Episode published: Wednesday 01/29/2025
Michael: Hi everyone, welcome to another episode of Every Day is Groundhog Day (Except for the Days When It's Not), the only podcast to move to the holiday, Groundhog Day. I'm your host, Michael from CountdownToGroundhogDay.com. Hope you enjoyed our last egg-citing episode about Cluxatawney Henrietta.
For today's episode, I'm speaking with Christopher and Gregory Cuneo, the founders of I Heart Horror Day and Groundhogzilla, a horror festival taking place this weekend on Groundhog Day Eve in Sayreville, New Jersey. Want to learn more? Listen to the interview, which starts now.
Michael: So, this weekend, on February 1st, which is Groundhog Day Eve, there's a horror festival with a Groundhog Day theme taking place in Sayreville, New Jersey, called Groundhogzilla. Today, I'm here with Christopher and Gregory Cuneo, the organizers of this event. So, welcome to the show, Christopher and Gregory.
Gregory Cuneo: Hi, Mike.
Christopher Cuneo: Hey, Mike. Happy New Year.
Michael: Happy New Year. Happy Groundhog Day week, it's Groundhog Day season now. We had the first prediction this past weekend, so I think we can officially consider it Groundhog Day season.
Christopher Cuneo: Very nice. I actually have been getting really deep in doing research on groundhogs, thanks to your website, because out of curiosity, it's like, how many groundhogs are there? And then I found out that you actually had this site with not only groundhogs that predict weather, but ducks, and chickens, and bass fish. So, I've been really going down a rabbit hole with those, you know, checking on every single one and then I do a research of all of them, and I follow all the pages, because I think it's pretty cool that anybody that does anything to do with Groundhog Day. So, I've been having fun with that. Before I go to bed, it's like my little homework that I do, and you know, I started out with Pennsylvania and New York, and then local states from there. And then last night, I did a little further out, and then tomorrow I'm going to do a look into all the Midwest states.
Gregory Cuneo: Yeah, then you get up each morning and bombard me with all the information, all the knowledge that you got.
Christopher Cuneo: Yeah, I learn a lot. Thank you so much for that, and thanks for doing what you do for Groundhog Day.
Michael: I'm glad you find it useful. I'm glad it's maybe helping you research and plan for your upcoming event. There are a lot of different forecasters or prognosticators. There's around a hundred a year, I'd say, some drop off or pass away, and then new ones come in. So, right now, I think we're looking at about a hundred a year for the last couple of years. But I have over 200 in my database, just of legacy predictors.
Christopher Cuneo: Speaking of legacy, so Groundhog Day is really important for Gregory and I, and I'll tell you a reason why. Not only do we love holidays in general, and that's why we created I Heart Horror Day, because we wanted our home registered holiday on the calendar. We also do it for our dad, because it's his birthday.
Gregory Cuneo: His birthday is on February 2nd.
Christopher Cuneo: So, we usually bond with our dad and do events with him; we brought him to Punxsutawney, we even brought him all the way out to Illinois, to Woodstock, Illinois. Have you been there before?
Michael: I have not been there, but I'm aware that they have a pretty big celebration now because that's where the movie was filmed. But you've been there, you've seen the movie locations and where they shot.
Gregory Cuneo: What time of year were we there? Like, April?
Christopher Cuneo: Yeah, April. But we definitely want to go back down there now to see Willie. But there's just so many other groundhogs that I want to visit. I mean, what I'm really intrigued about is what they do in Lancaster and how they dip the Inner Circle in the water every year to bring them into the club. I think that's a lot of fun. The Lancaster, have you been to the Lancaster one yet?
Michael: No. Is that Octoraro Orphie? Is that the one?
Christopher Cuneo: Yes.
Michael: Okay. I've seen some pictures from that and I would like to get out there. I was considering it this year. I don't know if I'll make it this year but soon.
Christopher Cuneo: I'd like to do it next year. Our dad has been getting a little sick, so I don't know how much he could do and how far out he can go, but they live on the border of Pennsylvania, so it's not too far into Lancaster. So, I'm hoping for the best and to get my dad over to do that as a family. Gregory and I, we never had families or whatever, so besides our parents, being the core four, that's pretty much who we travel with. So, my parents are usually pretty adventurous. Like I said, my dad now is a little sick, so he can't do as much, but hope for the best and get to Lancaster next year, for sure.
Gregory Cuneo: So, one of those things when it comes to Groundhog Day, of course, it's first thing in the morning. So, when we went to Punxsutawney, we had to be there like 5:00 in the morning or something like that.
Christopher Cuneo: Yeah, we woke up like 3:30 in the morning to get ready, and then…
Gregory Cuneo: They had to bus us over.
Christopher Cuneo: They had to bus us over there. You've got to get over there and do that and experience it. Anybody that just loves festiveness. I was just telling Gregory, I think Pennsylvania, I know you have a lot of followers from different states, and you do a lot of stories on all different states, but Pennsylvania, I mean, outside of my own state, is definitely Gregory and I's favorite because they're a very festive bunch. We go to the drops they do for New Year's, they have, like, tons of them, we got to the Mushroom Drop this year, which was so much fun.
Gregory Cuneo: Then we did Yuengling the year before.
Christopher Cuneo: And we did Yuengling in Pottsville last year. Well, what is it? Kennett, right? Is where the mushroom is?
Gregory Cuneo: Kennett Square, yeah.
Christopher Cuneo: Kennett Square, so if you went to festive stuff and looking for something to do on New Year's Eve, look at those drops that they do.
Gregory Cuneo: We've always been into Pennsylvania because our parents used to take us camping to Pennsylvania all the time around Dutch Country and Lancaster.
Christopher Cuneo: Yeah, so we've always, I mean, if you're from this area and driving distance from Amish country, most people love Amish Country because it's a nice getaway, you know?
Michael: Yeah. I'm from New Jersey. I think you guys are a little… Are you actually from Sayreville?
Christopher Cuneo: Yeah, whole life. Yeah, born in a couple of towns away in the city of New Brunswick. And then, you know, our grandparents took care of us while my parents went to work in New Brunswick.
Gregory Cuneo: So, we're living in the house that was our grandparents'. We bought that 20 years ago, but our parents used to live right next door.
Christopher Cuneo: Yeah, we lived next door.
Michael: Oh, wow.
Christopher Cuneo: You know, it was getting…
Gregory Cuneo: Very congested.
Christopher Cuneo: …congested around here. So, they moved to Frenchtown and then they moved as far as Belvedere.
Gregory Cuneo: Belvedere right now.
Christopher Cuneo: But Warren County is gorgeous, I don't know if you've ever been there before. That's one of our favorite places in New Jersey. That's where Friday the 13th was filmed so there's a big horror community over there. So, we do every Friday the 13th event with our friends in Blairstown.
Michael: Yeah. I saw the flyer for your event. I was at Smodcastle Cinemas for a show there. And that's where I saw your flyer for Groundhogzilla. I was like, "Oh, I got to check this out." Obviously, I love Groundhog Day, so I wanted to learn more about it.
Gregory Cuneo: I wonder, which event at Smodcastle were you at?
Michael: I was at The George Lucas Talk Show, it was back in November, I think. And they had Kevin Smith was there and also Chris Gethard, those are the guests that night. That was fun.
Christopher Cuneo: Kevin lives above the theater— I mean, he lives in California, but I mean, he spends a lot of time at Smodcastle now. So, you know, Kevin Smith or pretty much… They're blessed that they can see him as much now and go to his Smodcastle. But the reason why I think he's doing that is because, you know, they go through some hard times with money and, you know, this is his dream to keep this theater alive and thriving. So, he's invested his time to make sure that he's here and that, you know, guests can go visit him at the theater and, you know, it sells tickets, of course. So, we wish the best for Smodcastle. I was actually just there the other day and they're very supportive of us at I Heart Horror.
Gregory Cuneo: Ernie comes out.
Christopher Cuneo: Ernie's been to our show, you know, not only last year, but he's going to be a second time now. So, he comes to our shows, you know, and hangs out with us all day. So, he supports us, we support them.
Gregory Cuneo: Me and Chris are big, big Kevin Smith.
Christopher: Yeah, we're huge Kevin Smith fans. We just saw Kevin at a, we went to a screening for—
Gregory Cuneo: Nick Frost.
Christopher Cuneo: A Nick Frost movie, which is bonkers. I don't know if you saw our flyer after that show, that might have been when… When was it?
Gregory Cuneo: It was around— I think it was before that.
Christopher Cuneo: Yeah. So, that's when we dropped the flyer. Anytime we're in there, you know, I put down our flyers or postcards and whatever promotions. You know, I put our mission statements out so people know what we're about. I'm glad you got to see that. I'm glad, you know, the promotion is getting out there.
Michael: Yeah, yeah. And that's really cool. I didn't realize he was there as often as he is. I signed up after that show for their email newsletter and it seems like he's there at, you know, quite a bit of screenings or different shows. I know they had, like, a Wicked sing-along recently.
Christopher Cuneo: That's why we love Kevin so much because he's so into pop culture. And the fact that, like, you know, Kevin's pretty much the voice for all us pop culture heads from New Jersey, you know what I'm saying? He represents us and in one person. And the fact that he, you know, added his own movies and his own universe to pop culture is every reason for us to be proud of him, you know?
Michael: So why don't we talk about I Heart Horror a little bit? I know we've mentioned it a little bit, but could you maybe give a little bit of background, how it started, I Heart Horror Day?
Christopher Cuneo: You want to start it out?
Gregory Cuneo: Do I want to start it out?
Christopher Cuneo: Yeah.
Gregory Cuneo: You start it out, I chime in. Isn't that how it works?
Christopher Cuneo: Okay. So, because of social media, you know, everything is pretty much at your fingertips at your eyeballs, you know, holidays and birthdays. And so, I have a little ADHD and OCD and, you know, so I'm like "Squirrel!" but, you know, if something interests me… That's how it is with ADHD. Even though I have, you know, ADHD, my OCD clicks in when I see things that I'm obsessed with like holidays because holidays make a difference in people's lives. When we were going through COVID, every single day just ran together and we wanted to break up the monotony because, you know, we didn't have a calendar at the time, we were all stuck in the house. All we had was a calendar of holidays. So, I was like, you know, "Gregory, let's shoot for the moon here and let's make our own holiday."
So, you know, it's a big joke around the Halloween and horror community that there's a second Halloween celebrated and to just, you know, blast Valentine's Day into space and just take it over kind of like the whole spirit, that whole meme with the spirit Halloween is, like, you know, the different…
Gregory Cuneo: Takes over the space that it's left over…
Christopher Cuneo: Yeah. So, let's do that to Valentine's month, whatever, February. So, I reached out to a numerous amount of calendars that I wasn't having luck with, like, you know, first being the National Day Calendar. It's the biggest because, you know, they are more on a grand scale and, you know, having count, you know, desk calendars and calendars that you could buy in the stores.
Gregory Cuneo: We actually had one in the house.
Christopher Cuneo: Yeah. We had one in the house. Again, we love holidays. I didn't have any luck with that because you have to be established to be a holiday or you have to have a lot of money, like, you know, thousands of dollars that you have to get up for to pay for a holiday. So, this was not working.
And then one day, you know, looking at the holidays and I'm like, "Oh, it's Frankenstein Friday!" I'm like, you know, "Let's check out Wikipedia and where Frankenstein Friday is from," because we're big Frankenstein fans, of course, being horror fans.
Gregory Cuneo: Frankenstein Friday is the last Friday in October. It's not to be confused with Mary Shelley's birthday, which is in August, which is another Frankenstein holiday.
Christopher Cuneo: Yeah. They have two, so it is kind of confusing.
Gregory Cuneo: It is Frankenstein, isn't it?
Christopher Cuneo: Well, the original, the one, Mary Shelley won in August, it was Frankenstein Day. You know, Frankenstein Friday, I looked up and I found out that it was a friend of mine that created it. A gentleman named Ron MacCloskey, which is a diehard universal monster, but specifically Frankenstein is his favorite. And I reached out to Ron and I said, "Ron, Gregory and I want to have our own holiday." I was blown away how much this guy does this makes of difference in pop culture, because not only did he create this Frankenstein Friday, but he's from Westfield and if you don't know, Westfield is the home of Addams, Charles Addams. So, when he found out in his own town that Charles Addams was from the town and that his house was still standing, he got a marker made and put together and passed with the national monument in Westfield. So, he accomplishes so many, so many things, he's been around on TV shows and doing interviews.
And speaking about going down the rabbit hole about things, when I first met Ryan through Westfield, because Westfield does a thing called AddamsFest and I'm a lifelong fan of Charles Addams so once AddamsFest happened, I connected with Ron MacCloskey and I went down the rabbit hole with all the things that he's done in, you know, he's had his own little local TV shows…
Gregory Cuneo: He has a show about the Catskills.
Christopher Cuneo: Yeah, he made appearances on many talk shows and what I'm like, "Wow, man! I want to be you, you know, I want to be you and accomplish all that at your age."
So yeah, so getting back to the holiday, one of the things he accomplished was a holiday and I said, "We want to do what you did and make our own." And he told us about Chase's Calendar of Events, which is a book that's in every single library, it's carried in every library. And you know, if somebody is looking to do an event in the middle of the winter and there's nothing else going on, you know, just, you know, open it up to February or January or, you know, early point of March and you'll find out a whole bunch of things you could do, you know, either personal parties or…
Gregory Cuneo: Birthdays of people.
Christopher Cuneo: No, no. Meaning if you want to like throw a I Heart Horror party, you know, you know, it tells you a little description about us, you know, where our holiday came from, what it's about, the fact that it's a mini Halloween holiday in February and to get away from the monotony and, you know, and the blahs of winter and something to do during those months.
Gregory Cuneo: Yeah, but tell Mike why we came up with February 4th.
Christopher Cuneo: The reason why we came up with February 4th because we, you know, having a holiday in February, wanting to take the place a little bit of the monotony of Valentine's Day, we came up with February 4th, because again, thanks to social media and following people's birthdays on it for years, we found out that George Romero and Alice Cooper were both working on the same day. And I said, "Greg, I think we have our holiday date, which is February 4th."
Michael: Yeah, that makes sense.
Christopher Cuneo: Yeah, I mean, two of the biggest people in the horror and, you know, in the Halloween genre and world. So, you know, we actually reached out to Suzanne Romero, I told her about what we were doing. A bigger seller of I Heart Horror is the fact that it's become a day of service, because it also falls on World Cancer Day. And the woman that passed our holiday, Holly McGuire, you know, the charge of the Chase's Calendar of Events, she's the editor. She said, "Chris and Greg, we love your holiday. It's about to go through. We're about to pass it. Just let you know that it is World Cancer Day. Is that going to be a problem?" And I said, "No, we love charity." I've been working with charity myself for the last, you know, 15 years before we put this holiday together, you know, through the Soul Kitchen and through, numerous relays and animal rescues and, you know, what better thing to do is to have our own charity, you know, and do it through I Heart Horror? It's a win-win because, you know, we got the horror community behind us.
So, we registered our nonprofit. So now, we're not only a registered holiday, but a registered New Jersey nonprofit. And, you know, and I told Suzanne Romero what we are, what we're doing, it's all in honor of George, you know, the fact that George passed away succumbed to lung cancer. All the money raised, and people saved is going to be in the name in honor of George Romero. Alice Cooper also is a very charitable person because he does his Solid Rock Foundation, which gives kids something to do, get off the streets and become musicians that can't afford it and that's out of Arizona. George's wife, Suzanne, also does her charity, which is the GAR Foundation in honor of George, the George A Romero Foundation. And that is kind of like what Alice does, but with filmmakers and, you know, it gets kids off the streets and, you know, gives them...
Gregory Cuneo: Well, I don't know if it's necessarily off the streets.
Christopher Cuneo: Well, let's them… You know, they're struggling for money and they can't afford to get equipment to make film or to go to school for film, that's what the GAR Foundation does. And we get behind that as well through the I Heart Horror Corporation.
Michael: I think I saw you had raised maybe, I think one figure was like $14,000 over the last couple years.
Gregory Cuneo: Well, our main charity that we work with is the Deborah Heart and Lung Center, they're out of Browns Mills. The reason why we partnered with them is because when we first passed the holiday, we were just going to do an event just to have, like, a first event...
Christopher Cuneo: With our friends in the horror community and the convention community we've met throughout the years.
Gregory Cuneo: Just celebrating I Heart Horror Day as a holiday, not necessarily bringing the whole charitable aspect into it.
Christopher Cuneo: We were going to celebrate Alice's 75th birthday because it's the year it got passed. He was turning 75, Alice Cooper.
Gregory Cuneo: But when we realized, let's do some good with this holiday, let's make a mini-con, originally we were going to go with lung cancer research places in New Jersey.
Christopher Cuneo: Lung cancer because that's how George passed.
Gregory Cuneo: But it was hard to really figure out which one to go with because there's so many of them, and you have to do some research into who would be a good fit. But then both our friend Steve, our friend Psycho Steve, he's actually the emcee at our events. He said, "Why don't you go for Deborah Heart Lung Cancer?"
Christopher Cuneo: Yeah. Why don't you just reach out for Deborah? And I said, well, you know, I had intentions to, you know, but I thought it would be a ladder that we would have to climb to get there. And he's like, "Just try it now." And so, our friend Lisa Zwonar made the call the following day, you know, and they were in right from the beginning. They loved the concept, they loved the Halloween in February.
Gregory Cuneo: Even though they're not really horror fans.
Christopher Cuneo: No.
Gregory Cuneo: But they saw the potential and what we could do.
Christopher Cuneo: And they gave us the shot. We did the first year and we raised over $6,000, right?
Gregory Cuneo: Yeah, $6,000, $7,000.
Christopher Cuneo: And then they came back for the second year, and we raised over $8,000 close to nine, and now we're all ready to do part three with them.
Michael: Oh, great.
Christopher Cuneo: Above 10, we're wishing for above 10 on this.
Michael: So, it's always around February 4th?
Christopher: Yes, correct.
Gregory Cuneo: The first year, the first event was on the actual February 4th.
Christopher Cuneo: Yeah, it worked out really awesome.
Gregory Cuneo: Yeah, which was Saturday. We blessed that that year when it was Alice's 75th and February 4th fell on a Saturday. So, we were able to have the first event on our holiday. Last year, our dad's birthday, he turned 80 last year…
Christopher Cuneo: On February 2nd.
Gregory Cuneo: On February 2nd. So, that was on a Saturday, right, last year?
Christopher Cuneo: Yeah.
Gregory Cuneo: Yeah. So, we couldn't do that because we had to concentrate on our father. So, we said, let's do it the weekend after.
Christopher Cuneo: And we found out that the weekend after was the weekend before Fat Tuesday.
Gregory Cuneo: So, we did a Mardi Gras theme last year.
Christopher Cuneo: And we called it a Mardi Gras Mask.
Gregory Cuneo: Because the first year we did it was a Valentine's Day theme because the whole Valentine thing. And then the second year we did Mardi Gras Masker. And what happened was a few days before the event, I said, "Chris, February 10th is Lunar New Year. We could have did Lunar New Year!"
Christopher Cuneo: We could have done a combined show.
Gregory Cuneo: Yeah. It could have happened.
Christopher Cuneo: We could have done a triple mashup, you know, of our holiday and Mardi Gras and Lunar New Year. That's what we do. We try to mash up February holidays with our own. Next year, hopefully, we're going to be doing…
Gregory Cuneo: President's Day.
Christopher Cuneo: And you know, George, of course, will be George Washington and Alice will be representing Abraham Lincoln.
Gregory Cuneo: Yeah. But we're probably going to do it— If we do it next year again, we're going to do it a little farther out, maybe like a closer to President's Day. First of all, because it's so hard to get everything done by… At least last year we had it on the 10th of February.
Christopher Cuneo: So, we had that extra week.
Gregory Cuneo: So, we had that extra to get things accomplished.
Christopher Cuneo: We're realizing, you know, it being at the…
Gregory Cuneo: Beginning is very hard to do.
Christopher Cuneo: But I mean, to be honest, we put together our first show in three months and it was a grand success, and everybody was blown away at what we did in that little bit of time. It's so funny now that we have a big team with us and we, you know, we have Deborah helping us and, you know, at our meetings and now everything's a lot more professional, it's still like up against the wall with, you know…
Gregory Cuneo: Time crunch.
Christopher Cuneo: Because we're, yeah, I'm a very detailed person. And I'm like, "Ah! Can't forget about this. Oh, you know, we almost forgot about that." So, wish us the best of luck Mike.
Michael: Oh, yeah, absolutely.
Christopher Cuneo: We're a few days away.
Michael: I was going to say, there are, you know, pretty much any day you look at, there's like 10, 20 different types of holidays of varying levels of fame. So, you know, I guess depending on what day in February you have it in any future year, you have a number of choices of what to mash up with.
Gregory Cuneo: Because February is definitely a… Well, you wouldn't think about it, but February is a very… Usually, Lunar New Year is, I think this year it's on the 29th of January, but February has Lunar New Year, it has President's Day, it has Groundhog Day…
Christopher Cuneo: Super Bowl.
Gregory Cuneo: It has Super Bowl, it's President's Day.
Christopher Cuneo: You already said President's.
Gregory Cuneo: Yeah, I'm sorry.
Christopher Cuneo: One for each president.
Gregory Cuneo: Yeah, one for each president. What other ones are? Fat Tuesday sometimes comes in. So, there's so many things to celebrate in February, and then you have Black History Month is in February. You know, it's just not a whatever month. I think there is, like, any whatever months because even January has so many things going on.
Michael: Right. I mean, because you'll even have something like Vanilla Cupcake Day or something like that. You'll have these smaller ones that have been created too.
Gregory Cuneo: Today we were on a Zoom call with our team and our friend Karen, she says about having a milkshake for breakfast on the morning of our event. It's milkshake for breakfast.
Christopher Cuneo: It's actually ice cream for breakfast.
Gregory Cuneo: I said, "What the heck are you talking about?" And Chris is like, "Yeah, that's an actual thing. It's on a Saturday on this February 1st, ice cream for breakfast." I'm like, okay, I didn't know that. [laughs]
Michael: Yeah, that's funny. So, obviously this is the first time it's coinciding with Groundhog Day. Could you talk a little bit about how you're incorporating a Groundhog Day into the events? I saw one thing, which I assume you'll touch on. But if not, I'll bring it up.
Christopher Cuneo: First, I want to tell you another reason why I was excited about doing Groundhog Day is because I've been wanting to do our character, his name is Eyegore, I've been wanting to do him as a kaiju. Gregory and I being big fans of the, you know, the monsterverse…
Gregory Cuneo: Godzilla, and just Kong as kind of a kaiju.
Christopher Cuneo: Yeah, we just love kaijus in general. So, we got to do a kaiju to put Eyegore against. And then when we found out that it was going to be the weekend around Groundhog Day, I was like, "Oh! We finally got our kaiju that Eyegore can go against." So, it started it started with that.
Gregory Cuneo: But we always wanted Groundhog Day to be one of the holidays.
Christopher Cuneo: Yeah, you know, and we want to leave a legacy for dad, you know what I'm saying? You know, we created this character called, you know, Groundhogzilla is not just the title, but it's the character of Groundhogzilla. My friend, Mike Medina, he wrote an actual story and a song, you know, a children's song. So, he wrote a children's book and a story, a short story and a children's song for Groundhogzilla, the character of Groundhogzilla. And then we were actually going to be playing a friend of mine's band that's playing Frozen Jaam, one of the bands playing our show, I reached out to them and I said, "Can we do a song to 'Godzilla' by B.O.C.?" So, Gregory and I got together some lyrics that we could sing along with that song, you know, that music in the background.
Gregory Cuneo: Yeah, just put in our own lyrics.
Christopher Cuneo: We're actually going to go meet with them tonight and check it out to see how it's been setting up, whatever. But yeah, the thing with the groundhogs around our area is that we actually, here in Middlesex, we have our own. His name is Milltown Mel, you know that, Mike. But we've been having problems with him; I mean, we lost him a few years ago, he passed away. They're having a problem with the law, different things are not being able to get him to have another Mel as of now. So, we're wishing the best of luck for next year. But I really wanted to partner up with them and I think they're just, like, really bummed out right now that they, you know, that it's been so hard to get Mel to come back. So unfortunately, you know, all the different zoos I've been reaching out to haven't been getting back to me on it because if you're outside of, like, a jurisdiction or area, whatever, the people, the zoo over in Staten Island, they've got to stay over in Staten Island, you know? And then the guy, you know, the people up in West Orange at the zoo over there…
Michael: Turtle Back Zoo.
Christopher Cuneo: Yeah, Turtle Back Zoo, again, that's outside of county, you know what I'm saying? So, it was against us with doing that, with having somebody come in and talk about the groundhogs and Groundhog Day.
Gregory Cuneo: Yeah, we're just trying to spread the knowledge about Groundhog Day and groundhogs, because most children don't really know about Groundhog Day, which is… I mean, I'll be honest with you, when I was a kid, I knew our dad's birthday was February 2nd but I never put two and two together. When I was in grammar school, they never talked about Groundhog Day. I don't think I knew about Groundhog Day until I got older.
Christopher Cuneo: Well, they didn't have tags? When we went to school, I don't know if they did it in your school…
Gregory Cuneo: Well, we also went to parochial school.
Christopher Cuneo: In our grammar school, it would be, I think, yeah, we went to parochial school so we had to wear uniforms. But for every holiday, they would be called Tag Day and you would purchase a tag for like a buck or whatever.
Gregory Cuneo: Yeah, donation.
Christopher Cuneo: And it would go towards the church and then you could get to wear casual clothes for that day, whatever. So, are you sure they didn't have a Groundhog Day? No, I mean, I know they did St. Patrick's Day and Christmas and Halloween.
Gregory Cuneo: Probably the closest was Valentine's Day.
Christopher Cuneo: Yes, Valentine's Day. I'm going to do whatever I can to the day I die for us to, not eclipse Valentine's Day because that's just impossible, but I definitely want our popularity to get up there and the horror community, which is a lot of us, to pretty much, you know, be to a certain happy level against Valentine's.
Gregory Cuneo: I was telling Christopher today, I was going through my emails and Spirit, you get emails from Spirit for coupons and stuff, it said "Valloween." I said, "Oh, well, people use Valloween all over the place." When did they start using Valloween?
Christopher Cuneo: Where did you put the groundhog?
Gregory Cuneo: Right here.
Christopher Cuneo: Show Mike. Yeah, so Valloween has probably been a thing for like what? 10 years now?
Gregory Cuneo: Valloween? No.
Christopher Cuneo: Seven? Seven years?
Gregory Cuneo: Well, they've mentioned, I'd never heard of the expression until recently.
Christopher Cuneo: Have you heard of Valloween, Mike? The expression?
Michael: I don't think so. I mean, possibly.
Christopher Cuneo: Unfortunately, this is not video, it's just audio. But a friend of ours had recently got obsessed with crocheting and she made a Groundhogzilla for us.
Michael: Oh, that's cute!
Christopher Cuneo: And she put a little Eyegore heart in, you know, that he's holding.
Gregory Cuneo: He has red eyes.
Christopher Cuneo: It's so cute. What she did, she used, not the mold, but the pattern…
Gregory Cuneo: For a capybara.
Christopher Cuneo: For the capybara and it worked out that you could do a groundhog, all you've got to do is, like, change the tail or whatever. And, you know, she said, "Fun fact," how she does the ears is the same way she does the tail, which is pretty funny. And I wish everybody was able to see that, it was so cute.
Michael: Oh well, we can…
Christopher Cuneo: Take a picture of it or something.
Michael: Yeah, if you take a picture and send it to me, I can include it.
Christopher Cuneo: We would love that because we're going to post it online anyway and show everybody how cute it is.
Michael: All right.
So, a few things I wanted to touch on. You mentioned there was a children's book about Groundhogzilla?
Christopher Cuneo: That's funny you say that about children's books, because the guy who started Milltown Mel, he wrote his own children's book. And unfortunately, he retired, and he moved away from the area because I really wanted him to be at our show to read the book. But like I said, everything's been going against me on trying to get any Groundhog Day references and teachers to come in or whatever. And then I found out there's a girl named Miss Amy, which is married to one of the handlers, one of Mel's handlers, to Russ, and she's going to be away on vacation this weekend coming up. Because you know, they're snowbirds, people are going to get the heck out of this area. So, she's away, probably in a warmer climate. She would have done it, but just it was bad timing.
What we are doing is one of our friends works for a kids preschool in town, she's going to do mask making with the kids and going to do little Groundhogzilla masks, make masks of him. So, the kids can do groundhogs but our version if groundhog, you know, do the green, the atomic green, lime green groundhogs. But groundhogs will be represented as groundhogs there with the kids and adults alone.
Gregory Cuneo: Hopefully me and Chris will be wearing top hats that day.
Christopher Cuneo: Yes. So, we're definitely representing with our top hats being Inner Circle.
Michael: So, you have that crocheted Groundhogzilla. Have you considered doing, like, a prognostication with Groundhogzilla? Like, see if Groundhogzilla sees their shadow or not?
Christopher Cuneo: I think we should do that every single year. That's a really good idea, make sure you put that in the notes. You know what? We'll make that happen in some way, we'll figure that out. Thank you for bringing that up. I know that with Groundhogzilla, like I said, I want to do a legacy for our dad. I want to do this book, you know, I want to flesh it out, the story that my friend Mike Medina wrote about Groundhogzilla. I'll send that to you, too. I'll send that to you, I'll send you the song that he wrote, because I know if anybody will appreciate it, it would be you.
Michael: Yeah, definitely.
Christopher Cuneo: One thing that's funny about, you know, doing like a holiday tradition is that, I mean, it's not really a holiday tradition, but it could be a tradition for Groundhogzilla events in the future. Because we want to do a Groundhogzilla Part Two most definitely, and it's going to be called King of the Marmots. [Michael chuckles] When we told a friend of ours about this concept that we were going to have Eyegore versus Groundhogzilla, a friend of mine thought that we were going to have people dressed up in like…
Gregory Cuneo: Sumo wrestler outfits, like mascots.
Christopher Cuneo: Like, you know, wrestling with each other, fighting, wrestling. I don't know if they could do what's called ultimate fighting in those costumes.
Gregory Cuneo: Because like when it comes to horror, horror and wrestling go hand in hand. I mean, I guess we've always realized that, but like, because when it comes to our event, we try to get some wrestlers there.
Christopher Cuneo: Yeah, we have our one main wrestler…
Gregory Cuneo: Jason Knight.
Christopher Cuneo: Jason Knight, he's a fan and family of I Heart Horror.
Gregory Cuneo: He's going to be there again.
Christopher Cuneo: He likes to get bloodied up, you know, there's some really awesome covered in blood photos of him. So yeah, wrestling, fighting, you know, kaiju's, it's all intermingled, it's all pop culture. I call the people that follow what we do Fringers, you know, people that like to get into, like, the weird and the obscure. But, you know, we're cutesy and childlike as well. And that's why, you know, that's another reason why what we try to do through I Heart Horror is— We're actually going to be changing the brand, not changing brand fully but we're going to do a side thing with, it's going to be called Eyegore Jr. and it's going to be just for children. Because we're going to have our first children's mask making event next Monday for I Heart Horror Day. So, that's some of the things we're, you know, we're doing with I Heart Horror and, you know, and we have a lot of ideas for Groundhogzilla to be, you know, part of…
Gregory Cuneo: Well, he'll be incorporated all the time.
Christopher Cuneo: For our pop culture legacy, holiday legacy.
Gregory Cuneo: I guess, you know, each event will probably have a new character to add to the whole mythos of I Heaart Horror. Eyegore's the first, got Groundhogzilla.
Christopher Cuneo: Yeah. We want to bring different characters in. We brought like a mini Eyegore in last year, remember? You know, that was kind of cute that we needed to touch back on again, but we have so many ideas and so many things you could do with this and, you know, everybody's just eating it up and, you know, we're blessed. But, you know, I knew it was a win-win concept. I mean, we're doing good at these shows, we're raising charity. What I say I Heart Horror is about is that we do good deeds with the horror people, you know what I'm saying? The horror people with the good hearts.
Michael: Yeah. That sounds awesome. One thing I did see is that you're going to have a Bill Murray zombie contest.
Christopher Cuneo: Oh, yeah. That's what I was going to bring up initially! Yes. Well, so we've been wanting to do a costume contest for the last two years. And I said, we got to do something mashup, you know, and to use both Groundhog Day and again, what we do, you know, with those mashups with our I Heart Horror. And what better thing is to do something with Groundhog Day and Bill Murray? Because, you know, Bill Murray was that zombie character in Zombieland. So, there you go. You got your two degrees of Bill Murray kind of thing.
Gregory Cuneo: Zombies are always represented in our shows because of the whole George Romero connection.
Christopher Cuneo: Yes, exactly. So, that's why the zombie and the ground update thing, it was just a perfect match up of both.
Michael: Yeah, that's funny. I saw the original Zombieland, I guess, when it came out, but I only just saw the sequel this past weekend and I didn't realize that Bill Murray was in that one too. They have a little, like, post credit scene.
Christopher Cuneo: Yeah, yeah, because it was such a huge scene, comedy scene. And Bill doesn't do too much horror so for us horror fans, that was definitely the squee moment. Like, woo! That's awesome. [laughs]
Gregory Cuneo: Is he doing as much acting anymore? Is he retired? After the whole Ghostbusters…?
Christopher Cuneo: Yeah, we don't really, I mean… Bill was everywhere at one time, he was, you know, saturating film. And then it would start to get a little more choosier about projects. And yeah, now mostly I just see him at, like, sporting games, baseball games, you know, in the audience.
Michael: I don't think he works as much. I mean, I think he's often in, like, Wes Anderson films. Almost anything that Wes Anderson does, he seems to have some sort of role in it. But I was going to ask, did you attempt to reach out to him at all to see if he could, like, judge your Bill Murray Zombieland?
Christopher: Oh, that would be that would be phenomenal. I mean, I keep on having all these big ideas and dreams. I mean, I mentioned that we want to, we were going to do and we are going to do Groundhog Day song to B.O.C's "Godzilla." So, I really wanted to B.O.C., Blue Öyster Cult, to come to our show because the local guys are right over the bridge in New York. So, I was hoping to get some of them to come. I didn't even consider Bill Murray. I mean, I know he's a really…
Gregory Cuneo: That's really shooting for the stars.
Christopher Cuneo: I know he's a really down to earth dude, you know, really cool guy. You know what? If this is big or even if it's not big, we are going to do it again, no matter what. So, maybe the second time around, we can at least get the word over to Bill Murray that we're doing this as a holiday, a shout out to him.
Gregory Cuneo: One person that we did reach out to, and was hard to get in touch with them, but we finally got in touch with them was Stephen Tobolowsky.
Michael: Oh, yeah!
Gregory Cuneo: We do a thing called a video blessing at every I Heart Horror Day. The first year we had Suzanne Romero, who's the widow of George, she did a video blessing just, like, an introduction to the day's event.
Christopher Cuneo: Wishing us the best of luck, make a lot of money for your charity.
Gregory Cuneo: And then last year it was Kyra Schon, who was in the original Night of Living Dead, she's Karen Cooper, the one that kills her mom with the trowel, you know. And then this year we're going to have Jim Krut, who played this helicopter zombie.
Christopher Cuneo: The one that gets the top of his head chopped off by the helicopter blade.
Gregory Cuneo: So, he's going to do it. But we reached out to Stephen to see if he could do a video blessing. He didn't get back to us right away. But Chris, it doesn't give up.
Christopher Cuneo: I'm relentless and I'm like, "We have to have Steve involved in any way." Just to have his name on something.
Gregory Cuneo: Because we mean Chris, when we went to Punxsutawney it was what? 13 years ago?
Christopher Cuneo: Yeah. And they have a dinner there the night before a Groundhog Day dinner and he was actually there.
Gregory Cuneo: He was the special guest. They had, like, a Groundhog Eve dinner.
Christopher Cuneo: It was a nice dinner, and he was there and, you know, we went up to him and I mean, there wasn't a line of people, we just went up to him and said we're huge fans of the movie.
Gregory Cuneo: And that was before we even like really, I mean, of course, I should have realized he was in Spaceballs but you know, I didn't really put two and two together until we started seeing him more on TV shows and all that stuff. But yeah, it was really nice when we met him, really down the earth, sweet guy. But Chris reached out, well we both reached out to see if he could do…
Christopher Cuneo: Something for our raffle, the charity. I said, "Is there any way you could do a Cameo? Like, you know, you could record something for somebody, you know, you know, whoever wins the raffle." He's like, "Yeah, for sure. Send him my way." So, he was very nice about doing that for us.
Gregory Cuneo: Yeah. So that's one of the things is a video with him.
Michael: That's great.
Christopher Cuneo: But getting to Groundhog Day, the movie, every year, that's one of those movies that you fall in love deeper with. And it has to be an amazing movie that could play over and over and over again, and people will watch, Gregory is one of those people that does that, watches it all day long. The only other one they really do is Christmas Story.
Gregory Cuneo: Yeah, Christmas Story.
Christopher Cuneo: Not every movie can you play all day and watch and have an audience.
Gregory Cuneo: Well, we always say for ours, reaching for the stars, if we had an I Heart Horror Day marathon, just be Night of the Living Dead, being played over and over and over.
Christopher Cuneo: Yeah, we actually did that on YouTube, we did…
Gregory Cuneo: Last year, a watch party and we played a twice.
Christopher Cuneo: We looped it a bunch of times.
Gregory Cuneo: Me and you looped it, but not with the people at the watch party.
Christopher Cuneo: But yeah, we'd like to eventually have, you know, our website showing that all day long and you just click on it and watch Night of the Living Dead in honor of George.
Michael: Yeah. Well, that's great about Stephen Tobolowsky. I've exchanged a few emails with him over the years and he's always been… He seems very generous. So, I'm not surprised he agreed to do the video.
Christopher Cuneo: For the winner, yeah. I mean, he's a pretty big character actor. He, you know, he has a pretty big IMDb.
Michael: Yeah, he's got a lot of work. I mean, he was in he was in a lot of episodes of like The Goldbergs over the last few years, but like, he's been either a regular or very recurring on a number of shows.
Christopher Cuneo: One Day at a Time.
Michael: Yeah, One Day at a Time, yeah. I know he's going to Woodstock this year, too. So, he's going to be there on for Woodstock Willie's prediction ceremony.
Christopher Cuneo: Nice! Well, that's not the first time… I mean, so that'll be the third time that he's gone there? Because they did the Super Bowl, they filmed the Super Bowl commercial there.
Michael: I know he's done their ceremony at least one other time, but probably more. But yeah, he was in that Super Bowl commercial, too. So, I think he's been to Woodstock probably, you know, a bunch of times at this point.
Christopher Cuneo: I found out they chose Lancaster's Poppy to do that, to be the groundhog for that one. I wonder why they chose Lancaster and not something, a groundhog that's closer to Illinois.
Michael: I think Poppy's owner was contacted by the people doing the commercial and asked to bring her because she is a licensed wildlife rehabilitator and had a permit to cross state lines. But why they didn't choose a groundhog in Illinois, I don't know exactly.
Christopher Cuneo: Thank you. That's some information that you shined upon it. Again, you are the master when it comes to… You know, you're the only guy I know that that I could reach out to and ask information about Groundhog Days. So, I might be knocking at your door a little bit more about some questions I might have about an old Groundhog's Day and groundhog.
Michael: If you have any questions, let me know. I'm trying to amass as much knowledge and become as knowledgeable as I can.
Christopher Cuneo: Well, again, because our dad is Groundhog Joe, that's what we affectionately call him, and that's what our character's name is, Groundhogzilla's name is Groundhog Joe.
Gregory Cuneo: We also call him Fatty Joe.
Christopher Cuneo: His name is Fatty Joe, his full name. We used to call our groundhog in the backyard whenever we saw him, you know, years ago, we would see him coming out of his hole and getting into stuff and crossing the yard, we'd call him Fatty because, you know, they put on that weight, that extra weight, before they go into hibernation and they can get pretty big, you know? So yeah, so his full name is Fatty Joe Groundhog, the Groundhogzilla. But when it comes to groundhogs, I've been learning more things about them as well. I found out all the different names groundhogs have been called. I thought I had found out about all of them and then I heard of one person call it a mouse bear.
Michael: Okay, I don't know if I knew that one.
Christopher Cuneo: Yeah, yeah! Which would totally make sense, you know, because it is a rodent and it could look bear-like with its ears and its fur and its nose. The irony is that a friend of ours, one of his designs for Groundhogzilla, because he's one of our artists, it looks a lot like a bear, this groundhog or whatever. And I was like, do I like it? Do I not like it? It just looks too much like a bear. And then I found out the grounds are called mouse bears. And I'm like, well, I guess it is appropriate.
Michael: Yeah, woodchuck and whistle pig are the ones I feel like I hear the most as far as alternate names.
Christopher Cuneo: An earth pig, I heard of earth pig as well.
Michael: Okay, I don't know if I've heard that one or it's not super familiar.
Christopher Cuneo: I've heard babies are called chucklings.
Michael: Yeah, yeah, I've heard that. Yeah, so definitely if you if there's anything you need between now and then just feel free to reach out. Definitely.
Christopher Cuneo: Actually, Mike, eventually I'd like you to be a guest at our show, maybe at Groundhogzilla Two.
Michael: Oh yeah, maybe!
Christopher Cuneo: Have a table, do a talk on 'em.
Michael: Yeah, so when do you think…? Is that, like, a few years out?
Christopher Cuneo: Groundhog Day, so that would coincide.
Gregory Cuneo: Yeah, coincides on, like, a Saturday.
Christopher Cuneo: I don't know how far out that is.
Gregory Cuneo: But it might be before that because I think that's probably going to be another, like, 10 years.
Christopher Cuneo: Do you have plans already this weekend? You're welcome to come out and we'll get you passes if you'd like.
Michael: Yeah, I think I think Saturday we're pretty booked. Is it just Saturday?
Christopher Cuneo: Yeah, as of right now, it's only a one-day event.
Gregory Cuneo: Eventually, we want to make it two days for, you know, it might not necessarily be two days of like the same, like a convention atmosphere, but at least have maybe the night before— Because we have bands to play, we have live music and maybe have the bands play…
Christopher Cuneo: Like an after party…
Gregory Cuneo: Or a pre party type thing.
Christopher Cuneo: VIP night the night before with some of the guests maybe. There's a lot of things we're playing around with in our head.
Gregory Cuneo: There's so much planning, there's so much preparation and I just think it's, like, so much planning and preparation for just one day, you know?
Christopher Cuneo: And a lot of people keep on asking, you know, is it two days? Because a lot of people from other states won't come if it is just a one day.
Michael: Yeah, yeah, that would be cool if it expanded out.
Christopher Cuneo: I'd like to do an outdoor event, like a fire and ice kind of thing, you know, in February. We tried to do that last year, but you know, with the different fire rules and laws or whatever, and then, you know, trying to get the, you know, you have to get certain heaters and all that stuff, whatever.
Gregory Cuneo: We were blessed last year.
Christopher Cuneo: It was a spring day.
Gregory Cuneo: The first year we had the event was the coldest day of the year. And then last year it was, like, in the fifties. So, we were outside. This year we're at, it's a senior center in town, but it was an old school at one time so it's a three-level school.
Christopher Cuneo: So, we're doing a lot more with talks and screenings.
Gregory Cuneo: Movie screenings.
Christopher Cuneo: We have a full cafeteria we're calling The Clown Cafe.
Gregory Cuneo: The first two years we were at a VFW. So, it was it was all one level, it was mostly just one big room and a couple of offshoots of rooms. So, last year we were fortunate to have people outside on the lawn and stuff like that and we actually had some cars, like we had the Ecto-1 at our event last year.
Christopher Cuneo: And the DeLorean.
Gregory Cuneo: And the DeLorean was at our event last year, but we're not able to do that this year.
Christopher Cuneo: Yeah. This time of the year is hard with the cold on the cars as well.
Yeah, so we'll give you a sufficient amount of time before the next Groundhog event that we do. But like you said, you know, we might start doing a, you know, our own Groundhog Day groundhog that will, you know, predict the weather.
Michael: Yeah. Well, if you do, definitely let me know and I'll gladly add it to the database.
Christopher Cuneo: We just got to master it because I know that there's different ways of doing it, you know, with different animals and different ways they choose. A lot of times it's just pretty much it just a throw the dice, you know?
Michael: Yeah.
Christopher: So yeah, we'll figure something out. We're going to have to put our heads together with some people, maybe you as well.
Michael: I mean, a lot of them are not even living creatures. So, it's like…
Christopher Cuneo: I see that.
Gregory Cuneo: Chris was saying there's mascots, puppets.
Christopher Cuneo: There's some that are stuffed... One I read was stuffed, a stuffed groundhog.
Michael: Yeah. There's a number of ones that are like, that are like stuffed animals. And then there's actually like taxidermied, mounted groundhogs. The one I went to a couple of years ago, Uni in Myerstown, I believe, in Pennsylvania, and they put it on a raft, and then the handlers speak, do like they speak in, in Pennsylvania Dutch and they tell you what they think, if the groundhog saw its shadow. But obviously it's, you know, up to their interpretation of what it did. So, you know, even if you can't get a live animal, that's what I'm saying, like, have that crochet....
Christopher Cuneo: Like a puppet or something?
Michael: Yeah.
Christopher Cuneo: Yeah, because our friend, I was just telling Gregory, maybe we should do a puppet. Our friend makes puppets for his… He has his own company, it's called Ice Cream Monster and he has, you know, he does ice creams created by his the mascot, which is called, I Am Twisted. And one of the things that caught our attention about Chad, and he's only a few towns away, he was on News 12, they did a story about him, he had a puppet, you know, a monster puppet. And I said, this is the kind of people that we want as our members, our teammates, you know, people that we're going to join in with and doing events with. Which we did. We actually do an event now with our friend Chad, called I Heart Horror and Hot Rods, it's a car show.
Gregory Cuneo: Ice Cream Monster.
Christopher Cuneo: It's affectionately called Ice Cream Monster Jamboree and we, we raised money for the military for that one. So, he has a puppet, I think I'm going to ask him if we could get a puppet made of, because we know a lot of creative people that can make a, definitely make a puppet. So, I think maybe that might be it. We might do a puppet and then have him be the one that tells everybody about if it's going to be spring or more winter.
Michael: Yeah. I mean, it certainly makes it a little easier to have to worry about the laws or animals biting you or transporting.
Christopher Cuneo: True, true. Yeah. You don't want to... Because I heard that a lot of times that that's what, you know, probably pretty much puts the nail on the coffin is, you know, they bite you and then some of them are unfortunately are dropped or whatever, you know, because of that and people get a little freaked out. I mean, they are an animal, they are a rodent and sometimes, you know, they could be affectionate, but other times, temperamental, scared. Something could set them off or whatever, you know, instinctively, they could react.
Michael: Yep. And we're talking about Milltown Mel and I'm sad to see they're not doing it this year either. I was really hoping that this would be the year because I've never made it out there. I was considering going in, like, either 2019 or 2020, and I was like, "Oh, I can always just go next year." Then we had COVID and they didn't do it and then nope, hasn't happened in, like, four or five years now.
Christopher Cuneo: Yeah, same for us. I mean, it's a hard holiday for the fact that, you know, if you want to travel and or if you want to go to an event because it's so early in the morning, you know?
Gregory Cuneo: It's also in the winter.
Christopher Cuneo: It's in the winter, it's in the morning, you know, the sun is just coming up. You know, there are many things that go against getting to one of those events. But, you know, we are wishing all the best for Milltown Mel and his return. And, you know, that's why we try to do something in our town to, in the meantime, to keep Groundhog Day alive in Middlesex County.
Michael: Sounds great. All right. Well, I think that's largely everything I had. Is there anything else you wanted to cover? Did you want to talk about how do people get tickets? I assume it's online?
Gregory Cuneo: Yeah. Well, right now, if you purchase tickets online, it's $15 through ihearthorror.net. Day of, at the door, it's going to be $20 in cash. I'm not sure, I think that it's only up to the day of that you're able to purchase them online. But yeah, so we've got that going on. We have a lot of events that day, more horror related than groundhog. We have an actual zombie wedding that's going to be taking place that day.
Christopher Cuneo: Which is in honor of the movie we're screening.
Gregory Cuneo: Called Zombie Wedding, which was filmed in Vineland, New Jersey. It's done by the same people, the Weekly World News. I don't know if you know what the Weekly World News is, Bat Boy.
Michael: Oh yeah, yeah. Absolutely.
Gregory Cuneo: Yeah. So, that's the studio that produced that. And I think I read, they're thinking about doing like a cinematic universe-type thing, like, having more than just… You know, I guess they started with the Zombie Wedding and then maybe they'll do like other movies.
Christopher Cuneo: Yeah. If you're a fan of Weekly World News, you should definitely check the movie out because there's a lot of Easter eggs from other stories that they've covered and done, like, you know, cover.
Gregory Cuneo: Like Cheri Oteri is in it.
Christopher Cuneo: Oh, she's hysterical.
Gregory Cuneo: Siobhan Fallon, I don't know if you ever heard of her, she's a character actress. She was in Men in Black, she's been in a lot of things.
Michael: Oh yeah, yeah. I think I do know who you're talking about.
Christopher Cuneo: The actor that played Fester in The Addams Family musical.
Gregory Cuneo: And then you have Seth Gilliam, the guy from The Walking Dead.
Christopher It's actually a pretty big cast.
Gregory: So, we're having film screenings that day. And we're also having tons of guests. I think we have at least almost 30 guests that are going to be there from all different franchises.
Christopher Cuneo: That's what we try to do. We try to have a little everything, you know; we have paranormalists, we have the zoid people, we have people that are into, you know, classic horror and slashers. And, you know, hot comedy. Horror comedy is a big thing about us so we love our horror hosts; we have two horror hosts that have come, this is going to be the second year that they come. Mr. Lobo. Mr. Lobo. Sally the Zombie Cheerleader. Mr. Lobo is actually, speaking of Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania connection with Groundhog Day and all that, Mr. Lobo was actually a, he's from the Bay Area originally, but he's from the Pennsylvania Dutch area. So, if you have fans that like horror hosts and then don't know about him, there's one right there in Amish Country you should look into. Again, his name is Mr. Lobo.
Gregory Cuneo: He's on Twitch and you can find his videos on YouTube also. But yeah, we have a lot. We have people from the Friday the 13th franchise, we have people from, I don't know if you know, Terrifier, you know, Art the Clown. You heard of Art the Clown?
Michael: Yeah, I think so.
Christopher Cuneo: He's big. You could find him at Spirit and at Party City.
Gregory Cuneo: We don't have David Howard Thornton, Art the Clown, but we have people that worked on the movies.
Christopher Cuneo: Like my friend that I mentioned earlier that helped us with our holiday, Ron MacCloskey, he's there because he won an actual award for his documentary on Boris Karloff.
Gregory Cuneo: A Rondo award.
Christopher Cuneo: A Rondo award. So, he's there with, you know, signed copies of his movie he did with Sara Karloff, you know, Boris's widow.
Gregory Cuneo: No, no, no, daughter.
Christopher Cuneo: Daughter. Excuse me, daughter.
Gregory Cuneo: So yeah, there's a lot of things going on. There's, like we said, there's live music. There's the Bill Murray costume contest, there's The Zombie Wedding. Chris is one of those people. There's so many moving parts.
Christopher Cuneo: There's a haunt. There's a haunt that we're doing.
Gregory Cuneo: Oh yeah, we're doing a ghost hunt on the third floor, which is supposedly haunted at the school. So yeah, we got a lot of stuff going on. You're not going to be bored. It's not going to be a boring day.
Christopher Cuneo: There's something for everybody.
Gregory Cuneo: We're going to have tons of…
Christopher Cuneo: Face painter, tons of awesome food.
Gregory Cuneo: Raffle. Like we have a lot of good raffle.
Christopher Cuneo: Amazing raffle baskets are donated by like Kevin Smith's Secret Stash and a bunch of different horror actors. We have a King Diamond guitar that we're raffling off, signed by him. And so, you know, there's some for everybody that, you know, it's for people to win and want to put into the raffle.
Michael: Well, that all sounds great. And hopefully I'll get to come to a future event. I'll definitely keep an eye on what's going on with this one. And, you know, if there's anything Groundhog Day-related you have questions about, definitely let me know.
Christopher Cuneo: Thank you, Mike. We're really happy that serendipity brought us together, man. And, you know, you were there and saw the flyer over at the Smodcastle.
Michael: Yep, that's great. So, if there's anything else you want to mention, otherwise...
Christopher Cuneo: I think we're good, Mike. Yep.
Michael: All right. I really appreciate you both talking to me today and good luck and good luck raising some money for charity.
Gregory Cuneo: Thank you, Mike.
Christopher Cuneo: We appreciate your time and, you know, you're putting us out there.
Michael: All right. Thank you.
Christopher Cuneo: Thanks, brother. We'll talk to you later!
Michael: All right, bye!
Christopher Cuneo: Happy Groundhog Day!
Michael: Happy Groundhog Day!
Michael: And that's the interview. If you want to attend Groundhogzilla or learn more, visit ihearthorror.net. Music for this show was written by the Terrifying Breakmaster Cylinder. Show artwork is by Tom Mike Hill. Transcripts are provided by Aveline Malek at TheWordary.com. If you want to learn more about Groundhog Day, visit CountdownToGroundhogDay.com. Any feedback or voice messages about the show can be sent to podcast@countdowntogroundhogday.com. Thanks for listening! Talk to you next time.
--------
Transcribed by Aveline Malek at TheWordary.com