Remembering classic toys, II

Chilling, Thrilling Sounds of the Haunted House

Not a toy per se, but a record. Yes, a vinyl record that one played on something called a 'turn-table'. As a kid, I had a few records, mostly Disney records, that I played on appropriately enough a Disney toy turntable, with Mickey on the underside of the lid and his arm acting as the arm of the record player.



I used to try to get Mickey to pick his nose, but that's another story. Many long hours were spent listening to my Haunted House 33 RPM record, a collection of stock foley sound effects created at Disney Studios and put together as a collection of "scary sounds". Some of the sounds were later used for the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland, while others had been previously used in some cartoon shorts. In fact, the cover for the record at top came from the concept sketches for the Haunted Mansion from the early sixties. The record consisted of one side of narrated stories related to the sounds, which try to put the kid in a scary frame of mind, things like "You're near an old dark mansion, and suddenly you see a light in the tower...you go to the house and never come back!". That's followed by a collection of haunted house sounds, wind, thunder, creaky doors and groans and screams, and cat noises. Every story has a scary concept, and all of them end with a blood curdling scream which is supposed to be yours. The same exact two screams. One goes "Wha-wha-whaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!" and the other "Whaaaaaa-oooooh-waaahhh-oh!" and trails off. Talk about getting some mileage out of the few sound effects. The cat noises come back again, and the narrator tries to get you to picture your sweet loving cat turning against you, hissing and howling. My favorites are the attempt to make cutting down a tree scary, you hear, saw, saw, saw, saw, saw and then one of those two stock screams presumably as the tree falls on you. The Martian landing, where you the space traveller become lunch for Martians (indicated by two foley artists eating celery). The best is the Chinese water torture, where the narrator refers to them as a "clever race" and then after you hear water dripping for a few minutes, and unsettlingly, the sound of your torturer adjusting themselves in a creaky chair. Finally, the narrator, acting as the victim, blurts out "Ching-chong-ching" etc. supposedly as a confession in Chinese. Well, that's 1964 for you. The second side consists of a collection of just sounds for use in your own stories and for sound effects in your own Halloween haunted house. Those same two screams again appear on the "collection of screams and groans".

I loved sound effects records when I was a kid. You sat there and tried to invoke the images they suggest, merely from sound. Imagine that, an afternoon spent listening to sound effects and using one's creativity. Wow, how far we've come with media these days, with video games, CGI effects, where nothing is left to the imagination that's not explicitly laid out. You don't have to take a step without someone holding your hand, and all we had were measly sound effects records and books as a platform for the imagination.