles tendons like if hellraiser was all the pins were just in your uh your feet after the previous night's experience you're like i want to i want to go somewhere beyond pleasure and pain okay yes uh so i was in there and while the guy's talking to me about everything i had a like weird like memory like flashback to it and i was like oh because i was wearing the mask in there i was like oh it's a tiny room i'm gonna be on a table i'm gonna be stuck there with pins in me for like 30 minutes oh shit and then i like recovered and it's fine and you know everything's fine but then i was like oh god this is is this story enough for an episode i go i need

to at least go to i need to do horror nights i need to do something to at least redeem myself and that was the plan was to go to at least horror nights again as jason said a dependable haunt you know something that's not it's uh what did, what did you call it? You called it polished? Oh, I called it meat and potatoes. And meat and potatoes. It was very polished. Like, yeah, I think, yeah, it's a lot of, Hollywood especially, Orlando, Universal Orlando has a lot of original, you know, houses, mazes. Out here, it's a lot of, you know, the big horror characters, Leatherface, Jason Voorhees.

Michael Myers. Michael Myers. Haunting of Hill House was the big new one on both coasts this year yes yes haunted haunting of hill house um so so yeah so i was like okay i'll do horror nights um but there was a doubt in my mind i i had i there was a doubt in my mind like like, am I going to, I don't think so. You're walking through and I'm not going to get stuck in there. Uh, but I definitely was like, Oh, is this going to be weird? Am I going to be weird when I get there? So I was pretty like anxious leading up to it. Uh, now I invited, uh, uh, friend Jason and Jason, uh, a guy named Tim, uh, Tim Chang to go with me, uh, who works on the show Grand Crew.

And I don't want to say I made a mistake, but he immediately was like an hour late or so to meet. So like I was at Anahito's at City Walk like for a while. Well, I scarcely see the problem. I was good. I love Anahito's. Yeah, I love Anahito's. And the bar was closing really, like, I had gotten there and the bar was, like, I ended up sitting there after it closed for a while and the bar was closing.

And he's like, hey, yeah, you got to order, like, right now. And I go, oh, okay. And I pointed at what I thought was, like, a margarita flight. It was just three tequila shots. And, again, this was, I'm not, I did not do that for the show i just literally was like oh right this thing is good at 18 three things that's the margarita flight or i didn't say that but i pointed it and he goes yeah all right and he comes over he goes i want limes with that and i go yes and then i went uh-oh all right so i you're, you're describing the way, uh, 95% of the people do Halloween horror

nights. It's a good point. Yes. Um, but, uh, and I would have preferred if it were like, you know, sipping a cocktail or two before not downing three in a row is pretty, did you? Yeah. I had a little, I, cause I kind of was waiting for Tim. Uh, I was waiting for a little while.

So like there was some space in between okay but i'm certainly not in tequila shop practice i also just had a beer there i could go in back and forth between you gotta get practicing i get in shape at home every night you're right at least at anahito's i could get in shape which is a great establishment let's go get them so i'll go get in shape right now. Sure, okay, yeah. Although I think it was 10 o'clock is when they stopped serving. So we're getting close. Scott's nightmare.

Yeah, but we can go back. I'm willing to go back. So yeah, Tim finally got there, and my stomach hurt a little bit from it. So we're down. We're at a handicap already at the top. Yeah, and I will say we're spoiled on this podcast often when we get invited to press events.

This was not a press event. This was not. This was just, you know, buying a ticket. And if you don't buy front of the line passes, which are very expensive, the lines are two hours. Yes. Like 90 minutes, two hours. So we were like, oh, we're going to get in like two houses because it's late already. hours so we were like oh we're gonna get in like two houses

because it's late already uh and then we're like okay so if if we really don't get anything done uh we can get like a frequent fear pass for an extra like 75 dollars we can come to more nights or whatever so if we don't get if we don't get all like a lot of stuff done we can we can do that um but actually towards the end of the night we made up a ton of time as people left. Like the first maze we waited probably an hour for. And then the last three or four, we waited like 20 minutes total for all of them. Wow. So we ended up doing like everything, basically.

Okay. And yeah, I did all of it. And I walked through and it was fine. I'm fine. OK, I'm again, I'm I'm your humble king of Southern California haunts. Now, I've I've learned that hubris is not the way when it comes to bragging about going to haunts and scary things. But leaders need to be shaken. Vulnerability is what makes a great. Yes. It was Trump's great flaw that he refused to admit culpability for thin, admit vulnerability. That's, you know, that's true. You're no Trump.

You're not a king as he aimed to be. I have learned a lot from Trump. A humble king. Now. When it comes to, yeah, bragging about haunts, Southern California haunts. I was going to say, you were getting surreal real trumpy oh yeah no i know the way you kept saying i know i'm i'm never scared believe me yeah oh you know what i forgot i i'll post a photo of this i have been wearing uh this fitbit for the last month or

so i noticed that yeah i got to ask you about that and the fitbit you know it tracks all the stuff that a fitbit tracks and it tracks your heart rate and last Wednesday before the Minotaur I took a look and boy was that thing high yeah boy was that in the yellow it was not quite as high as when I was running but boy it had spiked because I wanted to see if I'm gonna be like it was it

really that bad oh yeah it was formed a little skull shape yes skull and crossbones on my heart rate monitor uh and i actually haven't checked it at horror nights i don't think it was nearly like that but i wonder maybe if it was like going in uh that's an interest i'll take a look and i'll post that what i was wondering is if you were gonna like you you get there you take the shots you're thinking about what happened a few days prior and just the person like checking you in. All right. So one.

And then you just yell, you dirty minotaur and sock them in the face. I might just be saying that until they bleed and then you're kicked out of the park. That might just be like what happens to like a Target employee. I just see the minotaur everywhere. It might happen next week it might happen in 12 years but everyone be careful of mike for a while it is for several decades it is interesting that you bring it up because like the trauma of the minotaur is now with me forever you're right like you're right on some level maybe it just comes out in like the nursing home

and like when i'm like 89 and i'm like oh like whatever are you the minotaur dear and she's like oh he's michael is talking about the minotaur again get the get that syringe of sedatives ready because he really can get wild when the minotaur comes out when he thinks he sees the minotaur i just i don't want to look like a fool in front of people i don't oh it's okay you don't look like a fool yeah okay no the minutes are like and then they just have to get on like three people have to get on top of me and then it's a whole thing uh no mr carlson isn't allowed to watch he's not allowed to be in the tv room anymore right and he thinks he thinks he thinks wheel of fortune is all minotaurs he is every

letter is a new minotaur there's a like a kids come in to like cheer the old people up wearing costumes and one child is dressed as a minotaur like i pull out like a pistol like i start shooting in the air get out of here minotaur you said you were going to screen the costumes that's precisely why i warned you yeah uh no it's it's it will rear its head some way that is true don't watch the shining that's one of the uh yeah theories of secret messages in the shining in that room 237 documentary is uh there's a lot of like nods to the the or you know history of the minotaur there's a minotaur poster jack torrance essentially becomes the minotaur going through the hunting danny at the end of the movie yeah yeah all right well that movie's although i've seen that movie

but no re-watching no re-watch yeah again again. You've got your senses out for minotaurs. Although I will say, seeing the minotaur in regular light does take some of the scariness. Well, can we, just to backtrack, can you say what did it look like in person and in the light, and then

maybe how does that contrast with what you pictured in your mind a higher end Minotaur being? You'll have to believe me when I say I was not picturing. You said believe me like Trump. Folks, believe me. I wasn't that, and believe me. Like that is what the liar says before he lies.

So I guess I should not have said believe me. I'm friends with many Minotaurs. You'll never find anyone who likes Minotaurs more than me believe me believe me believe me uh no okay to scratch the part where i say believe me i did not have an image of what the minotaur was i don't think i even i'm a little like he's like he's got like his head's kind of like a hammerhead shark he's got like horns yeah i imagine that honestly like a hammerhead shark. He's got like horns. Yeah. I imagine that. Honestly, I imagine the Minotaur sort of being like maybe my height and like just like sort of a bigger guy, big in stature and just sort of imposing.

I think the Minotaur was maybe like 5'11", skinnier than me. Damn, Minotaur. Where's this Minotaur working out? The Minotaur was in great shape. Very, yeah, probably could run pretty fast. Minotaur's a vegan. Yeah, it was a very healthy Minotaur, I would say. It looked like a health conscious.

Lean is the perfect word for the Minotaur, Jason. Thank you. So, yeah, I didn't really have a vision of the mentor eva said that when this is also any all this all the details make me feel uh just even more uh silly she said like when the minotaur would catch you you would go like and then he would like lightly touch your shoulders and like turn you around just kind of like nudge you toward where you're supposed to go it's like oh my god the minotaur is here uh he's like tapping you and he like suggests the direction in which you will go a couple more degrees thank you okay which is really what happens when like going to any of these things after a while you're like oh yeah they're just

gonna like come up to me and go and you go yeah okay well that's why i'm kind of interested because like clearly if they're gently like all right uh now you're out you go in the cage uh you know they they understand the concept of liability and like well you can't manhandle them into wall so i'm i'm surprised they didn't have like a procedure in place for like what happens if someone has a panic attack can you take them out and bring them back in they do i mean they have they had the x the x i got the x they have the x oh yeah okay but they don't yeah they don't have like a way to integrate them back into society or something like into the group yeah yes this theatrical company is they can't help you process what you're going through now.

Okay, so what they should have done is the guy playing the doctor comes out, and he kind of does like a therapy session with me real quick. Like, what's the root of this, do you think? And then we get to the bottom of it. I solve it, and then I go back in now with the tools to attack the Minotaur. Now, let's do the worksheet. Is this likely to happen? Is it possible that it's going to happen, or it the worst case scenario like what's yeah yeah uh so do you think is there a childhood thing on your face what do you mean was there like i don't know like what's flashing

through my mind is like you wanted to be batman for halloween and then it like but your parents put on the mask backwards so for a minute you didn't have your cowl with the big hole in it. Or was there something worse? Like a big octopus, like jumped on your face. I don't know. We had an ocean trip. Well,

uh, like a, a starro type alien, uh, yeah, yeah. To my face and controlled, controlled me for a couple of weeks.

I I'm worried. That's what you're going to dream about tonight. Now. I hope not. Um, I can't, I'm glad I watched suicide squad before doing this oh is there a thing like there's a starro starro is a dc comics villain and it's a big starfish that like shoots a little starfish and

they attach themselves to your face oh god and then they control you um or starro does i guess uh i'm that's a good question i don't as far as like Halloween costumes as a kid I always wanted like more stuff on my I feel like I when I was Darkwing Duck I was really dissatisfied with the homemade like duck beak we made because it was just a flat piece of cardboard it was not some three-dimensional duck bill uh so I feel like it was always like I was always upset that there weren't more things on my face in general. I remember I was like the Ninja Turtle and you'd have like the mask with the little plastic like snout, the turtle snout. Yeah, yeah. Those were just okay.

But they were fine. And like there was a kid, I think I'm sure I've said this before, a kid in my classes. His like mom sewed these like immaculate turtle costumes for second graders with like the full head on his head. And I was like, what the hell this i look like shit like like it would be so funny because that would have that would be a common thing on halloween you're like i look like shit and this kid looks fantastic when you said darkwing duck i did flash to having a friend with an immaculate darkwing duck costume and how uh how sad it made me feel that there's just no way it was gonna i knew i of

course i'm never getting anywhere close to yeah i mean the best honestly the best costume i ever wore maybe the most accurate one it's between two it's i was the mad hatter from the batman animated series which is pretty easy blue coat big hat you can make that easily uh the other one is i think in junior high i was chris katattan's famous character, Azrael Abyss, the Prince of Sorrow from Goth Talk. Ah. And I look exactly like Chris Kattan in these pictures. I should find those. Sketch is written by Dennis McNicholas, I believe.

Is that right? I'm pretty sure. Yeah, yeah. Wow. Thank you, Dennis. I think he was just a little Florida gothy. Wow. I'm pretty sure.

That's a great tip for a Halloween costume. You pick something achievable. Yes. Because everything when you're a kid is like, I want to look exactly like this cartoon character. And it's like, that is not going to fly. Or a cartoon. Yeah.

My sister and I were Fred Flintstone and Pebbles one year, which was a fun felt thing. And you can make that outfit pretty easily. But I was kind of looking at him. I'm like, my face doesn't appear to be like fred's face i would i would like to look more like fred and i wish we had like my sister really should have been the great kazoo let's be honest see i i would pick a thing and stick with it for like two or three years i mean i think the best one i had was like the ghostbusters jumpsuit because I already had the toy proton pack. That's easy. The jumpsuits were sold

everywhere. Like kids, like onesie jumpsuit kind of things. And then Ninja Turtles, I think I was practically wearing Ninja Turtle pajamas and like a felt mask. Which turtle? Michelangelo. Okay. Scott, were you ever a Ninja Turtle? God,

I feel like I was, but I can't. Maybe I wasn't. I don't know. i was two years in a row i was i was michelangelo and i was rafael the next year i think i remember i i did a ninja turtle face paint at something where i had a lot of pictures taken but i think maybe not the full physical costume yeah then when i was older i was getting fucking lazy i was like we got a man hatter hatted up like family party i'm wearing this with an old sport coat of my dad's and then the next year i was like sport coat and the frankenstein mask that's been in the garage since the late 80s that my dad when we were kids he came out wearing once

and he went ah and we went just started screaming like just started like ah and i was like i'm gonna use that and then in college i was the super exhausting guy and i was not the only one at parties dressed like hunter thompson but that was a very easy you just needed a bucket hat and aviators and a cigarette uh and i got numerous other hawaiian shirt hunter thompson i think you're bringing this up call oh you're bringing this memory back up i'm pretty sure there's a picture of me that I have where I said my costume was Ari Gold from Entourage. Whoa. I'm pretty sure.

It all ties together. So it all ties together. I'll tell you this. Easiest year, men in black. Easy. Oh, that's, yeah, that's easy. Old suit, got it. Sunglasses, done.

Black suit with the black ray bands on. Yeah. Yeah. Nod your, well, nod your head. nod your head nod your head yeah everyone's nodding their head and then the costume the superior song to according to jason obviously the man according to the world now yeah um i might we i don't have we in all these huntcast years have we not just posted old Halloween photos? I don't know. Maybe not. That seems like pretty basic

and we should because and I'll I'll go find my it was certainly not my best costume but I was it was my favorite

was this when I was Indiana Jones one year and it was it was entirely off of the ride. It was the year

that the ride was new. I was obsessed with the ride despite being like so, so wimpy to go on it the first time, screaming the entire ride. I'm having a Minotaur moment or a Lindsay on the Tower of Terror moment. Truly, it was embarrassing to the point where my dad is like, you have to, this is like not okay.

How old? Do you want it? Like 10, 11. Okay. Too old for that. And he's just, why are we waiting for hours in this thing? You're going to do this? So bad, so wimpy. But then, you know, loved it, obviously.

And then I got to be Indiana Jones this year. And I think that I didn't even try to find a a uh a brown jacket i think i think it was like a like a navy green basically the color is not even right and then it's just kind of like a regular fedora just like you know should be in a school guys and dolls production um and it's so that's the costume and then i i think i had a rubber snake and uh that i just i don't know what would i why would i have that you shouldn't have that i want to be anywhere the last thing i should be holding right if i'm indiana jones um and then i just kind of put like soot on my face a little like i got like like banged up or was you know going through a cave or something

and this i'll i'll try to find this photo because what what i think i look like at this age versus what i look i'm doing this face that's like like i i think i'm a minotaur and then like i am just the reddest cheeked little cherub it is like it is the the least tough photo ever taken um and it was ride based it's completely yeah because i think i probably had seen one of the movies but then i was after that then i like plowed through yeah that's interesting because i never i mean i never even thought of it as a kid to go ride based for a costume that's pretty deep i mean even that is not a you know it's that's on the line it's movies too sure that's true.

I think you got to be pretty, I think we were all into the parks early on, but I think to be, like, I'm Dream Finder and you're eight. That's pretty quick to the chase. That's true. Did you ever do a parks costume? No, never. I mean, the parks were things that I did with my family. It's like we went in the summer, and then I came back, and I'm like,

well, I'm going to have to cherish these memories and souvenirs for a few more years until we go back again. And speak of it to no one. And speak of it to no one. Because I'll never know anyone who likes any of this. I remember one time I ran into someone I went to school with in Florida at a park, and I thought, I think everyone had the like oh hello hi and then we just kind of went on our way like it wasn't it wasn't a person i was very close with

but um yeah i didn't i didn't talk about it at all i i you both were in some seedy environment you didn't want to even talk and like acknowledge each other yes like all right don't tell my wife if you don't tell your like just keep this quiet if you know what i'm saying here uh we still haven't nobody's done parks based costume oh well i was captain eo one year uh-huh oh sure so that counts i guess yeah i'm trying to i don't know i haven't really done too much i have been a ninja turtle in my adult years and i looked even shittier than when i did as a child um oh wait this let me bring it back around i i have the theory of when you were saying all that you i couldn't get enough stuff on my face is that the root of it oh is it bringing is it this

inverse shame of like that you wanted to have as much stuff on your face as possible to complete an illusion and it brings you back to the shame of not being able to and now you don't want to get anywhere near it you don't want anything anything at all on your face yeah do you have a third act resolution to your trauma yeah we gotta solve it during this podcast length i mean i really if i'm trying to psychoanalyze myself i don't think it's i don't think it's that i just want so much stuff on my face all the time doesn't seem right doesn't seem like something anyone would want if i was like maybe like johnny depp and i had like six ear piercing and earrings and like steve scar like steven tyler's scarves and like uh son like bono sunglasses like a combination of all my favorite people on the planet uh coolest best people the coolest guys uh sunglasses and then like i don't know like a little steven's

sort of like babushka that he wears um maybe then i think that would be right but i don't think so i don't have a lot of stuff i'm wearing headphones now but that's just i have to it's a practical i gotta uh like we're in my garage and i got like my like costume crates up there, you know, from various videos or sketches or whatever it is. I can just start putting, uh, let's just conquer it now. I'll just start spirit gumming everything I got.

It doesn't even have to like line up to wear a mustache. You already got facial hair. So let's just like put mustaches willy nilly all over your cheeks. And then you have to send cover in your eyes and set me loose in your dark house. That I think is the extra element to it is that I have to be set loose eyes and set me loose in your dark house that i think is the extra element to it is that i have to be set loose in a place that i don't know exactly where i am and the layout is find a way out yeah to try not to wake a child well i guess

i should have known this was a path to uh having my family uh murdered while a die minotaur was screamed. I could have guessed that from miles away, and yet I let it happen. So it's eggs on my face. Yeah, no, it's your fault. So we can quit. What's that? Oh, I was going to say, so highlights of Horror Nights? Oh, sure, yeah.

What did you enjoy? Horror Nights is, yeah, you were saying, Horror Nights is very much kind of like standard. Like, Knots takes, obviously, they have original original ip they get a little more license to do stuff i'd also say like they i don't know why i'm starting out by criticizing universal again but they get they just have some diff like stuff that surprises me more than universal now universal has a couple things like uh what's the pandora's box maze that's an original thing and i feel like that one's the best you watched all these as well i i yeah i believe i saw that one yeah they have

been dabbling the last few years in like one or two original mazes yeah and that one is like really kind of stark there's like a lot of neon paint and like you're going through ruins and there's like skeleton people reaching out at you and then there's like some sort of like i don't know what the legend is but some sort of god and he's a man he's kind of like a lot of the you know gags or whatever you'd call it are like is that a real person or is that a statue and there's a man like kind of sitting on a throne and he's very very still and he stands up and he's wearing stilts so he's giant all like you did you don't even kind of realize it you think like okay maybe that's just like a dummy oh wait he stood up he is

eight feet tall and now he is like wait like waving his arms at me and i gotta run past him uh yeah so like that one i think might have been our both of our favorites going through it um because it was a little unexpected um because they sometimes like with exorcist um and we had just watched or re-watched it have you guys seen exorcist i've never i've never a long time ago um they kind of do a thing with exorcist where the maze where it's basically doing like it's progressing through the movie because so much of the movie or the the climax of the movie is uh the little girl in the bed just going through this transformation. The priest comes.

He tries to perform the exorcism. Spoiler alert. People die. She's vomiting. She's twisting her head around. There's all this different crazy stuff. So you kind of go and see four different versions of the bedroom scene. So you go in and she's just in there once you go

through this like hallway where like spirits are like you know again like throwing their arms at you and then you go into the bedroom now she's even more possessed even more and then like the fourth scene is like the priest is dead on the bed she's screaming at you there's someone really like giving all their energy um so like that's cool that's that's cool for a different especially if you're like an exorcist fan um but it's like not as surprising i guess yeah as some as like an original thing um they had the uh halloween four which i have not seen i've only seen the first two halloweens have you seen hallow? Yeah, last year we watched the David Gordon Green one, and then we watched the original one,

and then Halloween 2, the Wes Craven sequel. Halloween 3 is Season of the Witch, where there is no Michael. Yeah, right, right. But Halloween 4 is when Michael's back. Yes. And I was just talking to a friend, or this could sidetrack us which is fine

i'm sure because michael myers's mask is a william shatner mask oh yeah um which i was like does he mad about that and i was looking it up and it seems like he is i think he is mad he's never got any money from that because like i was driving down langrish from two horror nights and there's a big poster for the new halloween and i'm looking and i'm like it is just william shatner's face i never stared at it with that thought i always forget who it is i know it's when you think about it you will never not see it ever again it's william shatner who is going into space when this comes out he will have already been back he's going to space tomorrow i'm sharing he's going to space tomorrow he's going on jeff bezos's blue origin spaceship tomorrow at like 5 a.m he's 90 years

old oh my god he is going into space for 15 minutes tomorrow uh will have happened so it will have happened this is you were describing we've talked about our desire to not kill this is the worst recipe for oh no elderly man in space here's the thing though you enjoy you guys will never hear this if something bad if something bad happened fastest cut this will be cut well i can't wait for him to land safely so you can hear this yes uh he must he will he will love it um so yeah halloween for michael myers is scared i am pretty scared of michael myers i think in general i think like like would you say you're more scared of michael myers or freddy krueger because i think michael myers even though freddy krueger is grosser he's still like more like

silly he's affable you know yeah i think mike it might be michael i haven't watched a lot of the nightmare on elm street i don't know which of the fine streaming services have them right now. HBO Max has the Freddy movies. And Peacock has Halloween. No, it's Peacock. The Halloween movies, at least the early ones, might be buoyed by just Wes Craven is so good. The music is so good. Yeah.

He's such a good director, especially that first one where he's doing so much with so little. I watched Nightmare on Elm Street a couple of days before doing it. And I was like, this is a pretty good director, especially that first one where he's doing so much with so little. I watched Nightmare on Elm Street a couple days before doing it, and I was like, this is a pretty good movie, too. This is good. The music's pretty cool. I like a lot of those. It's like synthy. Silly early ones.

And they're like synthy soundtracks, which are fun. And yeah, it's got some scares, and it's gross and whatever. But I think I'm more scared of Michael Myers. Although I guess if it was like a Freddy Krueger maze, maybe I would be more grossed out by Freddy Krueger because he's grosser. Freddy versus Michael versus Minotaur? Versus Michael Carlson. Freddy versus Michael Carlson versus Minotaur.

Yeah, no, that is, that'll be my nightmare tonight. It will not be how freddy krueger can attack you in his dreams minotaur can attack me in my dreams the minotaur will be haunting me and i will have to like trap it and bring it to the real world and then kill it here oh god so so if i see a slain minotaur on my porch tomorrow. Yeah, you'll know. Well, all right. Well, good for Mike. Wish me luck.

Because I got to go in the dream world. I got to go in the void and kill a fucking Minotaur. Okay, have fun. So Michael Myers, it is really, it is unnerving to see Michael Myers, like just waving the knife at you. And they do a thing and it's kind of, they do the same gag or I keep calling them gags, whatever trick or same kind of type of scares. Thank you.

Where, you know, there's a lot of, again, static figures. And I think I said this on one of the other haunt episodes, nothing actually freaks my brain out more than when i step into a room and i see like five static figures and i'm just i'm like

so fast trying to figure out who's a person yeah and i oh god like i'm like i'm trying to figure out immediately and they do this trick at the end of the halloween four maze and it's it all of a sudden we turn and we're in like a hall of mirrors and i go oh no so i'm like seeing michael myers here and there whatever and then you turn down a corridor and there are five of them or five michael myers and i'm walking through and to answer the question i immediately had of how many of them or five michael myers and i'm walking through and to answer the question i immediately had of how many of them are real all five of them are real oh and they all come to life right at the end waving their arms at you like run right out and i'm in the exit and i was like all right that was pretty good at the end uh and they have a similar one. I forget which one.

They do a similar thing only with like characters in paintings where all of a sudden there's five people in this little tiny space lunging their arms at you right at the very end before it, which leaves you going, oh, good. You feeling these, like you're getting the jolts, you're getting the, are you getting what you had in 2019? Yes. If you're asking, did I get my mojo back a little bit? Yes. Like Austin Powers, I did feel my mojo coming back.

Not fully. Did you pop? Did they make you pop? Did the monsters make you pop? I popped for the end of that Halloween maze. I popped for the stilt man on Pandora's box. I popped for the really rock and roll Bride of Frankenstein lives soundtrack, like the slash, like the whole time you're in there.

I was like, this is good. I really like this. There's a tall man in Hill House, too. Yes, there is a very tall man. And then Frankenstein, who, Frankenstein's monster makes an appearance at the very end of the Bride of Frankenstein Lives. And he is very tall as well and lunged at me. And I was disappointed that he didn't lunge at me more. I was like, I like Frankenstein.

I'm such a Frankenstein mark. Yeah. I popped for Frankenstein at the end, is what I'm saying. Yes, but there's a tall man in Hill House, and I did not watch, I watched a little of, you saw the whole Netflix thing.

I watched the whole thing, and read the book right around the same time. Yeah, because Lindsay and I were talking in an episode about the book, and I sent her. Yeah, yeah, we know you read, guys. La, la, la, push those glasses up right dexter i need to be fair jason these are really aging um uh i sent this tweet to her because at the uh universal orlando there is a tent called nell's tea party sandwiches

which is very funny in the context of hill house because the show is this very long, drawn-out, creepy... The book's even more long, generational trauma. The ghosts are like bad memories and stuff. And then the very first thing on the menu, stuffed brisket. And then the last thing on the menu, Luke's grilled cheese, traditional grilled cheese. So it kind of runs the gamut.

Right. Was there what item you would have preferred if you had gone? Like, if you could make like a cucumber sandwich of misery. Like a cucumber sandwich and they asked you. Well, you're inventing one uh yeah no i mean i probably the tempeh reuben i like tempeh is there is is if you're asking what's on the menu i probably would have gone with the tempeh reuben i don't really like barbecue and beef if you bring now that you bring it up though from watching hill house yeah is there uh is that you know like the blue milk

is there a hill house delicacy that you were just dreaming of trying like heroin i mean i guess did they do heroin and the one guy yeah the one guy used to do heroin i mean that's what's what was funny to me about watching the hill house footage is that the show is like long takes monologues creeping music and then occasionally like a ghoul. And then the haunted house like has a pretty cool facade inside, but immediately blasting you with music and screams and loud voices. Because that's one of the tricks of these mazes is that they throw you off the guard with a sonic assault right at the beginning, right? Yeah. Well, they all, especially horror nights,

all of the scares, and I'm probably repeating myself from two years ago, all the scares are punctuated by, and I believe we figured out, I think that they're controlled by the scare actors. And I think we noticed there was, at least for a few people,

there was like a little maybe monitor, like maybe a infrared or not, or no, what do you call it? Yeah, infrared? Night vision? Night vision, thank you uh where you they could see in the dark who was coming because like certain people if you're in a little window you're going to be throwing your arms out and you can't hit someone in the head

so you have to kind of be able to see in the dark that no one's in front of you to be able to throw your arms out there and then i think also self-cue the very loud string hit and maybe a scream and then turn the light on so they can see you. So they're kind of like doing this little, they're kind of like working equipment kind of in addition. Or AV booth. Exactly.

So yeah, if they're doing one of those jump scares in a hallway or something, they have to do more than just the people walking around like playing the priest or playing you know like the bride of frankenstein who's just like in a crazy like room and like reacting to the electricity and then like waving scissors at my neck like she doesn't have to uh work a button i don't think um but yeah yeah that's that's a big part of it i should say this and this was uh very well i guess not very exciting but good uh to get to the hall halloween four maze you have to walk through an empty water world theater oh yeah so you walk all the way around it and then you walk all

the way kind of through it and it's completely empty and desolate and then you get to the halloween four uh entrance which thematically i don't know by the employee break room by the office building where you do hr yeah like the hr people had to go to a different building uh and then uh yeah so so it is fun to see where all the different things are positioned because like they open up the like they open up the um area behind hogsmeade in the harry potter land for a bunch of mazes you walk straight back there and i don't even know the geography it's obviously somewhere on the back lot behind city walk but like the bunch of mazes are over there there's a maze over by water world there's a maze by like

the french like street that's where the bride of frankenstein lives is all that junk over there yeah well they have secret life pets not far from there now no that part's not yeah yeah but there's like a weird unfocused like uh-huh well there was like the world area with nothing to do yeah exactly so like but there were like they sort of had like evil cirque de soleil performers walking around so i was like you know this is actually kind of on point i actually appreciate this um so yeah i mean it was good i felt i felt at the end i go okay all right you're not you haven't totally lost it yeah um doesn't seem like it and it is fun there's a lot of there there's a lot of dubstep going on outside loud dubstep great um which i do like again i like a douchey pool party in las vegas so

hearing loud dubstep makes me happy i'm confused by that one i don't know what's what makes you like that i mean it depends i mean there's there's better versions of it than that one i don't know what's what makes you like that i mean it depends i mean there's there's better versions of it than others but i don't know i like sipping a cocktail and being like just pummeled with music and in the water i like that i don't know why you don't want so you don't want like to relax i like that too okay okay i like that too yeah but it all depends if it's like crazy i also like a crazy looking scene i i think i do like i enjoy like watching a weird scene like that well i i had the experience in the summer at a vegas pool like i went down once in the afternoon and they were playing like yeah bruno mars or whatever like loud. And then I went the next day at like eight or nine in the morning.

It was just very like quiet jazz. Like they have different playlists for like different times of day. And I'm like, oh, that's really smart. So, yeah, I would if, yeah, if you're on the fence, Horror Nights, they got the vaccine mandate. You got to show, now look, is this a foolproof system? I don't think so. I flashed my phone at someone and they went, oh, yeah, okay.

There wasn't exactly like a background search. They didn't test my blood to see. Oh, Moderna. Yeah. Okay. Go through. They scanned you. Yeah.

All right. He's got the Moderna chips in his system. Yeah. Yeah. All right. He's got the Johnson and Johnson government his system yeah yeah all right he's got the johnson and johnson government chips the trackers says let him through yeah uh yeah i can see that his blood is a bit cowardly tonight but other than that he's

vaccinated you know one of those shitty right wing theme park twitter accounts was just saying like universal attendance plummets in wake of vaccine guys what are you trying to what why what is the end game of combining right-wing politics with theme part maybe these things aren't supposed to go together then Walter not and no it's not supposed to go together but yes what because he took

care of it 50 years yeah yeah yeah and Walter Disney yeah yeah yeah yeah he just you know subtly um but he didn't have a freedom center it's what they managed to take time out of their busy schedule of eight Johnny Depp posts a day to trade about how Universal has effectively killed their entire theme park business with a vaccine mandate that they don't really enforce. I will say, I will say Universal's Horror Nights was sold out. It was hacked, of course. There was no problem as far as I could tell of them selling out. I have been struggling with like going to theme parks and like oh that's right this is what full attendance feels like this keeps happening i've been lots and i've

like sea world was so crowded i'm like oh god i really miss these like the the cramped only 30 allowed not even for like health and safety reasons just like oh man i hate the crowd so much we try you know what we actually inquired at the start we were like oh how much is that front of the line pass and they were like we are sold out of that we cannot give you one i was like oh wow okay fuck you for asking don't even look at us yeah they were upset but uh we can't we should really wrap up here but uh uh yeah disneyland is getting crazy and everyone said like oh and fast pass goes away it's actually gonna be better because the lines are gonna be not long anymore so that's bullshit right well i don't there

were people complaining a week or two ago that it's like there were no reservations available and i went to bed i didn't find october was mostly booked for me i went to bed i woke up there was a bunch of open days so i took it and then the next day there were even more open days and I'm down there yeah I was complaining all right I was down there was like the most crowded day I had seen in years and I'm like take reservation like make the pool smaller what do you don't no don't add more availability like it's not working whatever the current availability uh yeah I mean I have a lot of thoughts about it uh but we'll do that somewhere more availability. Like, it's not working whatever the current availability is. Yeah. I mean, I have a lot of thoughts about it,

but we'll do that somewhere else. I do want to say, okay, I want to wrap up here. I do want to say next year, we already talked a little bit. Next year, secret episode, secret ambitious episode, Jason getting brave,

Fright Fest 2, and I will, I would like to conquer a Minotaur somewhere. I don't know if it's a different escape room. Maybe it doesn't even happen to Halloween. Maybe it happens before. But I will conquer the minotaur.

Whether it's a literal minotaur or just the minotaur of a horror escape room. Beating up a high school football team. I'm going to beat up a high school? Beating up the minotaurs. Beating up the Smithville minotaurs. I drive my car onto the football field. You beat up a high school? Beating up the Minotaurs. Beating up the Smithville Minotaurs. I drive my car onto the football field. You beat up a high school football mascot. Oh, that's funny.

The Smithville Minotaur. That's like for a clip show or something. That's like a viral video of like mascot fight. Drunken fan punches mascot. If you don't want to victimize anybody in particular, you could just get a like get a minotaur costume fill it up with fluff and garbage and then like tackle it okay you know well i could be that's that seems like great live show material to me everybody cheers you on

oh that's a good point too demolish a minotaur huh we can fill it with blood bags also we will fill we'll never get invited to whatever menu this venue this is and largo's stage will run right this is a largo yeah yeah we're staying in here's the show uh how is um yes scary farm oh that's good we didn't do a ton there we honestly we spent so much time that was not i should have mentioned more of knots because knots was it's always nice enough to invite us and they had a big dubsteppy but also like 90s pop music loud outdoor like have fun and food and drink and we spent most of our time there we were we certainly had a few scares there but we were like this is great we're having a really good time uh listening to loud music i didn't even it's over like kind of in that i mean there's a lot of corners of knots where you're like i don't know really where we are but it was like deep in

the corner like when you come and go to the right um yeah knots was fun i we didn't because so many of the mazes were the same and we were still like i don't know no one's wearing a mask in these mazes uh we were like well let's not do a ton of things uh but we got scared by people on this like there were still tons of scare actors out as you go through those like scare zones we did of course our beloved um halloween version i think scott you did this as well of the um log flume of the yeah the name of it um i don't think mountain logger timber mountain right thank you my brain shot uh the bear did not say trick-or-treat to us did he say it to you um i did wait why i didn't do it this year oh you didn't okay so i couldn't tell you the bear i don't know if he was broken but as we said a couple years ago

we love this bear who says trick-or-treat um the opposite of a minotaur yeah uh so that was great and knots is fun we also saw and oh man we're running over here but we also saw the new version of the mad tea party now what is this like the literal band it's the band yes it is and i i totally was not prepared to talk about this but i'm trying i'm trying to remember the name of the band, but they did like Enner Sandman. Yeah, look it up. They did some old Mad Tea Party favorites like Enner Sandman.

So like the Chicken Dance? They did. YMCA? They're not a wedding band. Of a Nagila? No, no. They're cool. They play cool music.

They played Rhythm Nation, remember? And you were impressed by that when we did it. I think you're a little overstating how impressed. You weren't clicking on to any positive reaction. You were blown away when I said they did Rhythm Nation. The obscure song, Rhythm Nation? Yeah, they did Let's Go Crazy. No, they did not play that at Knott's,

but they were doing darker songs, like the Foo Fighters, The Pretender. That's a song about a costume. Heavier song. Anyone wearing a costume is a pretender. That's a very good point. And that's probably the thought process behind it. Jason, have you found it? Yes.

Carnival du Grotesque featuring Hiatus. Yes. The name of the band. Hiatus. On the big main stage, it is Carnival du Grotesque featuring Hiatus. Yes. The name of the band. Hiatus, I believe. On the big main stage, it is Carnival du Grotesque. Is that what it is? Yes.

Featuring the band Hiatus. So I don't know if it's every single member of the Mad Tea Party, but I believe it's definitely Alice and the Mad Hatter. They are now in like, you know, they're not wearing those clothes, but they have the old chemistry. The band sounds good uh i was just i was so pleased to hear live music again as well i'm just going like oh wow uh i guess if that's the bar yeah they are playing live i have some video i should post that as well really i totally forgot that i should have been talking a lot more you already did post that oh yeah post more i have more yeah i have more yeah but we hadn't discussed it on the

show so more content because people obviously now they thought we were at the end now it's a little a little surprise treat they're like oh hiatus the band that used to play at california adventure during the outdoor festival the man tea party i was thinking weeks ago that Mike did not get his point across in a single clip. When is Mike going to post more Carnival Day grotesque featuring hiatus? They've all been tweeting this. This is like five Mike Myers, you know? Yes. It's a final little touch at the end.

We almost buried the lead. By the way, if you don't know what we're talking about, there was a second game. A lot of this was on the second game. We talked about this thing that happened, and there's some disagreement about the quality of the thing. Some of us thought it was really good, and then somebody else thought it was just good. I won't say who thought what.

Something like that. I will say at Knott's, they have a new area over by the the berry tales that's kind of like a roaring like ghosts of the roaring 20s and they have like a big band that sounded really cool uh and then there's just like hey look at that like guys all doing the voice laden which i was like this is all right up jason's alley like you would have loved this uh and not yeah there's a lot of cool stuff at knots even if you're not going to go in the scare zones and are in the actual mazes like they like they really seem like i would say horror nights definitely felt like smaller than it did two years ago where it was like ghostbusters and that felt like really big and ambitious this one felt a little bit smaller but knots felt like they

were going bigger and doing different stuff too in addition to just a lot of the same mazes. But it felt like they were even fleshing more of their, I don't know, Knott's IP out into the park, too. So that's highly recommended. I might go back to Knott's in the next week or two. Oh, fun. Because it was fun. So if there's any Minotaurs hiding at knots, watch your asses out. Watch your horned asses out.

I assume the minotaurs also have horns coming out of their butts. Yeah, they have horns. Any orifice on a minotaur, there's a horn protruding. Their urethra, their anus. That's why they're so mad. They can't poop or pee if you had just horns coming out of your pee hole you would be very upset all the time i don't think let me look is there a minotaur at knots uh but the minotaur is my i guess is my mortal enemy now so it will follow me um everywhere

it's almost like some sort of beast who hunts you through the maze of life. As if it was some sort of minotaur. Well, I guess that doesn't work. Oh, well. Yeah. Oh, I think there might be a minotaur in one of these new mazes. There is? There's maybe a minotaur at Knott's? I gotta double check. Maybe in the new Delusion.

If you recall in the Delusion show, we saw like a stack of rocks suddenly came to life oh yeah there was a rock man giant rock monster yeah yeah yeah so so uh i will conquer it maybe multiple times maybe i'll just take it on the road as scott's saying and i will destroy or bloody every stage from now on every time we do a live show oh wait this is this is upgraded from once to every performance it's like gallagher every live show kind of a thing now let's bring out the minotaur everybody puts their tarps up yeah yeah yeah and then i take a big sledgehammer and i smash the minotaur's head

and everybody gets bloody it's fun i'll honest. That sounds like the best touring spectacle that exists. That is straight to the front of the line. It's a show. We leisurely talk about theme parks for a while. And then there's a live Minotaur fight. Extra bloody. Oh, man. If I could have a wrestling match with the Minotaur.

Somebody's got to play him, though, I guess. I suppose so. All right. Well. If you're brave enough do you accept the challenge to play the ultimate role of the minotaur we just learned about the boxing or wrestling dinosaurs show oh shit yeah we did yeah so you could probably fight a minotaur two dinosaurs can fight in a wrestling ring that's true so. So, all right. Well, I'll work on it. Be on the lookout in future,

in every single live show. And until then, you survived Hauntcast, the fright. Hey, we got, follow us on all the socials and I don't have my notes in front of me.

What's the stuff? Go to our T-Public where there's merch and there's three bonus episodes every month and this month uh it is behind the cemetery gate uh hauntcast the cemetery gate at patreon.com slash podcast the ride we just covered muppets haunted mansion with griffin newman which was fun and more spooky stuff coming over there and i'd like to just say that I'm getting my mojo back, baby.

Swing, swing. Well, good night. I'm the Prince of Sorrow. Forever. Dog. This has been a Forever Dog production. Executive produced by Mike Carlson, Jason Sheridan,

Scott Gairdner, Brett Boehm, Joe Cilio, and Alex Ramsey. For more original podcasts, please visit foreverdogpodcasts.com and subscribe to our shows on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Keep up with the latest Forever Dog news by following us on Twitter and Instagram at Forever Dog Team and liking our page on Facebook.