So with my decision to jump back in this Halloween, I soon started thinking ahead to another month of spooky, fun content for the blog. And of course, one of the first things I thought about was music. Music has always played an integral part of my Halloween season, and by extension, my life in general.
I started researching new options for my Freebie Fridays segments, where I share gems from my ever-increasing collection of old novelty Halloween "spooky sounds" records, cassettes and CDs throughout the month of October. I quickly realized that I had shared everything in my current collection, so it was time to go out and snap up a few more classics.
And I came upon a Halloween holy grail that I somehow hadn't heard of before...
The Johnson-Smith Novelty Company Horror Record!
Seven full inches of glorious Halloween novelty record cheese. Chock full of hilariously bad and poorly produced sound effects. Originally sold along side whoopie cushions and x-ray specs through ads in the back pages of horror comics and similar publications of the 1970s. I knew I had to add this one to the collection.
And while I still don't own a copy yet, I DID find something way more amazing than the record itself.
About 15 years ago, Jason Ellis, head curator of the absolutely amazing Scar Stuff blog, decided to take his love of this record to the next level. He took the original audio and animated it using the incredible art of Eerie Publications' classic horror comics. The same comics that housed the those original Johnson-Smith ads that you could have bought this record from.
And the results are simply stunning! This video quickly made the rounds when it was first released, but I thought it was time to share this one again. It's just too damn good not to!
