Halloween Horror Nights history starts here: Matt and Quint kick off their year-by-year coverage with 1991, when Universal Studios Florida’s first Halloween event wasn’t even called Halloween Horror Nights. It was Fright Nights, the only year Orlando used that name. It ran just three nights, from 6 p.m. to midnight, offered a single haunted house, and an advance ticket cost $12.95.
Matt walks through the original press release, which wasn’t issued until October 22, 1991. He also covers the Orlando Sentinel and WKCF-TV 18 “guess the ghoul” ticket giveaway and the “Dying for a Good Halloween Party” ad campaign. Quint adds a Canadian view on how Halloween has grown, from costumes that had to fit over snowsuits to UNICEF boxes.
The centerpiece is the Dungeon of Terror, built in the queue of the closed Jaws ride. It featured a six-foot spider, closing walls, slamming doors and a live hanging. It also had a plexiglass floor with the first appearance of the now-infamous Rat Lady sealed in a crypt underneath. The hosts also explore the street entertainment that filled the park that year.
In this episode:
- Why the 1991 event was called Fright Nights
- Sideshow acts such as the Human Pincushion, the Elastic Woman and Dragon Breath fire eater
- Beetlejuice’s Dead in Concert featuring the Ghostbusters, with a young Wayne Brady as Winston
- The Beetlejuice Graveyard Tours, the Thunderdome sacrifice show and Main Stage Madness with Paul Revere and the Raiders
- Classic rides open that night, most of them long gone, like Back to the Future and Kongfrontation
- Dream haunted house pitches: classic monsters mashed up with Aliens vs. Predator, and a Borg cube
Next up: 1992, the first year officially called Halloween Horror Nights.
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