This is a rerelease of our 2023 Halloween special about the 12 Ft Skeleton Halloween craze and the strange history of our relationship to skeletons, both real and fake, stretching back hundreds of years. On 10/14 you can hear me on You're Wrong About covering Midnight Ghost Shows! I am doing a new series over on Patreon and Apple+ called Dispatches from the Field where I talk at you about whatever I want for however long tI want in an unedited, uncensored stream of consciousness. In our new episode, Chelsey's Lifelong Haunting, I tell you as many of my own ghost experiences as I can remember in under an hour. Next week we will bring you our episode with Sarah Marshall on Spontaneous Human Combustion and then this year’s American Hyscaria Halloween special, but you’ll have to wait until then to find out what kind of ghouls we will be invoking.
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Or subscribe to American Hysteria on Apple Podcasts
Get some of our new merch at americanhysteria.com, all profits go to The Sameer Project, a Palestinian-led mutual aid group who are on the ground in Gaza delivering food and supplies to displaced families.
Leave us a message on our Urban Legends Hotline at americanhysteria.com
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Horror Movie Curses with What Went Wrong Podcast
What Went Wrong hosts Chris Winterbauer and Lizzie Bassett join me to tell the stories of three allegedly cursed horror movies and the unexplained events that befell the cast, crew, and sometimes even audiences. Were these films really possessed by dangerous, otherworldly energy? Or are we dealing with social conditions, marketing gimmicks, and safety violations that are all too human? What Went Wrong is a podcast that takes a loving look at Hollywood's most disastrous movie productions, and happens to be one of my favorite shows.
Subscribe to What Went Wrong wherever you get your podcasts
Become a Patron to support our show and get early ad-free episodes and bonus content
Or subscribe to American Hysteria on Apple Podcasts
Get some of our new merch at americanhysteria.com, all profits go to The Sameer Project, a Palestinian-led mutual aid group who are on the ground in Gaza delivering food and supplies to displaced families.
Leave us a message on the Urban Legends Hotline
Producer and Editor: Miranda Zickler
Associate Producer: Riley Swedelius-Smith
Hosted by Chelsey Weber-Smith
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark with Liz "Cosbrarian" Gotauco
For this episode, I get schooled on the history of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, the children's horror book series that terrified 80s and 90s kids with its repurposed urban legends and folklore as well as genuinely terrifying illustrations. Liz Gotauco (AKA Cosbrarian), the creator of the F*cked Up Fairytales series, talks with me about how the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark became a right of passage for kids all over the country, and the reasons these freaky little volumes became some of the most challenged library books of all time.
Learn more about Liz and preorder F*cked Up Fairy Tales at cosbrarian.com
Follow her on social media @cosbrarian
Become a Patron to support our show and get early ad-free episodes and bonus content
Or subscribe to American Hysteria on Apple Podcasts
Get some of our new merch at americanhysteria.com, all profits go to The Sameer Project, a Palestinian-led mutual aid group who are on the ground in Gaza delivering food and supplies to displaced families.
Leave us a message on the Urban Legends Hotline
Producer and Editor: Miranda Zickler
Associate Producer: Riley Swedelius-Smith
Additionally editing by Kaylee Jasperson
Hosted by Chelsey Weber-Smith
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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The Kennedy Curse with George Civeris
George Civeris is the host of the comedy podcast Straightiolab as well as a new podcast called United States of Kennedy that explores our cultural fascination with the Kennedy dynasty and the ways that this family has continued to shape American life for decades. For this episode, George lays out the tale of the Kennedy Curse through a handful of tragic stories that have given America the impression that this political powerhouse family might have an almost paranormal case of bad luck.
United States of Kennedy is an iHeartPodcast and is available on the iHeartRadio app, and anywhere you get your podcasts, every Monday.
Become a Patron to support our show and get early ad-free episodes and bonus content
Or subscribe to American Hysteria on Apple Podcasts
Get some of our new merch at americanhysteria.com, all profits go to The Sameer Project, a Palestinian-led mutual aid group who are on the ground in Gaza delivering food and supplies to displaced families.
Leave us a message on the Urban Legends Hotline
Producer and Editor: Miranda Zickler
Associate Producer: Riley Swedelius-Smith
Additional editing by AJ McKinley
Hosted by Chelsey Weber-Smith
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Houdini's Afterlife with Sarah Marshall and Tim Harford
Tim Harford is the host of the podcast Cautionary Tales which recently put out a series on the most famous magician of all time, Harry Houdini. For this episode, Sarah Marshall of You’re Wrong About joins me as co-host to discuss with Tim the Victorian religion-turned-public spectacle known as Spiritualism, the wonderfully gullible Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creative and comical exposing of fraud mediums, the unknowable mysteries of the afterlife, and showman-turned-skeptic Harry Houdini.
Subscribe to Cautionary Tales wherever you get your podcasts
Become a Patron to support our show and get early ad-free episodes and bonus content
Or subscribe to American Hysteria on Apple Podcasts
Get some of our new merch at americanhysteria.com, all profits go to The Sameer Project, a Palestinian-led mutual aid group who are on the ground in Gaza delivering food and supplies to displaced families.
Leave us a message on the Urban Legends Hotline
Producer and Editor: Miranda Zickler
Associate Producer: Riley Swedelius-Smith
Additionally editing by Kaylee Jasperson
Hosted by Chelsey Weber-Smith
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
American Hysteria explores how fantastical thinking has shaped our culture – moral panics, urban legends, hoaxes, crazes, fringe beliefs, and national misunderstandings. Poet-turned-podcaster Chelsey Weber-Smith tells the strangest stories from American history and examines the forces that create the reality we share, and sometimes, the reality we don't.
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