I have to correct you on one aspect of your History of Knott's Scary Farm.... The Gauntlet was NOT the first new scare zone to be added following Ghost Town... At about 36:00 min. into your documentary... You claimed that "Ghost town remained the only scare zone until the addition of the gauntlet..." That is not true. Actually, in 1994, a scare zone was added into the park called "Camp Spooky Streets." My wife and I both worked as "street talent for Camp Spooky Streets.. I was stationed underneath the stage coach underpass and my then, wife was stationed around the Northeast corner of Camp Snoopy. We roamed the Camp Snoopy streets. We were 2 of about 30 or more.. My wife was a slider in Camp Spooky... I was a slider, but rarely did so, as our various positions changed to find the best scare areas. That year, I remember the supervisors, managers, the VP of entertainment at the time, and others rated us as scarier than Ghost Town.... That was the true beginning of the expansion of scare zones... 1994... For some reason that portion of Knott's history has been forgotten.
Hi Rob, Thank you for bringing that to my attention. the really silly thing is, I knew about Camp Spooky Streets and actually remember walking through it in the early 80's. I have no idea how we made that mistake. I sincerely apologize to you, your wife and everybody else who worked in Camp Spooky Streets. Do you by chance have any photos or videos or know someone that does? Let me know how to send you a PM.
@@hollowstudios2015 I do have a photo of all the talent that year.. I will look for it and when I find it, will send it your way... What's funny is that there is no mention of Camp Spooky in any historocal documentary or other archives... Just hope it was a mistake and not intentional on Knotts part.. Your documentary was very informative. Vince, who was featured toward the end of the documentary was one of our co-workers. Been 30 years since I saw him last.
@@RobKaufman-zw3bi What years did you work there? There is mention of CS in the "Sliders of Ghost Town" video ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-sHCxFYjXvnw.html
@@hollowstudios2015 1991-1994...Began in "The Body." (1991).Then worked The Mine Ride in 1992 & 1993...... My girlfriend, at the time, and I auditioned for Camp Spooky streets in Aug. of 1994 and were both picked as Street talent...
@@hollowstudios2015 1991 I began in "The Body" in Fiesta Village... We had a challenging year because it rained heavily that season. We were an outdoor maze for the most part.. One night, we got rained out with puddles of water everywhere... We all kept scaring, regardless of the rain. It wasn't until we got word that the builders failed to insulate the electrics in the maze and customers were getting "shocked. ' 1922 and 1993, I was relocated to the Mine Ride.. I was stationed in the "pot room." There were 4 or 5 of us in that area... I would sing "I've Been working on the Railroad" and other tunes as I chased down mine cars... We were always safe there but we would push the limits as to how far we would go to get a scare... In 1994, my now, x-wife and I auditioned for Camp Spooky street talent... I remember the audition... We were given an image on the screen and were instructed to use that image to create a scare... The image was picture of Nosferatu. We auditioned and, we'll, the rest is history.... Great memories.... Following my experience with Knott's, I worked at The Queen Mary's Shipwrecked Haunt (this was before Dark Harbor) for 2 years and then began creating my own yard haunt called "SpydrHill Cemetery." My yard haunt has continued throughout the years and evolved into "SpydrHill Cemetery - a Children's Halloween Theater Workshop." Children of all ages go through my workshop learning about and participating in construction, makeup, costuming and "How to Scare 101." The end result is a small trail with FX and decor operated and maintained by my students... They also create their respective scare positions throughout the trail and have a great night scaring as I did those many years ago.
Loved the documentary! I just wished they would have talked a belittle bit about how hard the “ Park Decorators” job was! I did it for 6 years and it was a fantastic job!
I worked at Knott’s from November of 1999- 2006. Our department was very small. I had my manager Eddie, myself and two other employees. I remember all of these very creative people in this video.In my era with Scary Farm, we would strike Halloween night and have most of our outdoor decor down before park opening at 10am. Cutting the “ scare cloth” was the worst though! And then hanging it up with fire retardant on in was awful! November 2-3 , Christmas would start going up!😑But I’d do it all over again if I could!
@@JeffBecker-j9s Haha, Yeah i worked with some of the scare cloth to augment an interview or scene, that stuff is nasty. I can't imagine working with the volume you had to work with. Thanks for sharing.
Loved the documentary! I just wished they would have talked about how hard the “ Park Decorators” job was! I did it for 6 years and it was a fantastic job!
I just tripped myself out because I was just listening to this while working and then looked at the screen to pause for a moment and stopped on the frame of my father being on the screen. 1:01:31
My best teen years were doing make up effects and designing a few featured rooms for the Fort Myers Jaycees and the Chamber of Commerce. I had a tattered dick smith make up guide magazine and reference pictured from Fangoria magazine. Our Freddy didnt show one night but we had a hat and decent Glove. While a crew spray painted green stripes on a red sweatshirt and then burned and tattered the edges, I made my best friend up as freddy using cotton balls, elmers glue, latex, and laid a single layer of tissue paper on top. The only makeup we could use was liquid womans base foundation makeup. I dug holes through the tissue and brushed in vasaline and fake blood. It ended up looking utterly amazing in the red lights we had in that portion of the attraction. Our daycare center for parents who were working the attraction was the freddy room. Little boys in cages and little girls in sunday dresses playing jumprope or on tricycles... all the kids singing the 1 one two freddys coming for you was creepy AF... We had people that wouldnt even enter the room. We had red yard lights rigged up to turn on and illuminate behind cardboard freddy cutouts... Casting his shadow all over the room. The best times in my life... we also recreated the lost boys hanging upside down and a strobe light room with pinhead... his hooks/chains would slide down fishing line and come right at the victims. I miss those days... I live in Thailand now... my dream would be to have a year round haunted house. Not a smart business idea... but it sure would be fun!
My family and I just went a few days ago! Since this year is the 50th year, it got me curious to how it actually started! I’m just a few minutes in and I’m about making popcorn to watch the rest, haha!
Thank you for your comment. I hope you enjoy it. It's been almost 20 years since it was first released so its a bit vintage so to speak. Have a great Halloween season!
Thank you for posting this video. It’s definitely getting me ready for this year’s Haunt. The only question, I have is was it really Walter Knott that made the final decision on the Haunt? I was told it wasn’t him, since he was battling dementia at that time. Just curious if you a little more to the story.
Thank you for your comment. That is a good question! The general consensus back when we were filming in 2002 was, Walter Knott was the one and only family member that approved the event therefore gave the green light,
I'm a little disappointed that Elvira wasn't mentioned in this since she was a staple at scary farm.... granted I know the people running knotts at that time where conservative and didn't like that she was doing the LA pride parades and they fired her because of it lol the tension really shows with how they acted like she never existed at the park lol It would b nice if they could update this doc especially for the 50th!
@hollowstudios2015 I know she had gotten released in 2001, so either one had issues. lol, I'm just glad that they made up, and shes being represented. I just know that the owners that time were a bit conservative and wanted a "family friendly" show... lol, so I can see if either party skipped out. Other than that, I love the documentary though 🖤
I feel like Universal Studios has slowly taken the crown and surpassed Knotts at this point in time the advancement in tech and lighting and makeup, they invented horror after all, and the event is so big for them now it's getting a year round location in Vegas.
To an extent cause they are a movie studio. As a scare actor, I do like that a knotts we can interact a bit more with guests in mazes compared to just doing a repeated action in mazes. Theres also new ideas instead of being recycled from other movies, which we know about. Thats not a diss to horror nights, they just have more of an advantage with all the film properties they have.
Going this year I use to go every year from 2007-2012 but after that it got really stupid the talent wasn’t doing their job it happened two year in a row but apparently it’s better now because they probably got lots of complaints so going this year did universal last year
