To begin to understand how the Halloween Haunt came to be, we need to understand who Bill Hollingshead was and what type of duties he had at Knott's Berry Farm...
I was the Entertainment Manager, which would be the equivalent to the Director of Entertainment or even Vice President of Entertainment. I reported directly to a [Knott] family member, as they were similar to a Board of Directors. It was a family partnership and it was not a corporation. All of their financial figures and their attendance did not need to be exposed and so they were pretty tight with their information.
As I had a department where on a peak day, in the summer, I would sign as many as 174 time cards. I had 4 supervisors under me: Supervisor of the Sound Department, Ground Talent Supervisor, Theater Supervisor and Acquisition of Musical Groups.
I oversaw the department, the budget and the themed entertainment, but the most important job that I had was booking the celebrity talent. Not only booking, but negotiating in the price and picking the right acts to pack the place. In fact, from what I understand, when I left, they had to replace me with three different people!
Prior to working for the Knott family, Mr. Hollingshead built a foundation for what would help in his creation of the Halloween Haunt. Using the Universal Monsters for promotions, he was able to discover that the public was fascinated with being scared.
I think I can admit now, in public, that I used to be in the carnival circuit. I worked for a company that had a license with Universal pictures. We were actually out in shopping centers and were tied in with a greeting card product that we were selling. We had the rights to present Frankenstein, Wolfman, Dracula and the Mummy, which were the main ones we used. The Mole Man and The Living Brain From Outer Space were also used as well. People kind of trampled the greeting card displays because they wanted to see the monsters and we said, "Hmmm, we're selling the wrong thing!"
I was working as a booking agent up in Sacramento when this greeting card company went through. To me, they were running it incorrectly. They weren't running it cost effectively and it wasn't making any sense. I said, "Let me go out with you guys for about 2 weeks and we'll shape it up."
I learned how to put this together. In fact, I went into Detroit and rented a mobile home, blacked out all of the windows, set up a ticket box, put the monsters in, hired people off the street and made a show up out of nothing just by flying in. That's how fly by the seat of your pants we were and how innovative we were.
We built out a 70-foot show and we presented Frankenstein, Wolfman and Count Dracula - appearing live and in person! You couldn't really categorize it. It wasn't a Dark Ride because you didn't go through it in a car, but it was more frightening because you walked through the dark catacombs where you would meet The Mummy - Live and In Person! They were "Live Flesh and Blood! Their Flesh - Your Blood!"
3 years later..! I was still running one of the units and I'd taken it all over the United States. We were with the Royal American Shows that won (at the time) the largest railroad carnival! 107 box cars! It was as big as Barnum and Bailey Circus. It was overwhelming!
By the time that Mr. Hollingshead worked for the Knott family, a special telephone call sparked the idea for what was to become the Halloween Haunt.
When I was at Knott's Berry Farm in 1972, I got a call from a guy named Gary Blair, who was the manager of Larry Vincent, who was Seymour. He said, "Bill, we tried this a little bit at another park, but it didn't work because we didn't have it environmentally controlled. I understand you have a theater with a Cinemascope Screen and two 35mm movie projectors. Why don't we put Seymour in there and run a big Halloween event?" And I thought, "Hey, we could do that!"
The first step was to present the idea to the Knott family.
Daryl Anderson [a Knott grandson] was the person that I reported to and we got along very well. He was a born again Christian and was involved in the Calvary Church. Daryl said, "The event is okay with me. I agree with it, but the Halloween Haunt implies the Devil, Satan, Hell and evil spirits. I just as soon personally not be a part of it. You guys go ahead." We respected his wishes and he didn't participate in it.
Here was one of the Knott family members who stepped aside. He was around but he did not participate.
Once Daryl Anderson gave the approval, he proposed the idea to the rest of the Knott family in a "family only" meeting. The rest of the family was sold on the concept and the ideas began to flow from the different departments throughout the park. The background that Mr. Hollingshead had in using the Universal Monsters would come in very, very useful.
Keep in mind this is September of 1972. So, I met with George Condos, who was Director of Advertising at Knott's Berry Farm and Martha Boyd, who was his assistant (who also wrote copy and advertisement layout). We said this could be an incredible, special event - hard ticket.
We could bring in the monsters (we wouldn't advertise them because I was aware of the copyright laws. We wouldn't say Frankenstein, Wolfman and the Mummy. We would just put them in).
I had been a fan of sideshows ever since I was a little kid. I would see the Headless Lady balanced on the sword and Spidora: The Spider Lady. I knew that those were the types of things people really loved because it was SO hokey! Really cornball! And I say that with great warmth in my heart!
We had produced some shows with Chuck Jones, the Magician and I called him up and asked if we could make some illusions and he said we sure could. We got into about the third weekend of September and said there's just not enough time! I called Gary back and said, "Call me back in the spring of next year and let's just really make something out of this!"
So the Haunt's birth was put off for one year so enough time could be utilized to put the event together correctly. Months later, ideas for the event would begin.
So now we're going for the premiere year: 1973. I met with George Condos and Martha Boyd again and had conversations with Sandy Parker, who was the Theater Manager of what was then called the John Wayne Theater. She said, "Well you know, I have makeup artists and all of the theater people. We could do costumes and set designs with fake cobwebs, old U.S. army camouflage netting and drape it over the overlays of the shacks and make them creepy." This is where Gene Witham came in and he was on the ground floor for the very first year.
We had a lot of rain that first year. They built a lot of framework fronts that were out in front of the shacks. They hung old stained fabric and they either spray painted it olive green (or some such thing) and whacked it all up so it looked creaky and creepy; like old moss. It was really hokey and cornball!
I actually have a manual here from 1976. A 206 page manual on how to produce the "Halloween Haunt'. So if you would like to call, it's area code….
That first year, in our eyes, was kind of marginally amateurish, but when night came around, it was really scary!
Of course, the event needed a name that would fit the theme…
It was Martha Boyd who came up with the name, "Halloween Haunt". I give her that credit because she said she had this great name. Of course, the alliteration of the same letter of each word, "Halloween Haunt" was great.
To think about what the event's turnout was that first year is quite amazing as guests lined up even then!
I believe in 1973, we were renovating the Gypsy Camp, so we lost that whole section of the park. We had limited acreage. We had to shut down the ticket box! We turned away people at the first Halloween Haunt! We couldn't them in! It was that popular! So we said, "hmm, we have a hit on our hands."
And what was that? 30 years ago? It just kept growing and growing.
In Gene Witham's interview, he talked in-depth about the first Halloween Haunt host, Seymour, and in 1974, Moona Lisa joined him. The next host would skyrocket the popularity of the event.
After Seymour, we said (and believe me, this is exactly how it came out), "We can't just do this with just Moona Lisa, who can we do this with? We got the Universal Monsters. We have Frankenstein, Count Dracula, the Mummy and Wolf…
...Man Jack!!
A natural! The Wolfman!"
I called up Don Kelly, who was Wolfman's personal manager and I said, "Don, we want to replace Seymour with Wolfman Jack and make him the star of the 1975 Halloween Haunt." I hung up the phone and the tires screeched outside the building. He came down from Los Angeles and we laid out the show in about an hour. We could put Frankenstein in the show with a band and do The Monster Mash. We had three girl singers and we put them in witch costumes.
Wolfman…was well, Wolfman! What did he do? He was a non-talent celebrity is what you might call him, but he was a character!
Not only creating the Halloween Haunt, Mr. Hollingshead did an incredible amount for the park as a whole to help it keep up with the growing amusement park industry.
I was there six years and I received seven merit raises in that time because I had developed the celebrity program. In other words, when I first got there, I asked, "Where are your handbills to show the people where the shows are?" Knott's said, "We don't have one." "How do the people know that there's a show at the Wagon Camp?" "Well…they sort of just stumble across it."
In 1975, we increased the park attendance from 3.2 million to 4.1. I was there until 1976.
When it was time for Mr. Hollingshead to leave Knott's Berry Farm, the work that he did for the park did not go unnoticed.
I will always think with such a warm heart toward Marion [Knott] and the family. They said, "Bill, when somebody resigns we usually give you a cardboard box, have you clean out your top drawer, don't touch the files and walk you to the car. Why don't you stay until November and stay qualified for your employee cash benefit program and also get one more year on you defined benefit pension plan?" So I still worked there through that November.
Mr. Hollingshead, along with a handful of fellow employees helped the event come to be. The different duties mixed with the enthusiasm to make the Halloween Haunt come to life built the foundation that the event stands on to this day.
My responsibility for the last Halloween Haunt was the production of the show in the theater. Prior to that year, I oversaw the entire project and that's what this manual is about. It's an accumulation of four years of how it worked and how we made it work.
My forte was celebrity talent. Seymour is the celebrity and what do you do? Take a celebrity and build a theme around it and then you build theme shows around the theme. Very simple, but there's not too many people in the world who know how to do it. I give credit to Sandy Parker who said "We have Gene Witham and he can do the makeup."
Of course, Bud Hurlbut is the grand old man of the Mine Ride and the Log Ride and he was very revered as a pioneer in those major themed rides. He said, "We could take the ride operators and put them in some old bum costume and as the log came around they could come out from behind the wall and scare the heck out of people."
I must also mention Gary Salisbury because he was the street character supervisor. He had the gunfighters and the horror character-type things happening in the Ghost Town area. Everyone rose to the occasion. We started with just two days and now what is it? 21 days? It probably goes down in history as one of the largest revenue producing, one themed event ever to be produced in an amusement park…and I cry every night because I don't get any royalties!
Mr. Hollingshead was indeed the person to put this together. He left a legacy that has stood incredibly strong since 1973. Different ideas flowing together made the event come to be.
I have great memories about the event. It was an idea coupled with a name like the "Halloween Haunt". It was almost like that Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney movie, "Well, my dad has a barn and well, my cousin plays the piano. Let's put on a show!" Seymour shows up and that was kind of the spark!
It pleases me to know that I left a legacy. It also pleases me even more that somebody has come around and says, "Hey, weren't you the guy who put this thing together?" And I look around and say, "Yeah….yeah, I was that guy!"
Ultimatehaunt.com would like to thank Bill Hollingshead for allowing us to share his story with all of you. The mystery is over. In the amount of time that Ultimatehaunt.com has been online, the question always arises, "How did the event start?" Well, we all know now. There will always be mystery in the early years of the Halloween Haunt (what the mazes were like, what the shows were like, what the monsters were like, etc.), but we now can fully understand the conception of the event. Hopefully now, you can have an even greater appreciation for what the Halloween Haunt is and the foundation that it stands on. If it were not for Mr. Hollingshead, Halloween Haunt would not exist and quite possibly, Knott's Berry Farm would be just a faded memory of an old and retired amusement park somewhere in Orange County.
Interview conducted September, 2002.