Haunted Happenings
For the first time since I moved to Los Angeles, I got to take in Knott's 'Scary' Farm. I've been a huge fan of Halloween ever since I was a little kid and I had an absolute blast.
We had a huge group of ten (Lazlo's amazing coat making it pretty much eleven) and hit the park right when it opened at 7:00. Apparently, they shut down Knott's Berry Farm for a few hours to make the transformation to the Halloween theme parked in the evening.
The place is pretty amazing with the entire park done up. They don't allow guests to wear any costumes, so all of the costumed creatures wandering around the park are employees. Good call, that, as I can imagine the nightmare of trying to ID a lineup of 13 Freddy Kreugers after your wallet was stolen.
There was this pretty elaborate stage presentation entitled "The Hanging". It was one of those theme park type stunt shows and at first I was apprehensive. I've been to more than a few of these types of shows and they can really end up being lame. This one, I'm happy to say, pleasantly surprised me.and it was one of the more impressive things I've seen in a long time. Actors were coming in and out of the stage at a breathtaking pace and the show was pretty funny. It contained more jokes and pop culture references than anything I've seen in a long time. Kind of like the movie Airplane with one joke on top of another on top of another. Parodies of Dick Cheney, Jay and Silent Bob, Capt. Jack Sparrow,
Britney, Superman, the X-Men and finally the hanging of Mel Gibson. What shocked me about the show was that it was so overtly sexual and one of the most un-p.c. presentations I've ever seen. Stuff like Jack Sparrow's name being changed to "Jack Swallows...captain of the Black Pearl Necklace" as well as Mel's doppleganger calling one of the executioners "sugartits". Lots of dick, fart and gay jokes as thrown in with the pop culture and blood packs. Good times.
We got to take in some of the roller coasters as well with the X-celerator being my favorite. It's a 25 second trip in which you start off with an acceleration to 80 mph in TWO SECONDS. It was the most intense thing I've ever felt. My friend Kurtis (pictured behind Amber and I, below) made it about halfway through the line before calling it quits. He then had to make the 
walk of shame through the line back out the gate. For a 25 second roller coaster he will now have to endure a lifetime of grief from us. Poor dude.
There were about 6 or 7 haunted house type mazes, all with different themes. The Grudge was represented, a haunted high school, "Lost" Vegas as well as a few 3D mazes. I, for one, was confused at that concept since pretty much any maze would be in three dimensions if you were actually walking through it. I don't need 3D glasses to see my computer...but what the heck, in the spirit of the holiday I popped on the glasses and walked through like everyone else.
I can neither confirm nor deny that one of the haunted house guys jumped from the ceiling on a bungee chord and touched my head, causing me to jump out of my skin, emit a sound from my mouth not found in nature and forced my fists up ready to "go".
As my friend Todd said, "what happens in the maze stays in the maze."
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