Amanda and Sarah explore some unusual lore and a California cryptid. Sarah says no to drugs with a look at connections between cannabis-related superstitions/urban legends and the history of cautionary tales. Amanda takes listeners to the West Coast with a rundown of the Fresno Nightcrawler. Other subjects covered include taste-testing Peep-flavored Pepsi, thirsting for Steve Guttenberg, and cooking babies. 

Recommendations:

Sarah doubles down on Amanda's previous rec of the 2022 horror film Men. 

Sources:

• SYFY Wire (THE DARK HISTORY BEHIND HANSEL AND GRETEL)
• Snopes (The Microwaved Baby)
• Snopes (Did Several Musicians Die with White BIC Lighters in Their Pockets?)
• Wikipedia/Molly Whuppie
• The Business Journal (MORE THAN FRESNO FAMOUS: HOW THE NIGHTCRAWLER CAPTURED THE WORLD’S IMAGINATION)
• Your Central Valley (Fresno Nightcrawler: Hoax or real? Mystery remains years later)
• the-weird-and-the-wonderful.htm"> Yosemite National Park (Yosemite: The Weird and the Wonderful)

Amanda and Sarah sprinkle some spooky potpourri and film facts all over this episode. Sarah samples various Black Dog stories along with a Pittsburgh urban legend known as Slag Pile Annie. Amanda meets at the intersection of comedy and horror with a look at the history and legacy of Bud Abbott and Lou Costello Meet Frankenstein. Other subjects covered include a weird email, a ghost encounter, and a terrifying orgasm. 

Recommendations:

Amanda doesn't recommend Scream VI but does recommend the 1976 mystery thriller Obsession.

Amanda and Sarah meet at the intersection of sex and crime with two very different stories. Amanda celebrates Women's History Month with the story of Jane Toppan, a nurse/serial killer believed to derive pleasure from drugging her patients to death. Sarah investigates the historical connections between execution by hanging, the mandrake root, and erotic asphyxiation. Other subjects covered include the masculine urge to send bad gifs, chore preferences, and bunny decor. 

Recommendations:

Amanda recommends the films Remember My Name and Cruising. Sarah recommends the book How to Keep House While Drowning.

Sources:

• “Autoerotic Deaths,” Practical Forensic and Investigative Perspectives
• Wikipedia/Erotic asphyxiation
• Wikipedia/Death erection
• BBC News (The plant that can kill and cure)
• "Myths and mandrakes" by Anthony John Carter
• Botanical.com (Mandrake)
• Wikipedia/Jane Toppan
• New England Historical Society (JOLLY JANE TOPPAN, THE KILLER NURSE OBSESSED WITH DEATH)
• NY Daily News (Killer Boston nurse finally went too far when she poisoned entire family in 1901)
• Find A Grave (Jane Toppan)
• Radford University (Jane Toppan “Jolly Jane”)

For updates on future episodes and other fun stuff, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, or check out our Patreon. 

Get out your charts, ghouls, cos Amanda and Sarah have an episode chock full of hot zodiac takes, including double the Ass-trology. Other subjects covered include sex rags, reality TV, sisterly tampon pressure, and a gruesome Mario Bros. character. 

For updates on future episodes and other fun stuff, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, or check out our Patreon. 

Amanda and Sarah explore a questionable haunting and even more questionable condition. Sarah provides updates on The Demon of Brownsville Road (originally covered in Episode 37), a Pittsburgh-area case of a family terrorized by a supernatural presence in their home. Amanda investigates penis-snatching, a phenomenon where men believe their genitalia was stolen through magic. 

Recommendations:

Amanda recommends the film Men and the third installment of Shudder's documentary series In Search of Darkness. 

Sources: 

• CNN (7 killed in Ghana over 'penis-snatching' episodes)
• Vice (Witches Allegedly Stole Penises and Kept Them as Pets in the Middle Ages)
• Harper's Magazine (A Mind Dismembered)
• Pacific Standard (Africa’s genital-stealing crime wave hits the countryside)
• Reuters (Penis theft hits city)

Amanda and Sarah take a dose of true crime with a case about a con artist and a locked-room mystery. Amanda goes to Arkansas for the story of how Norman Baker lured victims into the famous Crescent Hotel with fake cancer treatments. Sarah investigates the unsolved 1931 murder of Julia Wallace, who was found beaten to death in her Liverpool home. Other subjects covered include a creepy country ballad, an Alex Jones Chili-Gate explainer, and a Richard Attenborough love fest. 

Recommendations:

Amanda recommends the films Brighton Rock and 10 Rillington Place. Sarah recommends Skinamarink. 

Sources: 

• Shedunnit Podcast (The Telephone Call)
• Echo (Unsolved 'locked room' murder that's puzzled detectives for 88 years)
• The Crime Wire (The Unsolved Murder of Julia Wallace)
• The Julia Wallace Murder Foundation
• Arkansas Times (Graphic nonfiction illuminates a dark story from Crescent Hotel’s past)
• Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (Glass bottles found behind 'haunted' Arkansas hotel date to 1938 cancer elixir)
• hotel.com/history.shtml?_ga-ft=1ZsrU5.0.0.0.0.1WZY1XI-1PrCP52.0.0">Crescent Hotel History
• Atlas Obscura (Found: A Quack’s Medicine Bottles, Buried Behind a Haunted Hotel)

Amanda and Sarah welcome guest Genevieve Barbee-Turner, a professional tarot illustrator with multiple custom decks to her name. Genevieve discusses her theories on tarot and its uses, and how her decks serve to tell stories with a social justice angle. She recently launched a Kickstarter for her next project HAUNTED: An Appalachian Tarot Deck, described as being inspired "by Appalachian folklore and urban legends from Southwestern PA, West Virginia, and Eastern Ohio."

Find her work at Killerpancake Illustration: https://killerpancakeillustration.com/

And the HAUNTED Kickstarter at: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/killerpancake/haunted-an-appalachian-tarot-deck

Recommendations:

Amanda recommends the movies M3GAN and Hellbender. Sarah recommends the Britcom Chewing Gum. 

For updates on future episodes and other fun stuff, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, or check out our Patreon. 

Sorry, ghouls, no new episode. We'll see you in two weeks. 

Amanda and Sarah revisit an episode from back when they were still figuring out this whole podcasting thing and didn't have a decent mixer. It still slaps. Originally posted as Episode 43 on March 14, 2019. 

Just a warning: This episode contains references to sexual violence, bodily trauma, and some disturbing, gory details about pregnancy. Listener discretion advised. 

Amanda and Sarah give birth to instances of pregnancy horror for this episode. Sarah goes way back to the 1700s for the harrowing story of Mary Toft, an English woman who became a sensation when she started giving birth to rabbits. Amanda heads back to present day for the case of Sanju Bhagat and the medical oddity known as fetus in fetu. Other subjects covered include a Bootleg Bart bully and a fun cyst story.

Recommendations:

Sarah recommends X-Files episode "Humbug" and the music video about the beloved late polar bear, Knut.

Sarah and Amanda DO NOT RECOMMEND the Selkie-inspired book Sealskin by Su Bristow.

Sources: 

Wikipedia/Mary Toft

What Mary Toft Felt: Women’s Voices, Pain, Power and the Body by Karen Harvey

The Paris Review (An Extraordinary Delivery of Rabbits)

The Public Domain Review (Mary Toft and Her Extraordinary Delivery of Rabbits)

ABC News (Bearing Your Own Twin)

Amanda and Sarah head to Italy to dance with the puppets and cry blood with the saints. Amanda becomes a real girl with a dive into the disturbing, cautionary, pre-Disney origins of Pinocchio. Sarah prays to St. Lucy/Lucia, whose reputation for gouging out her own eyes has inspired traditions and desserts in Italy and Sweden. Other subjects covered include never buying a new car, making up Olivia Newton-John lore, and hating Elf on the Shelf. 

Recommendations:

Sarah recommends (so far) the Netflix show 1889. Amanda recommends (kinda) the Amazon Prime series Three Pines. 

Sources:

• Norwegian American (On the darkest day, a tale of two “Lucys”)
• Wyrd Designs (Glad Lussinatt)
• Tradition in Action (The Feast of St. Lucy Inspires Charming Customs)
• Slow Italy (Santa Lucia celebration in Italy)
• Wikipedia/Saint Lucy
• NBC News (Pinocchio's Real Roots Mapped)
• Smithsonian Magazine (The Real Story of Pinocchio Tells No Lies)
• The New Yorker (What the Original “Pinocchio” Really Says About Lying/The Transformations of Pinocchio)

For updates on future episodes and other fun stuff, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, or check out our Patreon.