It’s hard for Cassandra Peterson, known to most as the quick-witted and sexy, antihero Elvira, to narrow down her favorite moments from four decades of live stage shows at Knott’s Scary Farm. Fronting a six-piece band in a couture costume after being scared by knee-sliding monsters is up there, next to the joy of watching Cher and her son in the audience while singing a parody of “Do You Believe in Life After Love” — in Elvira’s version, “Life After Death” — to a packed house of fans, friends and celebrities. For the record, Peterson’s Cher impersonation rivals Ru Paul’s; Elvira is a drag queen after all.
Many of the spontaneous, raunchy and hilarious moments that made Elvira’s show special will be highlighted at the upcoming “Yours Cruelly, Elvira XXPerience,” a retrospective at Knott’s Scary Farm that honors and celebrates her career within and beyond their seasonally spooky gates.
“I had been a singer and dancer my whole life, you know, not that I was a great one,” Peterson jokes, reflecting on the beginning of her 22 seasons of collaboration with Knott’s that started in 1981. The park offered Peterson the slot when Wolfman Jack stepped away from his annual show, having had success working with local TV personalities who specialized in the macabre. Peterson jumped at the opportunity to bridge her Las Vegas showgirl chops that she thought were behind her with her sketch comedy improv skills from the Groundlings, and her new Mistress of the Dark persona.
Elvira’s live show at Knott’s was a lot like a Las Vegas revue: flirty, spooky, and funny in her slapstick style. There were multiple showtimes a night, always incorporating a monologue, group choreography, live singing, costume changes, videos, practical effects, special guests like acrobats, and improv segments. The show was always rooted in the things that made Elvira Elvira. She brought old school references into conversation with contemporary pop culture; and parodied songs and films, including her own.
“I love performing onstage,” Peterson says, reflecting on how the instant feedback of working with a live audience was intoxicating. “If I could do one thing, it’d be live performing.”
Elvira’s ease as a performer and sense of humor drove her live shows, things she developed as a teenage showgirl before her Movie Macabre success. “I could see my feathers and not much else!” Peterson laughs, describing the cursed mix of thick eye shadow and bad vision that impacted her Vegas performances in the late 1960s. It was common for Peterson to run into walls, get caught in drapes, and nearly fall offstage, which inspired a hit act in which she did all the above, and was always saved from falling by a fellow showgirl. “I think that’s the appeal to the Elvira character,” Peterson says. “She comes off as dark, sexy, and spooky, and then all of a sudden she’s just a raving idiot, and a klutz that falls down, that Three Stooges kind of humor.”
Before working with the Mistress of the Dark, Knott’s Berry Farm Show Director Rob Perez’s teenage fandom was sparked by his mom, who was a huge fan because of everything Elvira stood for during an era when women on TV were pigeonholed to one-dimensional characters. “My mom was a little older than Cassandra and from a slightly different generation,” he says, “but there was something liberating for women of the 1980s — Elvira was so out there, she was funny. She could be self-deprecating but also pretty sassy, and she didn’t take any crap from anybody!”
Perez has worked intimately with Peterson since 1991. He’s had nearly every behind-the-scenes gig on the Knott’s Elvira show from audio tech, to programming giant old stacks of TVs, to graphics and voice-overs. His favorite role has been producing videos, like the seven-minute mini movie for the 2013 “Sinema Seance” show that parodied classic horror films. The “Blair Witch” scenes were shot in the presidential suite of the Knott’s Hotel, and a running-in-the-woods scene where Elvira trips was shot behind Calico River Rapids. They shot the “Silence of the Lambs” footage in the basement of the Hollywood Museum in the actual corridor where Hannibal Lecter’s prison cell scenes were filmed.
Elvira’s last show in 2017 is a fan and crew favorite. Written by a team that included Peterson, as well longtime collaborator John Paragon, and legendary drag persona Jackie Beat, it was a nod to Peterson’s 1988 film “Elvira: Mistress of the Dark.” Peterson decided to bring Beat in after seeing her annual parody drag show “Golden Girlz Live.” “I have 90 million drag queen friends. You know, my whole life I’ve been around nothing but drag queens. So working with Jackie was great because she’s just really funny and clever.”
Beat also played Buffy Moulding, the conservative head of BOOBS — the Buena Park Official Organization for a Better Society — a play on Edie McClurg’s character from the film. Moulding’s mission: to expunge the “Halloween Harlot” from the city. Complete with a dancing pitch-fork-wielding mob and critical jokes about book bans, the satirical character and the shooting of the scenes in the actual church that used to sit on Knott’s property, speaks to the tension between suburban conservatism and the resistance of subversive culture that is a palpable part of life for many in the area. Knott’s welcomed a gay takeover of the park during the same era that Halloween Haunt began, all while the on-site Church of Reflections hosted regular church services and same-sex dancing was outlawed down the street at Disneyland. No city, performer, or theme park, is a monolith.
Elvira’s crowds were always packed with celebrities like Jake Shears, Rob Zombie, Alice Cooper, Ariana Grande, Jack White and many others. Peterson’s dear friend and fellow Groundlings alum Paul Reubens, better known as Pee-wee Herman, reportedly never missed a year. Her zoom mic is propped up by the box to a Pee-wee Herman Chia pet, a deal Peterson helped him broker after he was green with envy over Elvira’s. While the celeb support was exciting for Peterson, it was the fans she really was performing for.
“I love my fans,” Peterson says, describing the special community-style relationships she’s developed. “I’ve grown up with a lot of them. I’ve known some of them since they were little tiny kids, and now they’re adults with kids, some of them grandparents, it’s kind of scary.”
Peterson has attended both weddings and funerals for her fans, and even met her social media manager when he was a child whose mother sneaked them both backstage to meet Elvira. She knows firsthand just how much it means for people to meet their heroes, having been a self-described “groupie” and “die-hard fan” of musicians when she was young. She credits Elvis Presley himself for changing her career after she sang for him in Las Vegas, and he told her she had a gift and had to get out. “If I have one minute to give to a fan, I will give it, because it’s a big deal. It’s life-changing, honestly. If Elvis hadn’t given me that advice, I’d probably be in Colorado Springs waiting tables.”
Knott’s and fandom go hand in hand. Perez says that when the park was working on its Ghost Town Alive revamp, it fully embraced the origins of Ghost Town characters who, before becoming paid actors, were community members who would show up to in cowboy outfits doing rope tricks in what Perez described as an early version of cosplay.
“It was fans who brought Ghost Town to life,” he says, “otherwise it would have just been a bunch of buildings.” Scary Farm continues this tradition in many ways, with a large community of Halloween and horror enthusiasts who fill Scary Farm’s streets as scare actors every year.
To be a fan can also be an art form. It can be a practice of study, and careful curation, bringing unexpected references into conversation from a unique position. When at its best, fandom is an act of curiosity, care, and a desire for connection to art that illuminates and animates yourself and the world in special ways.
Though Elvira is a character that Peterson developed, there is some overlap between the two. Peterson, just like Elvira, is a fan. She loved horror at a young age, begged Santa for models of Universal Monsters for Christmas, and started reading horror and sci-fi magazines as a teen.
“My parents did not know I was going to see a horror movie or they would have never let me, but when I saw that first one, the attraction was just like ‘boing, what is this?’ I love it. Maybe it’s a fear factor. You see something scary and horrible, but you’re safe because you’re in a theater and you’re okay and it’s not real life.”
Queer and trans people have long resonated with horror, coming to identify with the monsters that Hollywood relegated queer characters to under Hays Code rules that said LGBTQ characters could only be portrayed as deviants, villains, or as part of cautionary tales. “The horror crowd is so eclectic, diverse, different, unusual and creative. I refer to them as nerds because they are, but those nerds are the best kind of people,” Peterson says.
One of Perez’s favorite things in horror are the moments of levity that Elvira is emblematic of. “It can sometimes table the next terror for you,” he says. “It unarms you, It lulls you into this false sense of security, just for a moment, before they hit you with the zinger!” Perez believes that humor and horror go hand in hand, and that Elvira is a big part of that tradition. “That whole genre of horror movie hosts, they’d show you a few yuks, and then dive back into the horror. They’re a great combination.”
With Peterson’s help and blessing, Perez and Knott’s Park Decor Manager Jeff Shadic curated the “XXperience” — a responsibility and honor neither of them takes lightly.
The “XXperience” shares Elvira’s story through artifacts and footage, starting with her days at KHJ-TV going all the way up to her last show at Knott’s in 2017. Guests will get a chance to see rare collections from the Knott’s archive, including never-before-seen footage, a collection of set pieces, recordings, memorabilia, press kits, photographs and artist renderings. Loans from collectors, and many items from Peterson’s personal collection will also be on display. Guests can take photos with Elvira’s 1959 Macabre Mobile which is coming all the way from Las Vegas, and view her personal BC Rich Elvira custom guitar, costumes, the original couch and candelabras from her KHJ-TV show, various coffins from Elvira productions (used for popping out of according to Peterson), and even her bone phone, which was crumbling but is now restored thanks to the thoughtful prop team at Knott’s. The Elvira pinball machines that made Peterson feel like she’d won an Academy Award will also be on site.
There will be highlight reels from each year of her show playing with behind-the-scenes clips and promos, such as Elvira on “Arsenio Hall,” the short-lived “Mike Douglas Entertainment Hour” and a 1980s morning talk show with Elvira doing a messy makeover on an unsuspecting anchor. The six-hour supercut will have no nightly repeats, culminating every night with a midnight showing of her final 2017 performance, a nod to classic midnight showings of horror and cult classic films.
“It is so cross-generational,” Perez says about Elvira fandom, excited that this retrospective will be a chance for fans and newcomers of all ages to come together.
Peterson is an incredible actor, and created a character who is much more than a sex symbol. Elvira’s deep knowledge of all things horror paired with her ability to take sexist daggers hurled at her and instantly turn them into empowering comedy gold is a huge part of what resonates with fans after four decades, especially those who can relate to the feeling of being belittled, sexualized, and doubted for who they are. For survivors of all kinds, there can be something powerful about biting critiques wrapped in laughter that attack — but never directly addresses — the aggressor, whether it be a man or a monster.
Elvira continues to give us all permission to be sexy, nerdy, hilarious, and subversive, while refusing to let powerful detractors define you, all while in heels with perfect lipstick. A true femme north star caught in a black hole of on- and off-screen terrors, she has served as a new breed of feminist icon for those who know how to read between the lines, and revel in the joy of a well-timed boob joke.
“It was time to bring her back,” Perez says, sharing that people are constantly asking when Elvira will return to the park. Peterson won’t be doing any live performances, but this unique and large-scale Elvira career retrospective is something that has not been seen before. Peterson will join up with some former Elvira show crew members for panel discussions, as well as merch signings on newly purchased memorabilia from the park on Sept. 19 and Oct. 18 and 20.
“I miss it a lot,” Peterson says. “But, man, at 72 years old, I’m sorry, that show kicked my a—. But, the hardest part was the drive from L.A. to Buena Park.”
