For more than 7 years, it’s been known as the Big Scary Show to the prominent players in the Halloween industry. A podcast that has listeners from coast-to-coast, that’s both respected and admired.
Briefly, let me say that The Big Scary Show are sponsors, and subscribers of Halloween Living Magazine. But that’s not why I wrote this article. I wrote it as a fan. A fan that became a listener two years ago, and had the good fortune of stumbling passed their booth at the 2019 Transworld Halloween and Attractions Show in St. Louis, where I quickly learned that they are just as gracious and genuine in person as they are “on air.”
Therefore, it begs the question: who is behind The Big Scary Show?
They are the informative Four Horseman of the Halloween nation. No. I’m not referring to the apocalypse as suggested in the Book of Revelations, with the rider’s symbolizing Conquest, War, Famine and Death, and dispatching news of the apocalypse. On the contrary, they’re more like John, Paul, George and Ringo cruising in The Munster’s Dragula through the online air waves with screeching inventiveness, on a vigorous campaign to enlighten and update their listeners with episodes of the latest Halloween happenings, haunted attraction insider information, and interviews with top entertainment personalities all year long.
What’s more, their dynamic and compelling listener interaction is the secret sauce of this prominent podcast radio show. Engaging top guests such as, Larry Kirchner of Haunt World Magazine (Episode 46), Ed Douglas and Gavin Goszhka musical geniuses from Midnight Syndicate (Episode 64), and actor Nancy Allen famously known for Carrie and Robocop (Episode 28), only reinforce their enormous popularity and crackling sense of immediacy and intimacy that distinguishes The Big Scary Show from all other podcast media. Lively, yet entertaining play between guest(s) and host validates, for everyone else listening, that they’ve chosen the right show, the place where all of the informative Halloween fun is happening.
For these reasons, they’re one of the more popular and prominent guests at the most highly regarded Halloween trade shows and conventions in America like Transworld, Hauntcon, and Midsummer Scream, bringing with them their stylish brand of knowledgeable Halloween industry news and entertainment that’s decades in the making.
So…let’s meet these Grimm Guardians of Ghoulish entertainment.
Drew Badger (aka, Rabid Badger)
Co-founder and main host of The Big Scary Show, Drew’s steep knowledge and deep, resonating voice encapsulates his audience as he engages his guests with discussions ranging from topics facing the mom and pop haunted house owners, the lives of national celebrities, and the always interesting and sophisticated round-table discussions about anything and everything pertaining to Halloween and the haunted attraction business.
Drew grew up just outside Raleigh, North Carolina where his love of Halloween began as the neighborhood trick-r-treat route planner, helping friends logistically locate the best houses for ghoulish goodies in record time. Little did he realize that this small, successful gesture would later become a stepping stone into professional acting at the 110 acre Scarowinds Haunted Attraction in Charlotte, North Carolina. A theme park flooded with thrill-seekers looking for a scare, and Drew didn’t disappoint as he made a living out of scaring the bah-gee-bees out of kids who dare detour through his path.
Drew was so good at it, in fact, he was the influence behind the creation of the Boo Actor Training Workshop in Charlotte, and later developed Rabid Badger Haunt Consulting where he’s worked with top haunters across the United States like The Ghost Ship (USS North Carolina), Heartstoppers Haunted House (Rancho Cordova, CA.), and The Hills Have Eyes (Franklin, WI.), just to name a few.
In addition to being a certified haunt trainer, Drew is also a haunt consultant, assisting haunters with recreating their basic attraction business models into professional style theme parks by facilitating acting workshops in safety, scare tactics, actor improvisation, as well as voice tracks for radio and television commercials. In so doing, turning them into state-of-the-art designed haunted attractions; taking them from the initial planning stage, to construction, until finally bringing the horror show spook-tacular into a real life experience. (www.rabidbadger.org)
Jim Millspaugh (aka, Meathook Jim– The Unknown Scare-Actor)
Jim is a Hamilton, Ohio resident. It was there that Jim developed his creative background and his love of Halloween by hiding around the house and scaring his mother at every turn at the tender age of 4-years old. Jim didn’t realize at the time that this would later catapult him into a lifetime love of the macabre.
Jim refined his incredible scare tactic talents, and became recognized and respected to every haunt that hired him. Working at local haunts with his gifted ability to frighten guests with ghoulish ingenuity. An ingenuity that propelled him into teaching his craft to others at professional acting seminars and notable haunted attractions such as Backwoodz Oddities, Dent Schoolhouse, Scare-a-Torium and Stillwell Manor. It wasn’t long before he was teaching seminars at the largest national Halloween and haunted attraction conventions, such as Hauntcon and the Midwest Haunters Convention.
He eventually went on to publish articles in scare-acting and scare-actor training in Haunter’s Digest, and across the pond in Europe’s infamous haunt publication, Scareworld Magazine, under his pseudo name, The Unknown Scare-Actor. He, along with his late business partner, Jason Henry, formed the Mobile Actors United Legion (MAUL), consisting of a select group of haunt actors that, for the past six years, travel throughout the country to provide queue line support for haunted attractions in places like Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio and Pennsylvania for haunts that need additional actor support.
Jerry Vayne (aka, The Haunt Rocker)
Like Meathook Jim, Jerry Vayne is also an Ohio resident, via Las Vegas and San Diego. A musician by trade. But, a scare master by heart. Unlike the other members of this quartet, Jerry practices his craft through music, and he’s made a life of it. He was a fixture in the San Diego music scene in the glam rock band, Foxy Roxx, playing area venues and collaborating on several CD’s before releasing a solo compilation in 2002.
However, Jerry decided to follow his Halloween passion, veering off and finding his niche in haunt metal music. He’s a music scholar who’s able to pinpoint sounds that scare you. The shrieking noises, unpleasant-sounding chords, sudden high notes — all combine to make us nervous and on edge.
He showcased this with the CD Damnations Embrace that was featured in popular haunts like Raycliff Manor (San Diego, CA) The USS Battleship North Carolina (Wilmington, NC), and Haunted Screams Amusement Park (Middletown, Ohio). Other tracks include Radiation Burns (The Toxic Waltz) used at the Toxicity Haunted Attraction in (College Corner, Ohio). In addition, Jerry’s incredible work from Damnation was also featured in popular horror films from Grindhouse Films and Scared-E-Cat-Pictures.
Jason Storm (aka, Storm)
Jason Storm hails from Warwick, Rhode Island, and a twenty-year well-rounded veteran of the haunted attraction industry, starting out as a scare actor and leveling up to set design and construction and voice work.
Since 2009, Jason has frequently been involved with several Halloween themed podcasts before joining the Big Scary Show in 2012. As a BSS podcast personality, he engages top haunt leaders to share extraordinary ideas, life hacks, and new business model ideas that’s both fascinating and mindful.
An accountant by trade, he utilized his business skills to be a haunt consultant, and assist haunters with his expertise sharing his knowledge and experience to help them attain their goals, solve technical problems with commercial and enterprise management, and marketing. Storm has done haunt consulting for some of the most prominent attractions on the east coast such as Spooky World in Foxboro, Massachusetts, and Highland Farms Trail’s to Terror in Wakefield, Rhode Island.
In their seven years of its existence, The Big Scary Show has become the standard for multiplatform Halloween podcast brand dominance. Its quest to become the future of Halloween entertainment news shows no signs of leveling off, with their vast audience and respectability coast-to-coast growing larger each year as the explosive popularity of Halloween expands beyond the month of October into a 365 day festival jamboree.
But BSS’s remarkable success and reputation have not come easy. These four crusaders staked their careers to follow a passion in a livelihood, with little journalistic training, relying on their vast haunted attraction experience and honest reputations and networking ability, to meet the uphill demand of catering to a demographic of untraditional festival holiday consumers and business experts that has invigorated this rag-tag quartet of resilient Halloween crusaders to make a difference and add value in the Halloween and haunted attraction community.
Therefore, if you’ve never listened, then I urge you to check it out for yourself by going to www.bigscaryshow.com. I assure you, you’ll be glad you did. Because if you are or wish to be involved in Halloween, they can be a tremendous resource. Their goal is to teach. Inform. And entertain. As well as be a motivating influence for current or aspiring Halloween entrepreneurs to live the Halloween Life.
Follow them on social media:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bigscaryshow
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/thebigscaryshow
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bigscaryshow
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