What was that line about the best laid plans of mice and men...? *ahem*
2021 was a really bizarre and tragic year, especially in the light of COVID-19 and the continuous ravings of a man who cannot accept defeat…but enough on that, I am truly fed up with the behavior surrounding it all…
This year also marked – in all likelihood – the end of my association with the podcast world and my long running stint – since 2014 - on The Big Scary Show…
Never say never, and I am open to a shot at it now and again, but, after six years on Big Scary and two prior on the late, lamented Hauntcast, I genuinely felt the time had come to hang up my microphone for a good, long rest.
“To everything there is a season…” like the song says…
The rest was Business As usual - you know, sleep, work, eat, repeat, pay bills, build props...and what a ride we had in that regard!
A little bit of history first…
In 2010, we were pretty high on our success from the prior year’s Big three display – Drac, Frank, and Wolfie – so we thought we could do a really killer Mummy’s Tomb patio scene, easy as 1-2-3…
...ahhhh, yeah, about that…
Needless to say, we were still quite wet behind the ears in terms of prop development, and we were COMPLETELY unaware of things like sheet Styrofoam, DryLock and gorilla glue - not to mention the online haunt community - plus, we were on the road A LOT that season - Atlanta, Chicago, St. Louis - so the end result was less than spectacular, to say the very least..
....did I mention our mummy stood about 3'2" tall and was dwarfed by everything around it...?
(Nothing like people looking your scene over and remarking: "It looks great!!!....what is it, anyway...?" Eek.)
We always swore the Mummy would have his revenge *one* day, and, this year, we made it happen, and, honestly, all things being equal, it came off pretty well, if not 100% perfect, but we were happy with the end result.
The most enjoyable aspect of it all was the set construction - the tomb walls were a huge undertaking - the hieroglyphics took AGES and, for the sharp-eyed, are FILLED with easter eggs – I cannot remember everything we put in there, but, after hunting for genuine hieroglyphics to fill two almost full walls and the two part alcove, things started to get a little loopy…
We included bits from Blue Oyster Cult, Van Halen, Aerosmith, Black Sabbath, AC/DC and several others, a pot leaf – hey, we partook in the day! - nods to Nightmare Before Christmas, one of Godzilla's fins, and a few private jokes only be known to my wife and I…
Speaking of Blue Oyster Cult, take note of the pair of bookend tablets on the lower patio banner….those are direct lifts from the inner sleeve of BOC’s 1983 album - remember those? – “The Revolution By Night”….it’s not my favorite album of theirs by any stretch, but those Egyptian dog statues were inspiring!
We had to keep it simple - the original artwork is quite detailed! – and, of course added some nice GLOW IN THE DARK bits as well…oh, and if you look directly below the Witch’s cauldron – yep, I had to get a nod in to “Godzilla vs. Kong” – loved the film…
(On a side note, on Thanksgiving weekend, our Goddaughter Bonnie and her beau Dominick came by for a visit...Bonnie is very much into character modelling and wanted to do a set with our tomb walls - I've included them here and I think the results speak for themselves.)
Nothing ever goes as planned, and, while larger than our 2010 attempt, our Mummy, again, just didn't dominate the scene like we hoped, and, quite frankly, we had put all our best work out in the cemetery, so, we compromised and put our animatronic werewolf out there as well...as fate would have it, right at the tail end of the season, we managed to get our hands on a terrific Wicked Witch prop - cauldron and all - and while this was more for next year, it definitely helped fill the scene out....
Wolfie got a highlight as well, with our tip of the hat to “An American Werewolf In London” and our very own Slaughtered Lamb sign…tack on a couple new stones in the graveyard – one, a simple little nod to Disney’s “Cruella” film this year, the other was a color explosion – and our plate was pretty well full!
I found it rather amusing that the Boris Karloff Mummy mask kept twisting and turning, ‘til it went from Im-Ho-Tep to looking more and more like the mean old man from down the road…all the local children cursed him to eternal life wrapped in Charmin....
Lisa was none too happy with the actual mummy figure's final result, but I felt it corrected a lot of the errors we made back in 2010…granted, the werewolf prop dominated the scene, but overall, it had a nice atmosphere to it.
One of our inflatables final popped a fuse, so, we, undaunted, we just went out and bought another one! The nice thing was, we were able to use both and gave the entire scene a bit more pop, if you will....
(Point of interest: was it just us, or did all the major retail outfits run out of Halloween merchandise almost before October even hit? I swear, we couldn't find ANYTHING worthy of note to add to our scene(s) in the last week of September! October? Pffft! Forget it! The stuff shows up in mid-August and is almost 99% evaporated even before September ends! Thank goodness for online ordering or we'd be well and truly screwed!!!!)
A few of our neighbors jumped into the game this year, something we always encourage - hey, it ain't all about *us*, and every little accent just adds to the overall picture.
The BIGGEST surprise came in the last week of October - our town of West Carrollton sponsors and annual Best Decorated Home for Halloween contest which we've entered this year and last....we really didn't think anything of it - after driving around our neighborhood, we felt we had well and truly had out butts kicked - take note of the photos of some of our neighbor's work - really awesome stuff! -but, oddly enough, we took first place for this year...we got a medal, a $50 gift card and some really good cupcakes from Ele....yummy...very flattering, we truly were not expecting it...
Where does this leave us?
Same as always! “How do we top it *this* time?” …and with that in mind, on with the show!!!!
Let's just say Bobby "Boris" Pickett would be proud!
