Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, appearing at Knotts Berry Farm and more

[RobertB]

     Elvira, host of Movie Macabre from the 1980's and from 2011-2012, is appearing at the Knotts Berry Farm amusement park in the Los Angeles area during the month of October.  It's song and dance stage show to celebrate Halloween.  Hmm, I'm trying to figure out which weekend I can get over there to see the show.  http://www.elvira.com
     Elvira shows up again at the Comikaze Expo, the first November weekend, in Los Angeles.  Still trying to decide whether I should stand in-line for hours just to get into Comikaze.  http://comikazeexpo.com

          Truly,
          Robert Bernardo
          Fresno Commodore User Group
          http://videocam.net.au/fcug

[RobertB]

     I saw Elvira's Sinister Seance show in the Charles Schulz Theatre at Knotts Berry Farm last Saturday.  I had never been to a KBF Haunt experience before.  What an experience!  Starting at 7 p.m., the amusement park came alive with zombies roaming the streets, trying to scare unsuspecting females and couples by screaming at them and jumping at them.  The smoke/fog machines blew mist into the air, the mist hanging in the air, obscuring the already dark streets.  It took me about 50 minutes to find the theatre, the map leading me one way, a park employee sending me another way, then another employee sending me the way back the way from which I had come.  I still arrived with over an hour to spare before the 9 p.m. show.  Time for me to rest and drink the $3.85 bottle of Coke bought in the park.  And that was cheap refreshment there!  Finally, the crowd was let in past the chain, and we stood in line again for over 1/2 an hour before the doors were opened.
    I rushed for a front row seat in the modern auditorium.  Great location!  A bit past 9 the show began.  Mist, zombie dancers, a wall-sized video screen of Halloween animation, and finally Elvira singing and emerging from behind the screen!  Some more dancing by her and the dancers (the dancers doing most of the strenous moves) and then she went into a comedy routine, telling jokes and pulling audience members onto the stage to get in on the jokes.  A demonic voice from the loudspeakers then blares out, and she rushes off stage in mock terror.  A surprise -- a humourous video is shown on the screen, starring Elvira and lampooning well-known terror movies, like The Birds, Silence of the Lambs, and others whose names I have forgotten (shaky-cam movie of teenagers in the woods, night-vision cam movie of woman in the house haunted by ghosts).
     Then Elvira returns on-stage with a sparkly maroon dress, instead of the previous sparkly black dress.  She tells some more jokes and bids "unpleasant dreams" to the audience.  After the 9 p.m. show is over, the Elvira organizer comes on-stage to introduce about a dozen Elvira impersonators in a contest to see who is the best.  The winner, chosen by the audience, was.... Eric!  He received lots of Elvira memorabilia as his prize.
     I went to the Elvira Boo-tique across the street and bought $50 worth of Elvira DVDs, which gave me the right to get Elvira's autograph when she was to show up at the Boo-tique from 10:30 to 11:30.  About 35 people were in line, and I was near the end.  When I met her, I gave her one of the DVD covers to autograph.  She asked my name for the personalization, and I mentioned that I had to see her at KBF, because I didn't think I would be able to make it to her Comikazee Expo in Los Angeles the first weekend in November.  She replied that it was coming soon.  I thanked her and then left.
     I wanted to go to the 12:30 show (well, I did pay about $72...$73 to get into KBF, and I wanted my money's worth!), and I was hungry.  Johnny Rocket's Restaurant had a chicken sandwich at over $9.  I went to the competing 1950's restaurant on the other side of the roller-coaster and got a chicken sandwich at around $8.
     Then it was time to rush back in line for the second show.  The same waiting in line and then the rush to the best seats in the place.  I got the front row again, except this time more to the right and forward of the thrust stage.  In other words, I would be seeing the left side of Elvira when she went out on that stage.  This time about 1/2 of the Elvira impersonators were in the audience, seated near the front.  The show started, and basically everything was the same as the earlier show.  A few of Elvira's ad-libs were different, but everything mostly stayed on-script.  After this show, there was no extra Elvira entertainment, and I left as quickly as I could... which was not very fast, due to the darkness, the man-made fog, and the winding streets of KFB.  I made it back to my hotel just before 2 a.m..

          Thinking of Elvira Commodore software
          for her to autograph next time,
          Robert Bernardo
          Fresno Commodore User Group
          http://videocam.net.au/fcug
          The Other Group of Amigoids
          http://www.calweb.com/~rabel1/
          Southern California Commodore & Amiga Network
          http://www.sccaners.org

[RobertB]

I saw Elvira's Sinister Seance show in the Charles Schulz Theatre at Knotts Berry Farm last Saturday.

Elvira returns to showcase her "abilities" at Knotts Berry Farm, starting this Sept. 25 and going through Halloween.  See

http://elvira.hostedbywebstore.com/Tour/b/5682982011?ie=UTF8&title=Tour

Then as Cassandra Peterson, she will be at the Comikaze Expo on Nov. 1-2 in Los Angeles.  I wonder if I can make any of those dates.

I went to the Elvira Boo-tique across the street and bought $50 worth of Elvira DVDs...

Darn!  Now the complete collection of her 26-episode Movie Macabre is going to be released.  See

http://tvshowsondvd.com/news/Movie-Macabre-Coffin-Collection/20083

          Perhaps I should have waited for the complete collection,
          Robert Bernardo
          Fresno Commodore User Group
          http://www.dickestel.com/fcug.htm
          July 26-27 Commodore Vegas Expo v10 2014 -
          http://www.portcommodore.com/commvex

[RobertB]

     On Saturday, Oct. 31, instead of staying at home to greet the trick-or-treaters, I traveled to Anaheim's Knotts Berry Farm to see Elvira's latest show, Elvira's Haunted Asylum.  I checked into the Knight's Inn about 4 miles away from Knotts Berry and was pleased to find the hotel had gone through some upgrades since I last stayed there 2 years ago.  Then I went off to the amusement park, went through the streamlined security check, and walked straight to the theatre in the back of the park.  Because I was a couple of hours early for the show, I visited the souvenir's boutique next door to the theatre and bought $50 worth of Elvira mementos, the minimum needed for getting an autograph from Elvira after the 9 p.m. show.
     Since I had been here 2 years ago, I knew where to wait before the show and when to stand in line.  Finally, the doors opened, and everybody rushed for the best seats.  I took one near the front, a bit to the right, with a good view, because I was going to video-record the show this time.  Instead of my usual Canon videocamera, I had the smaller Nikon S6300 digital camera which had 1080p video-recording.  As we showgoers sat, up on the projection screens were film clips of Elvira in the news, in various shows, and in music videos.  The most interesting music video was a great, bluesy rock song with Ryan Adams singing to Elvira.  (Do a Google search of the video of Ryan Adams and Elvira.)
     The show then began.  I had forgotten how Las Vegas-like the show was -- the lights, the sound, the video projections, the dancers, and then Elvira herself coming out to do her comedic routine.  Fun!  I was able to get a pretty good video of the show, though the person's head in front of me blocked some of the view (had to move the camera from one side to the other to get past that head).
     After the show, it was back to the boutique to wait in line for Elvira's autograph.  She sat at a gothic table, and when I stood in front of her, I unfurled the Elvira's Big Top poster for her to sign.  I asked her if it was true that she had new Elvira programs streaming off the Internet.  She couldn't quite remember (because she had some much going on), but her dour assistant reminded her that those programs were on Hulu+ and Vudu.  I joked that I'd have to find some high-speed connection, because all I had was dial-up, and she laughed.
     I waited for the 11:30 show, and basically it was the same, except for a few flubs on the jokes.  She remarked that it was the last show of the Asylum run and that a few mistakes were allowed.  I tried video-recording the second show (just in case the first recording was not good enough), and I got about halfway through the show before the battery on my camera gave up.  Oops!  Well, I enjoyed the rest of the show without having to worry about technical matters.
     When the show was over, I wound my way out of the park, with a brief stop-over to look at the Knotts Berry mini-museum where they showed photos and trivia from past Scary Farm events, including Elvira's stage shows.
     The next day I went off to Comikaze at the L.A. Convention Center to see William Shatner speak about his new project, the animated Man of War comic book.  He was to be part of a panel discussion, and this time I had my videocamera for the shoot.  I arrived about 15 minutes early and caught the tail end of Keir Dullea and Gary Lockwood reminiscing about their time filming 2001: A Space Odyssey.  Very, very interesting!  Too bad I had not arrived earlier.  Then the Shatner contingent came on stage.  My friends, Jane and Sandy of the William Shatner & Friends fan club, were there in the crowd, too, and after Bill spoke, we went off to look at the rest of Comikaze.

          That took a few hours,
          Robert Bernardo
          Fresno Commodore User Group
          http://www.dickestel.com/fcug.htm