Yuku free message boards

Nice to see some love for spook shows here. I saw two of them when I was a kid -- Dr. Evil's show at a theater in Sulphur Springs Texas in the summer of 1963 and one (probably a later incarnation of Dr Evil) at a drive-in theater in Corpus Christi in 1966. I was the prime age (10) in '63 and thought Dr. Evil was the coolest thing I had ever seen, in spite of the corny gags and the dance contest. The show preceded a double feature of Diary of a Madman and the Hammer House of Fright (Two Faces of Dr' Jekyll) and presented the usual stage illusions, a dead body given away (a chicken), bad mummy and ape costumes, and a tremendous blackout. As an avid monsterphile and aspiring magician myself, I left the theater wanting to BE Dr. Evil and spent the rest of the summer trying to make ghost illusions.

The show I saw at the drive-in was considerably less impressive. It was performed atop the concession stand and, although monsters were supposed to roam the drive-in, I don't think they actually did. Can't blame them as it would've been a good way to be mugged. There was, of course, no blackout and whatever film I saw that night left no memories.

Last October, my son and I were in San Francisco the night before the Bridge School Benefit and we took in the Grand Guignol show at the Thrillpeddlers theater -- a treat in itself, but for me the highlight was when the last play ended with an old-fashioned, beautifully performed blackout, complete with ghosts and skeletons. Really took me back and is the only way I know of to experience one of these today.

I've been an avid collector of spook show memorabilia for awhile now -- have amassed a collection of well over 100 posters, pressbooks, tickets, etc. Spooks have been on my mind the last couple of days, not only because it's almost October, but because I've been communicating with a guy at Monsterwax who is putting together what looks like a great set of gumcards featuring spook show posters and art.

For me, the appeal of these shows is multi-part. I love the graphics and the merging of old art (stage magic) with new (film). But part of the appeal is also a sense of a lost time, both personal and as a society. The spook shows survive today -- sort of -- as Halloween haunted houses, but their age is truly gone, claimed by the decline of theater stages, liability concerns, and a rejection of live performance in favor of media, trends that it's hard to imagine reversing themselves....