Category: Sleepy Hollow Sports Park

Barnum/Bussey Circus of Freaks

I previously hosted the website for Circus of Freaks in Bussey, Iowa. The last time I posted about them was in 2020 when they announced they would not operate that year but stated “huge things are coming for the circus. (Ah, Covid, we lost so many things to you that year).

At the time, I had a site category of “Circus of Freaks” for them. With the new-for-2023 Barnum Circus of Freaks, I kept accidentally using the old “Circus of Freaks” category in posts about them. I have now renamed both categories so we will have:

  • Bussey Circus of Freaks
  • Barnum Circus of Freaks

And they both start with ‘B’ so I’ll try hard to select the correct one. For now, I think I have the Barnum posts updated to use their new category.

I also added a new tag in the Directory for “Women Owned“, assigning it to Barnum. I may need to add “Women Managed” as well since in her recent video interview she mentioned this.

I need to see if there are more. Tormented Souls Haunt is led by Kumari Henry (she’s the Walt Disney of that operation), and Haunted Woods is led by Marilyn Harris. They might need one or both of these tags added. I am not sure how many women-owned haunts we have had in this area, but Ankeny Haunted Barn was ran by Mindy Bales after her husband passed, then later ran by her daughter and sons. Going back twenty years, several of the haunted houses at Sleepy Hollow were designed and managed by women. Have there been many/any others?

More to come…

2006 videos found!

I did my first haunted house video in 2005 – a TV commercial for Sleepy Hollow Sports Park‘s “Fear 2005” Halloween event. In 2006, I began what would become a 31-part series covering the Sleepy Hollow Sports Park haunted houses. These videos were available in a video podcast (for the iPod with Video, if anyone is only enough to remember that). The videos had to be made tiny (320×240) for easy download.

Later videos in the series (starting in 2007) were also uploaded to 2006, but as far as I remember, the first eight episodes were only available through that video podcast.

Or so I thought.

Last night I discovered I made a DVD of them. It contained 7 episodes of the video podcast (in full size DVD quality) as well as the TV commercials from that year. I seem to remember it also had a hidden easter egg for a secret video. I do not recall how to get to it, but I will be trying to figure it out.

DVD main menu from 2006

Even if I cannot find the original video files, I should at least be able to pull video from this disc and make this available on YouTube.

More to come…

UPDATE: I found the easter egg. Or at least, I thought I dad. I have recollections of adding easter eggs in other DVDs I made, but when I tried that here, I got a dead end.

But some random trial-and-error led me to this screen. I have only managed to get to it once, but knowing my sense of humor, this screen saying there is no easter egg is probably where the easter egg is.

UPDATE UPDATE: Found it! I don’t know how, but I found it.

Oh man, DVD easter eggs. Those were fun. I’d forgotten all about them… Now to see what all is on this hidden menu…

This will be fun…