My Haunted House Expert - Chris Stafford

If I was in a hunted house and all of a sudden, like I go into one around a corner and I'm walking in like three inches of muddy water. Yea infuriate me.

I don't like some haunted houses incorporate water effects. I'm not a big fan of those. Yeah.

I don't want to get wet. Yeah, I don't want to feel moisture in a dark room.

Pasha Tosh shot, Hello and welcome to Tosh Show.

I'm your host, Dan Tosh.

Wh Eddie.

How's it going, Tosh Man?

Man, it's long and plump and ready to pump.

Okay, yeah, huh did you.

Ever say that one? Back in high school?

Never said that. That one must have slipped through the vernacular in my school.

I used to say that. I used to say it every day. My teacher, Big, how you doing. I'm long and plump and ready to pump? And she was like, that's my.

Boy to adults.

Oh man, good times at Astronaut High School. I mean a good mood because I've almost fulfilled all the horrible parent obligations for Halloween.

Just one more.

I just have one more to do, and that is trick or treating, which I always thought was the only thing we had to do.

You know.

Then I had a family, and my wife say, you know, we got to go to Underwood Farms.

Oh, what is that.

It's a place about an hour away, pumpkin patch. They got some rides. If you call them rides a slide. You feed a couple of animals, you give them way too much money for gords. You sweat the temperature of my house. Nice seventy degrees get there ninety two lovely. Speaking of that, we were up in Tahoe the week before and my wife was like, Oh, let's go on over to this place called Apple Hill. They've got tons of fall festival things going on. You get apple pies,

Oh?

Two hours and ten minutes what basically went to Sacramento.

Fucking horrible.

You don't live in Tahoe and vacation in Sacramento. That's absurd. But we did it. We drove there and sure enough it was boiling ninety eight degrees out. Oh, this is this is superfall. I bought a turnover, had a turnover into apple cinnamon donuts. That was all right, and then we just like hopped around from bad Orchard to bad orchard. There's a bunch of old obese No. I mean, I shouldn't care about the size, but they there was just a lot of old obese people. Then me and my

I'm like, this is awful. Oh, let's get back in the.

Car that two hour drive back to the beautiful place we live. So you're four and a half hours in the car that day, so go get a turnover.

I don't know.

I don't get it. What's the next thing I did? Nights of the jack that's up in Calabasas. Yeah, that I don't mind. It's at night, and you get a there's a bunch of food trucks, and then you walk a mile and a half loop in this park and they've set up all kinds of Halloween lights. Kids seem to enjoy it. I don't mind it because I get to eat. As long as i'm eating, I'm happy.

That's the key.

You You like Halloween, don't you, Hattie.

I do like Halloween.

Yeah, because you sold your sould of the devil.

I sold my soul of the devil.

Do you dress up?

I don't dress up. I do like a you know, decorate the house.

You decorate the house.

But you hand candy out, hand out candy?

Yep.

Are you proud of the candy you give? Or do you not care?

No?

I do five nice bags at Costco, good sized candy bars.

We have a ton of people come through.

My manager, Christy Smith, just loves to brag that I give out whole bars. Last year I gave out three hundred and seventy four. Who cares. I turned the lights off at our house and we go to another neighborhood where it's more congested, and you knock it out. You do one street, you hit three hundred homes. I've never once been home to hand out candy.

You don't understand this side of this lightop.

Yeah.

I don't get it. No, I don't get it, and I don't care anyway. My son's good for about forty five minutes, maybe an hour of actual trick or treating. And we started at five o'clock and by six we're done. Now he likes to be scared, but you know, five year old scared Where I hide in the house and he comes on around a corner scream and he almost falls over. I don't think he's ready for like a severed head to be thrown at him.

Like today's guest.

This guy, This guy is cashed in on America's love affair of being terrified.

Enjoy catcha.

My guest today has made his living lurking in the shadows, speaking in whispers, and blurring the line between nightmares and reality with several insanely successful haunted houses nationwide. May God have mercy on his soul, please welcome the architect of fear, Chris. Chris, thank you for being here.

Yeah, thanks for having me appreciate it.

Where are you from?

Originally originally from upstate New York? Rochester?

Rochester?

You know Rochester gets a bad rap sometimes.

I think it does. Yeah, I agree.

You give me a choice of where to live, Rochester or Buffalo. I'm taking Rochester every time.

I agree, hands down.

I think lately it's gotten some press for great places to live or something like that.

It's nice to hear. Yeah, I just want the people of Buffalo to know that their place is horrible.

All right.

So now you live you live in Denver.

I live in Denver.

Yeah, my wife thinks I live here a part time, but I live in Denver.

You do a lot of work in laws.

Yeah.

Yeah, we have four events here in La now, so I'm out here a lot.

Talk to me about Sean Payton. Were you happy with that decision?

Yes? I was happy with that, and then you knew.

That the writing was on the wall for Old Russ.

It sure looked like that right away.

Do you blame John Elway?

I think John Elway just came out and blamed himself.

Actually, John Elway, maybe he's just trying to cement his own legacy by never letting someone better than him become a quarterback in Denver.

That would be a conspiracy, but I could get behind him.

Does he still have all those dealerships everywhere he does?

Yeah? Yep, so there's still one down in South Bay.

Eddy, I think I bought a Toyota from a while back.

You bought a Toyota from John Elwack.

Good on you.

How many haunted houses are we looking at now?

Yeah?

We have eighteen and twelve different markets.

Are you the biggest company that does this? As far as I'm aware, we are the largest Halloween live event company in the world.

And you had a hunted house called thirteenth floor. Yeah, it started in Denver. Originally what floor was it on?

On ground level? But so the backstory is the thirteenth floor is hidden underground so that they can they can hide it because it's absence in so many buildings.

Did you ever hear Mitch Hedberg's joke about the thirteenth floor?

No, huh, he had a joke.

But if you if you kill yourself on the fourteenth floor, you're going to die sooner.

You're losing me on this one.

Because they don't they don't have that. It's actually the third The fourteenth floor is always the thing, gotcha? Yeah, you know what, I probably didn't do the joke.

Did I do the joke? Right?

I gotta look it up.

It said something like it doesn't matter who cares. Now, I'll be honest with you, my favorite holiday is Christmas and my second favorite holiday is Christmas Eve. To me, the best thing about Halloween is getting ready for Christmas. Now it's acceptable to start selling.

Well, now it's it's Christmas is in the stories before Halloween even kicks off.

It's pretty crazy.

Are you one of these people that Halloween was always your favorite holiday or.

No, probably, Yeah, I mean Christmas is pretty close, but Halloween I think was you know, it was it was fun being involved in haunted houses. It's a very unique way to celebrate the season. And you know, I like the Fall a lot, so it just kind of tied together.

I do like the fall. You say fall over autumn?

Yeah I do.

I do too.

Now is it just October or your year round?

Now it's year round.

We're already working on next season right now when this season just just kicked off?

Really?

So favorite a horror movie? Do you have any that you liked?

You know, I grew up with the classic Slashers. I grew up in the eighties, so you know, Freddie, Jason Michael, those are kind of my go tos.

Yeah, Nightmare on Elmstred As a kid, that scared me?

Yeah I did.

Really, you play to the one thing that that's the worst for a kid, like you can't fall asleep. If you fall asleep, you're gonna die. Did you like to be scared as a child?

Not really actually, And wasn't really a big horror fan. But when I was a teenager, I was fifteen years old and a friend of mine called me up and said, hey, do you want to go scare some people tonight? And I said, well, are we going to get in trouble or arrested or what's Just like? His family owned a local haunted house and that's where I got started. Went out there, started scaring people, got bit by the haunted house bug, and have been involved in one way or

And how how did your wife handle you saying listen, I really want to knock it off with the banking and just go full time haunted here.

Yeah. Yeah.

I went to her in two thousand and six and I said, hey, I think I can scale this haunted house business.

She said, let me get this straight.

You have a great job, you have an awesome work life balance, they pay you well, you like what you do. She's like, I'm not saying no, but I think you should really think about this. But then in two thousand and eight, when the financial crisis hit, yep, my job became super on fun overnight. We were doing land development and construction lending. Which overnight was kind of a mess. So she said, hey, it's time for you to go do what you want to do and some fun.

You know, they say happy husband, and they don't say anything because they don't care if the husbands are happy. There's no saying for happy husband. Just go to work. Were you terrified going into this like diving in.

A little bit, you know? And it's funny.

I hadn't thought about that in a while, but in two thousand and eight, I remember when I was like, all right, this is this is what we're going to do. And I was like, man, I hope this works out.

Is it more passion or or is it profit? At this point, like you know, cash cow.

It's equal.

I know that sounds like a PC response, but like you got to have both sides of it. You got to have passion for the product, but you also have to have, you know, a business acumen. You got to market it, you got to finance it, you got to you know, do all those other things. And I think the successful attractions blend both of those together.

They say fear is an aphrodisiac. Is this whole enterprise rooted around kink? No? No, not at all. What's the best state for enthusiasm for the all the Hunted House.

Honestly, uh, California.

LA has an incredible fandom over haunted events like nothing I receive in any other market because they're godless.

I don't know, I think.

No, I mean, that's that's impressive. I mean, I mean there's a sheer numbers thing though there is, Yeah, there's that, but but I think it's it's it's a little more than that out here.

I think maybe, you know, having the theme parks out here kind of facilitated that, and now I think they're seeking out alternative events to the theme parks as well.

And how's that hay ride doing. Hay Ride's awesome.

Hay Ride's like great to be in LA, but get transported to like you know, it feels like the East Coast vibe or a Midwest vibe during Halloween.

Can you rent out your own hay ride a private ride?

You can rent a private hay ride trailer.

Uh huh yep, and just go solo.

You can go solo if you want. Most most people.

Sit there where about you.

You know, I think you'd trip out the actors if you did that. It was just you by yourself.

Can you eat while you're on the hay ride?

Not on the hay ride?

It's a shame.

Yeah, I like that, a burger on the hay right.

Well, I mean I don't know. I just I always like to be eating. Now, what's pulling these hay rides?

Tractors? Like actual farm tractors?

Do you own them?

We do?

Yeah? How many do you owt We own eleven of them? I believe what brand are we looking at?

Are they Deer? Are they John Deeers?

They're not, They're red, They're okay, I don't know what the brand.

I'm in the market for one that doesn't run anymore.

What are you gonna do with it?

What in my yard?

Yeah?

Like as a pretty Yeah, your neighbors love it. What do I care about that? I just want to I just want an old tractor.

But I think old John Deer's are pretty pretty bad ass.

The problem is they don't they don't bring people. They keep restoring them. They're like nineteen forties and they're still running.

There's a lot of people that collect them.

Now, Yeah, I don't want to spend a lot. I just want an old junkie tractor to put in the yard. Seems like something fun to climb on and get, you know, get a big old rust cut. What about the boat? What's the ship thing?

Dark harbor? Yeah, yeah, I mean amazing old haunted ship. We do Haunted maze is on the ship. There's three on the ship and then there's two in the harbor that are adjacent. What's the ship do the rest of the year.

It's a hotel. They also have restaurants.

Yeah, yeah, you've been on that ship, Eddie, I have been on it.

You have, Yeah, I've been at this event.

Of course you have.

Oh man, what's the scariest thing?

You know?

Every year? Are new things being invented? Or is it still just like jump out and startle people.

When people say they're getting scared in a haunted house, it's usually they're being startled, so a loud noise allowed, ef fact, you know, something like that.

Lighting changes.

It's really hard to scare people, you know, on the emotional aspect of scaring people, But it's easy to startle people, and that's mostly what people are looking for.

I think when they go to haunted house, why do you think people like being scared?

I think when people are scared, it's the same type of chemical release in your body, like when you're happier, you're excited. I think they go to see their friends be scared. I think they go in a group of people with someone they know is going to be scared so that they can watch and see what that person's reaction is. Yeah, are you into the gore and those type of stuff or not so much?

Really?

Yeah, I like the psychological stuff better. I think it's a little scarier as far as films go.

Okay, forget films, but I mean, are your guys like walking on severed arms and all that stuff? And yeah, what about torturing each other? Are they doing that stuff?

Yeah, not torturing each other.

But you know, everybody likes something different in a haunted house, and there's certain fans that they want to see the gore. They want to see things that you know, look real, that aren't real. So yeah, we have a lot of that in the haunted houses.

What it's the protocol. Somebody gets too scared.

Usually the actors or sometimes we have event staff in the attractions, and they can identify that and ask them if they're okay and escort them out through an emergency. I don't want to be they scored it out by like some monsters. Well, and that's why that's why we have to have event staff there as well, because the last thing you want to do when you're terrified is have a monster come up to find out if you're.

Okay you or have someone have a hard attack and just die.

No, nobody died.

Nobody's stroked out out in the middle of one of these things.

We have had people pass out and have it be a little too much for them.

Sure, I've had that at a show before. I thought my jokes were just doing real well, then turned out it was really bad. You ever get scared walking through your own haunted houses?

I don't get scared in haunted houses. For me, it's the dark, right, It's like the fear of the unknown to me is way scarier than what you might see in hanted house. You're saying in the just general and darkness, you don't like it. Yeah, I don't like darkness. Not a big fan. Scared of the dark. I guess, do you like honored houses? Do you go? No? No?

No?

No.

The thing is, if I went, I would love it. Yeah, but I'm also okay with Well I didn't go, and that was really lovely not going out. Yeah, all right, That's where I'm at on most things. Yeah, you really have to persuade. I mean, my whole day gets ruined when I find out my wife has set up an activity.

I'm like, oh no.

Honestly, the real nightmare of all these places is the parking. True or false?

Uh, pretty true on the venue, but definitely pretty true because you know, everybody wants to go on the weekend. It's the only time that all their friends are available. So you know, it's not not nasty to park if you come on a Thursday or a Sunday, but if you're going to go on a Friday and Saturday, it's at a premium for you. Always have to do it at night too. That's a problem for me with the Halloween stuff.

Yeah, I'm not ah, I wish we could do there was like a matinee showing, just not as scary though.

That's the problem now. It takes the sun going down for people to get a little in the in the spooky mood.

I guess the bathroom situation that's the nightmare at all these places.

Yeah, it's a lot of work to keep those clean and ready for use.

Oh, because you have to deal with the worst group of people on the planet. Has to be like twelve to sixteen year old just dealing with them constantly. Yeah, they're just monsters.

Yeah, I'm not sure I should comment on that.

No, you can't, but I mean I see it. I go to a local fair every now and then I'm just like, look at and then they dress like whores. You're just like this, this is awful. How does a fire marshall feel about adding tons of walls and trip hazards to a dark room?

Yeah, I mean they're they feel great about it. It's it's wonderful.

No, do they actually like, go, guys, you can't do this.

Yeah.

Most of our fire marshals we have a great relationship with.

We haven't really ran into anybody that is you know, anti haunted house or Halloween. They just want to make sure it's safe, and you know, we want to make sure the same thing. So you know, having an open dialogue with them is always really helpful as well.

Can't you do.

I'm just trying to think of things that I would hate if I was in a haunted house and all of a sudden, like I go into one around a corner, and I'm walking in like three inches of muddy water.

Yeah, I would infuriate me. Yeah, I don't think i'd want to do that either.

Are you allowed to do that?

Though?

I think we would be allowed to do muddy water, But I don't. I don't think that you.

Want to really upset people. Yeah, they go out and their sneakers.

I don't like some haunted houses incorporate water effects. I'm not a big fan of those. Yeah.

I don't want to get wet. Yeah, I don't want feel moisture in a dark room. What about smell? You mess with smells? We do mess with smells. Oh yeah, I know.

And there's there's a company out there that sells disgusting smelling sense you can put in the Honted house. The problem with those is, as much as you might want to use them for the guests coming through so they catch a quick smell of that, I just feel terrible for the actors that are stuck in there with that smell the whole night.

I mean, there has to be a pecking order with your actors, and I feel like, you know what, you you mess up a couple of times you're on the stink gun.

Or you get to graduate from smell to non smell.

Maybe that's what you could do.

You could have like like some weird dead woman with a bottle of perfume, Like she's at like a Macy's at the holidays, spraying people and she just comes up to you and sprays you, and then you're just covered in stink.

Yeah, and that that stuff does not go away, So.

That's not good. What's the age range? What's the lowest age that can not you know, it's it's determinant on the kid. I've seen kids as young as five and have a great time.

There's no rule. There's no rule.

We tell them when they show up that we don't recommend it for kids under twelve, and we tell them that it's the ticket booth. Well okay, but.

You know it's it's kind of parents discretion.

I think some of them make good choices because they know the kids, and some of them make bad choices because their kids shouldn't be there.

But they are responsible drug dealer.

Yeah.

I think that the core age though, is you're pre teen to twenty something, but that's starting to skew older. I think haunted houses the production value has gotten a lot higher and now it's more about a whole night of entertainment. So older people are starting to stick with haunted houses a lot longer than I think they used to.

What a ticket range is prices range for.

You know, on average, right now, they're about you know, thirty five dollars for kind of your base ticket to get you in the door. And that really hasn't changed drastically when you look at inflation over the years over leave in the last ten years, haunted houses are still pretty pretty good value as it comes to live entertainment.

And you handled COVID without any major.

COVID was rough.

But the nature of what we do in haunted entertainment is we social distance by nature, like you don't want to be more than six feet from the group in front of you. So there was a lot of educating to the people in charge to say, hey, we can open this safely and we can keep people apart from each other and keep them in their family groups. Chi ching is what I heard.

Yeah, or or just trying to lose less money that year.

I mean, yeah, but at least you weren't in the concert business. Yeah, exactly. Do you guys have a thing where you're like at a big scare moment that there's a photo taken of them that they can buy later.

So we don't have a photo moment, but we are currently experience experimenting with a video moment.

So we have an RFID tag.

They go through the haunted house and there's five different scare points, and it records like a couple seconds before they go into the room until a couple seconds after.

It's pretty cool.

Yeah.

I don't want you to leaving money on the table.

Yeah, I try not to do that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, you got a gift shop there too.

We have big gift shops now. Yeah, people love buying spooky things for Halloween.

You sell a faulty pregnancy test in your gift shop, Oh.

No, that might be a big seller, though it's a good gag.

Put those in there really scare some people. What does it cost to run one of your attractions?

You know, it depends on the venue. On the low end, multiple of hundreds of thousand dollars. On the larger end, in the millions of dollars to run the different events.

You look at your dailies, go, oh man, this is what we're spending so much money on every year.

Payroll yeah, actors staff. I mean that's the number one expense, hands down, and the amount of actors that you have once you audition these idiots. I don't know. I don't personally audition anybody anymore, but we do have auditions, and usually for the more specialized roles, more acting intensive roles.

Well, people are just screaming and running up to me. Allowed to touch you?

No, we don't touch No. It's it's kind of an unspoken rule.

A lot of people say, oh, I was touched in on how it's usually you know, the actor, they're in a dark space, they'll bump into you and you know, un touched in the house too.

But you know that's for my therapist to figure out what's the oldest, uh person that you guys hire.

I don't know officially the oldest, but all of our attractions, I always see an old actor.

That makes you question.

It's it's amazing how many different people from different professions just want to do it for fun.

You use children actors, ever, we do not not allowed to. We just find kids just terrifying, so we put it you put a kid in there.

We actually have some actors that are child sized. Uh huh. I like what you're saying.

Yeah, and when they're.

Made up, you you would swear they're a kid, but they're you know, legal adults. Uh huh, all right, loopholes. I love it. What kind of background checks are you doing on all these everyone? Everyone gets a background check before they become an employee everyone.

I mean, I don't I don't want to talk about worst case scenarios, but are you guys prepared for all that stuff?

Yeah? No, we we stay very diligent, well real crazy, They very diligent in keeping the actual crazies out of the Haunted House.

Those makeup artists. The amount of time it takes. Is there a sped up version that you guys are doing with all these actors.

Yeah. A lot of the makeup artists use in an airbrush makeup so they can they can move really fast, so they can draw in different details.

But they're putting like gels and flesh.

Not everyone, you know, So different levels of actor depending upon how visible they're going to be in the Haunted House.

So the ones that are going.

To be more visible might have like a prosthetic treatment like you're talking about, but a lot of them are airbrush and with shadows.

And things. They can do some really cool makeups with airbrush.

You ever put a mask on and scare people? I did. I mean that's how I started, But I mean now now it's undercover boss style. It's been about eight years and I think the last time I did it, I was absolutely exhausted after about twenty minutes.

So I gave that up.

Hung up the mask. That's a misconception with people. They all think they want to work in a haunted house. But it's hard work. You know, you're in a mask or hot costume, You're in a dark, cramped space, and it's hard jumping out doing the same thing repetitively, you know, for over like a five hour night.

What do you think about these gen zs? How's their work ethic?

Uh?

Different? Questionable? Maybe I'm trying to trying to stay correct here. I got a lot of gen Z actors. Look you know the I mean you're really in it.

Yeah, you really can see every generation go oh this is awful.

Yeah. I think the one upcoming is is pretty good. I think the next one up is going to be good. I can't get my kid to do anything.

There's good luck with a boss telling them to do something I loved working.

As a kid. Yeah, oh yeah, just.

Because that was the only way I was ever going to get money or get to do anything.

Yeah, Like my parents just didn't care. Yeah, we're not giving you anything. Yeah, No, that's changed a lot. I have two kids at home that I'm like wondering when they're gonna get kicked out of the nest.

Or would you kick him out? Would your wife let you kick him out? Probably not? Yeah, that's all right. There's worse things to have in your house.

Your kids are what my kids are, eighteen and twenty. My son actually turns twenty one on Thursday this week.

You're kind of an empty nester. Is that even a thing anymore? Because it seems like kids just stay with us forever.

Yeah, they have not left the nest. Ye failure to launch for sure?

Did your kids Did they like Halloween as a kid?

They did not like it as young kids up until the time they were about twelve. In fact, when my son was really young, he used to be excited about the different catalogs and things that would come in the mail. He'd say, I want to look at the spooky stuff. But when he was five, my stepfather decided to scare him when he was over at his house, and from the time he was five until he was about twelve, he wanted nothing to do with it. He starred him. I think he just figured out what fear was. Now,

Yeah, what do you do personally at your own home on Halloween?

When my kids were young, my wife would get crap from the neighbors because she said, you're they're like your husband, mister Halloween, and your house is the most boring house on the block.

You tell your neighbors if they shell out fifty bucks, you'll up the game.

Because I was working, you know, I was out, you know, and the kids weren't old enough to be celebrating. But once my kids were old enough, I did start decorating the yard and I would take things from the haunted house, fog machines, speakers, I did projections in our windows, different props, and you would think I created the most incredible haunted house. At all time, my neighbors are out there with their phones out, and I want to say to them, I'm like,

Are your kids going to take over your empire?

You know, I did not push either one of them to get involved in any way, but they both are involved now. They both work at our location in Denver. My daughter's an actress and she also does some makeup there, and then my son is more on the tech side, so kind of the behind the scenes. But I felt like I didn't want to push them to be involved. I wanted it to be their own choice to be involved.

How do I forget this first question? Do you believe in ghosts?

You know, I want to believe in ghosts, and I feel like I should believe in ghosts, But no, I don't believe in.

Ghosts because you've seen behind the curtain too much exactly. Ah, that's a shame. I really wanted you to believe in ghosts. The people that care about Halloween too much, do they freak out a little bit?

I think anybody that cares about anything too much is a little scary.

But you know, I don't know.

It's like those Disney adults. You have to go to Disney constantly. What about international? Have you put one overseas yet? We're not open overseas yet. I bet you could do some weird stuff in some of these Asian countries. Oh man, they're probably into some freaky scary stuff.

Yeah.

I might not be tuned into the Asian horror scene quite yet.

Oh, but I bet I'm talking about money on the table.

Yeah.

I mean, Halloween is growing fast in other parts of the world.

You know, it was always traditionally more of an American thing, but now.

I don't even know that. I don't even know that that's true. It was just it's basically an American holiday.

And now it's grown fast in Europe, Asia, the Middle East. People used to ask me, where are you going to expand to? I said, take Denver, draw out a two and a half hour flight radius.

It's a pretty safe bet.

You got one and asspen yet No, no, I don't think you'd work out up there.

What other cities, Well, you got Colorado Springs. M those people are talk about scary. The people in Colorado Springs. There's a bunch of there's a bunch of loonies over there.

Aren't there great people in Colorado Springs? They love driving to Denver for the haunted house? Yeah?

What about those the things where I hear of people being completely actually paid to be tortured. Basically, I don't know exactly what I'm talking about, but.

Not haunted houses is my big statement on those, right. It's like, you know, to your point, it's like a simulated abduction or a simulated torture.

Not what we do.

And I and you know, it gets a lot of press around Halloween, but I don't think anybody that really just wants to celebrate Halloween is into that stuff, you know.

I think that's more of a unique person a fun date night.

Come on, honey, if we can make it till sun up, we get one hundred thousand dollars.

Yeah, there you go.

Everybody's on my show gets a gift, and it's just stuff that I have around my house. So I was like, oh, I don't know what to give you, But then I thought of something.

I got you.

I've never used it one time in my life. Got you my chainsaw.

Oh my god, this is awesome. I don't think I've ever had my own chainsaw. Yeah, I figured. I was like, well, I don't need this. Look, I even I even.

Have all this stuff because I'm like, they're like, oh, you're gonna need barn oil cleaner and you're gonna need all whatever.

This is, Oh smoke.

What was the plan for it when you got it?

I'm like, because I was a man, like I have a house.

Yeah, And they're like, well you need a chain saw.

Well this is this is part of the man card. Now I have one. I haven't had one before, so this is good.

And then you're supposed to sharpen a shape.

All of it just says like, sharpen this thing.

You're you don't think like I have a file that goes in betwe a single?

No, I listen.

It's never been used as a sixteen inch chains as a craftsman.

I appreciate it.

That two year warrant. He's gotta be void. Yeah, that thing has been sitting in my garage.

The box is discolored on the top. Yeah, it's been here. It's been here a while.

It's been there many many years. Never never thought to use it.

All right, get that off my des please.

This is my mask that I've done a bit on my old I had an old TV show and I did a bit and it was, oh, yeah, I love this baby.

I know the artist that made that you do big ass baby. Yeah, his name's Landing. Yeah, land Landed did good work. Because this is creepy as hell. I know.

Yeah, it's the right it's the right amount of cree. I'm not giving it to you, but I just I wanted to bring it. This is the worst thing in the world.

That is the worst thing in the world.

My wife bought that and goes, oh, I go, what are you talking about? That is pure shit.

Yeah.

You cannot carve a pump pumpkin with this.

Do you carve pum pumpkins?

I do. I finally didn't get that off. I finally stopped carving real pumpkins. And now we have these forever pumpkins. So if you carve your design into at least she can keep it year after year. Now that the kids are oh, you don't do my mind. Forever pumpkin. It's it's a foam pumpkin and you cut it. Yeah, and you can cut a design into it just like a regular.

Pumpkins, like hard to cut, like a real pumpkins, where you will slice yourself.

I like y.

Yeah.

It is the nice thing about it is once they're carved, you can keep them every year and just kind of keep adding. You don't have to run out and get a live pumpkin.

Every year.

We get pumpkins, lots of them. I never knew that. I always thought you bought one pumpkin. My wife we go to a pumpkin pet and she's getting gords and pumpkins and she gets like ten to put next to each other, by.

The different colors, all the different.

And then we don't carve a single one.

No, no, how come?

I don't have the answer to that.

It's just like they just look nicer.

Maybe when your kids are a little older, they're gonna want maybe.

They'll want to carve one. I don't, I hope, because I don't want to do it. No, you guys decorate your house for Halloween?

Yeah you do? Yep?

What do you put up?

Eddie?

I do that? You know the glass garage?

Do? I do?

Projection from the inside nice, so like it's a like a skeleton dances around.

Can you could you just play something?

Yeah? You could just play a movie.

Yeah, why don't you put Why don't you just put like this the Saw anthology.

Uh, you know a.

Lot that you can't play play those type of movies, right, thanks the neighborhood to shut that down.

I think the neighborhood be upset about that one.

My neighborhood, they used to just do one section of the street and people would go crazy and do all kinds of things. And then just you know, recently a few neighbors have moved and they dropped the ball. It's no longer exciting.

Yeah. I remember when I was a kid, it was like Halloween and trick or treating was huge, especially back East. People would stop by your house and you'd welcome them in. But now it's like people come and ring your doorbell. You don't want anything to do with them. So I never went into a house though that you went into house as a kid, that's dand no, no, just just just ringing the doorbell, okay, all right. Anybody says come on in, it's like, ah, don't go to that house.

What's your favorite candy given out of the Halloween Reese's peanut butter cups.

Butter cups, not Reese's pieces, those are good, but peanut butter cups.

Yeah, peanut butter cup.

I'm not liking that they've tried to diversify so much, Like this one has extra peanut butter. This one is twice as thick.

I saw one with potato chips in it or something.

Don't need that nonsense. No, you guys stand a long time ago. That's right, Just knock it off. What's the best door to go to for Halloween decorations?

I like spirit.

I think it's fun, you know, I mean for what it is. You know, the prices are pretty low to do something fun at your house.

I can't do those with it where you step on the buttons, and I think the kids it's too much for them already. I bet I've already found that I've gone too far. Least favorite holiday.

Probably Labor Day because it's so close to our season, and once Labor Day hits them like here it comes.

I mean it's kind of nice though, that it's trunk heated into October, really, isn't it.

Yeah?

I mean for us it's like mid September now through mid November as our season.

Is your goal to become the scariest or does that not?

I think my goal is to become the most entertaining.

You know, It's like you know, nowadays, we all live our digital lives, where you know what your family's doing, you know what your friends are doing, you look at your phone. But creating unique events that people can share together socially is really what we're all about. So and not everybody likes to be terrified, right, So we like to add the scary elements, but also add elements where people can just hang out and have a good time and celebrate Halloween.

Are you happy or sad that you're right before the election.

I think people need a diversion, so I think, of course they do. Yeah.

I think people want to get out and not think about things. And ultimately that's what we provide. You know, if we give you thirty minutes where you're not thinking about anything else while you're in a haunted house, I think that's you.

Think people are think prepping for the civil war that's a coming. Ah God, I hope not all right, Chris, Well, I know you have to get back to work.

I know I'm gonna bring my new chainsaw get back to work with you. Thank you for being on the show.

Yeah, I appreciate it.

Thanks, ma'am Casha.

I want to thank Chris for being on the show. That was delightful. Yeah, I'm not into being scared, speaking of things I don't enjoy. Nazis. You see a swastika and you know that is bad?

Right?

Yep?

Yeah?

Where are you guys at on the Rising Sun flag? The wartime flag during World War Two from Japan?

Correct?

I don't ever trust anything that I say, but I'm told that some people, you know, view that similar to a Nazi flag, and I was unaware of that. And then the other day I was organizing my belt drawer. Do you have a belt drawer? Doesn't matter? And I see this belt that I own, and I'm like, is that the Rising Sun flag on my belt? And I never knew about this? Is that what that is?

Sure looks like it?

Sure looks like it, right? So I'm like, I can't wear this belt? And whose fault is this? Carrie?

Carrie my styl is.

She buys all my stuff, and she's buying me basically a Nazi belt. I had no idea. Are you guys aware of this or not?

I was not aware. You're not aware of it.

I'll tell you the real irony here the back of this belt, I don't know if you can zoom in on that says made in China. Wow, you telling me that the Chinese people were making his belt. Go on, these assholes really rubbing it in our face with all their war atrocities. Anyway, I'm not gonna uh, I'm just gonna get rid of this belt. I'm not gonna give it to anyone. I'm just gonna throw it away now. I don't know why I didn't flag it pun intended the first time I saw it and put it in

At this, look at here.

By the way, I could be completely wrong and that flag's not offensive, but I just, you know, I like to air on the side of what the fuck and just blame carry anyway, all right, it's time for some plugs, and we got some good plugs. Now you ready for this, Carl boyswarpink dot com, Uh, tossshowstore dot com, get your Toss Show merch and then get a free tickle if you see me in the streets. Go to Eddie Goosling dot com. Check out his tour dates. Go to Danieltosh

Not so new.

It's been like a couple of months, right the free plug hit the free plug music Eddie. Oh look at this. I didn't know the music was gonna change every week.

I like it.

I got my knee, my glasses for this. Today's free plug is for those of you and us. Go to Michigan. October twenty six at seven pm is opening night for the Shoreline Players production of The Adams Family, a New Musical Comedy. Tickets are fifteen dollars for adults and ten dollars for students, which seems like a steal. Ten dollars to see The Adams Family, a New Musical Comedy. Well, let's just say you live in a Tawa city or Saginaw. You can't make it up to Oscota for opening night.

Now go get yourself something car.

What do you think of that idea? You dying over there? Your hair looks cute, a little top pony. All right, guys, we gotta get out of here. See you next week.