Horrors! Ghouls! Gals! and lots of foam-at-the-mouth fun awaited patrons of the traveling creep carnivals known as spook shows. From the 1940s to the 1970s, spook shows moved from town to town, scaring the pants off unsuspecting audiences in the process. Purchasers of the current issue of Non-Sport Update (Vol 22 No 5) will be treated (not tricked) to a full article on the subject as well as receiving one of the three randomly inserted promo cards featured in this post.
Monsterwax’s Kurt Kuersteiner, who has masterminded a new set on the subject, has a strong pedigree in all things “spooky.” “As a child my room was filled with Aurora monster models; I watched any
monster movie I could on TV, and collected every monster trading card I could get my hands on,” confirmed Kuersteiner. “Unfortunately, my mother thought I was becoming too interested in monsters. She wouldn’t let me see a spook show by ‘Ghostmaster’ Harry Wise [when it came to Tallahassee in 1972] and eventually threw away all my monsters and gum cards, too!” Maybe that’s why Kurt has such keen interest in spook shows today.
Since 1999, Kuersteiner has been sponsoring his own spook show of sorts in the form of a 20,000 foot commercial haunted house during the Halloween season each year. In 2004, he began filming the last of the living Ghostmasters (including Harry Wise) about their careers for a still-in-production documentary on the subject. “The cards contain the posters and incredible stories discovered during that pursuit,” advised Kuersteiner.
Expect to see the release of Monsterwax’s Spook Show series just in time for (when else?) Halloween.
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