Yapjaw: Oops All Halloween II
Slackjaw readers and patrons of comedy, my name is Adam Dietz and I am the editor of Slackjaw’s monthly newsletter Yapjaw. Each month, I will showcase the best and brightest humor on Slackjaw in addition to some other cool stuff from equally cool spots.
Do comedy and horror work hand in hand? You better believe they do! Beloved films franchises like The Evil Dead, Scream, Child’s Play, and many others, have all worked to blend the spooky and the silly to (varying) returns. Ask your dead grandparents about Abbott & Costello hanging with the Wolfman, Dracula, and Frankenstein’s Monster. It was a gas!
But Horror Comedy or Comedy Horror genre, depending on which genre you respect more, is not just limited to film or television. This month’s newsletter will seek to showcase some of the premier writing of the blended genre.
On this week’s edition of Yapjaw, we’re talking all things spooky, scary, and that go bump in the night. Want the goods? Keep reading!
Slackjaw’s Scariest in Show:
I Don’t Celebrate Halloween, I Just Like To Give Out Candy While Dressed In Costume by Rochelle E. Fisher in Slackjaw
How To Die Mysterious by Laura Belinsky-Schine in Slackjaw
Quiz: Are You Shopping With Your Family At IKEA, Or Are You Jack Torrance In The Shining? by Sianna Lani in Slackjaw
How To Terrify Your Friends Into Listening To Your New Podcast by Alex Baia in Slackjaw
Sacred Heart Elementary Drama Department Addresses Your Parental Concerns About The Third Grade Production Of The Crucible by Emily Duke in Slackjaw
My Thicc-Boi Pumpkin by Adam Dietz in Slackjaw
Ghastly Work From Other Ghastly Places:
Seven Things That Seem Spooky but Are Completely Normal Parts of Staying at a Cabin in Fall by Sarah Gardner in Points In Case
I’m the Adult in This Horror Movie and You Kids Better Not Be Doing Anything Supernatural in There by Scarlet Meyer in Points In Case
This Ghost Is Haunting Me Weird by Colin Nissan in McSweeney’s
LinkedIn Recommendations For Halloween by Mike Calahan & Edna Constantino in Weekly Humorist
Dead-ditor’s Note:
Back in 2017, I went on a ghost tour at bar that was alleged to have been a former brothel. On the whole, the ghost tour was extremely slapdash and low-rent, which ultimately made it scarier. Rhonda, our tour guide, was a little rough around the edges, but she seemed to believe what she was saying. She asked if she could smoke while she gave the tour, but when it came out of her mouth, it didn’t really feel like much of a question.
And so we toured the upstairs of the bar where the brothel had allegedly been. They’d done up the small rooms like hotel rooms using Goodwill furniture and clothing to create crude reenactments of how it might have looked way back when. And we heard all of these tragic tales, from Rhonda, of young girls who’d died at the brothel. If the stories were true, then they very sad. If they weren’t true, they were still pretty sad. Near the end of the tour we were allowed to kind of go off on our own, a small group kind of scattered throughout a couple of hallways. It was during this brief period (2–3 minutes) that my dad shouted very loudly that something had grabbed his butt.
Rhonda smiled knowingly at this. It was the only time she smiled the whole night. It was as if she had expected this to happen. She said that someone on the tour almost always got their butt grabbed. There was a ghost she had nicknamed Marilyn, who “liked men.” I’ve since considered the possibility that my dad had made the whole thing up, but I kind of doubt it. Rhonda said that ghosts grabbed butts up there and when Rhonda says something like that, you just kind of have to believe her.
The Final Breath:
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Until the next edition of Yapjaw, stay spooky.
