Wade Denning "Famous Ghost Stories With Scary Sounds" (Pickwick, SPC-5146, 1975)
Another great 1970’s horror record with Wade Denning’s name attached to it, this LP is directly responsible for kicking off my lifelong enjoyment of Edgar Allan Poe through it’s succinct adaptation of “The Tell-Tale Heart”. As kids my pal Rupso and I would listen to that track over & over in his parent’s basement and work ourselves into a spooked-out frenzy chanting along “I think it was his eye!”.
While there are actually several genuinely creepy moments on this album it was “The Hitch Hiker” that gave me honest-to-god nightmares, and I recall many nights when I didn’t want to leave my bed to turn the record player off after it was done playing. Over a decade later (and several thousand miles away) a friend and I got to talking about spooky stuff from childhood while (ahem) tripping on acid; out of nowhere he suddenly launched into a reciting of the whole damn piece. I almost started screaming.
As a pop culture aside; a few of these stories (“The Miser’s Gold”, “The Headless Horseman”, etc) were also licensed to Post Cereal in the mid ’70’s and released as cardboard flexi discs that you could cut off the backs of Honeycomb & Alpha Bits cereal boxes. Nowadays though, they mostly just show up on ebay and discriminating blog posts.
Link Removed
Whoa, kick ass site, Jason!
Huzzah! Thank you kindly, Mr Meat.
Hah!
I had that record!
For some reason I had lots of Halloween records as a kid.
Very nice site, sir!
Cool — thanks Chardman. I think I’ve got something like 50 more Halloween albums to go, so I’m sure I’ll hit a few more from your youth.
this was fun, Thanks!
Unbelievable! I used to have “The Miser’s Gold” from the back of the Honeycomb box, and hearing it just now brought back some memories! I’ve remembered it these 30 years (I was seven at the time), and it is so cool to hear it again! Thanks!
does anyone know how to get a copy of this on tape or cd. Or does anyone have a mp3 file.
thanks
How how I dead mom’s summer garage sales of lost memories. What I’ve lost, I’ve now found. Too bad I’M still in KC. Least i’ve got som-somthin’ to listen to again. Cardboard never sounded so good!
I pulled out my 2 Honeycomb cardboard flexi Spooky Stories ©1978. No titles. Just stamp-type impressions that read This Is Record NO. (1) & NO. (3). The faces have story drawings. Headless Horseman is one of the flexi(s), if I recall. But the other is the drawing of a UFO lifting rocks with a ray. Anyone remember its name or what it’s about?
K… my brother and I used to huddle in the corner when my mom used to put this album on- I think we were very young, but I remember it from the cover… I can’t believe it’s still “floating” around. Good times. Thanks. I’m going to give a copy to my brother for Halloween along with a hit and see if he doesn’t totally regress and crap himself in fear!
I used to listen to this non stop as a kid with friends. It would scare the living shit out of me, especially the RailRoad Signal Man and the HitchHiker!! Omygod!
I still have the album, its pretty beat up, but now I want to listen to it again. If i get around to it, I’ll try and make some mp3’s of this from the LP.
David
Dave –> Or you could just click the picture & the whole album will download!
haha, my bad, thanks!!! Omygod its almost midnight and I am gonna listen to this whole album now. I am sure I will have nightmares for sure. Thankyouverymuch
Does anyone remember or have the cereal box reccord (Alphabits I think)
Spooky stories with the UFO story?
Me and my brother used to love this one.
Two guys make an emergency plane landing out in the woods and stumble across a strange old lady (‘There is no channel one’) and eventually some aliens.
wanting to know about that same UFO glowing rocks story on the “Spooky Stories” cardboard flexi as well. Is this story on that Wade Denning LP? Thanks!
I still have this record, and enjoy listening to it even now. The Tell-Tale Heart was my fave, too. I remember looking at the back cover at the picture and imaginging the story. And every time I hear someone ask, “How Old Am I?” I secretly think to myself the opening of The Hitch Hiker…not nearly as old I as look…been that way ever since that night when my hair turned white.”
Thanks for keeping the memories alive Jason!
Anonymous: no clue on the UFO story — I remember it only vaguely & it’s not on any vinyl that I own. Would love to check it out again too; maybe it’ll turn up.
Hardygirl: your web page inspired me to admit the following: when I was a kid another early (like 1st & 2nd grade) obsession was the Hardy Boys books, which turned into an obsession for the (then new) TV show, which in turn led to me obsessively taping every Hardy Boys episode for the first few seasons onto audio cassette (pre-VCR). When I think of the hours I spent playing those tapes back trying to remember what the hell was going on during the looooong stretches of nothing-but-audio-while-Frank-and-Joe-crept-around…
(a further confession: not having learned my lesson, a few years later I did the same thing for “Delta House”; ABC’s tv spin-off of Animal House)
I just finished importing this LP into iTunes and stumbled across this site while looking for the album cover art (which I promptly stole from you).
This album scared me as a kid. I think the worst for me was The Bloody Tower — the phrase “It is night!” stuck in my head and led to many sleepless nights. It didn’t help that I already thought our basement was haunted, and I had a poster of Darth Vader hung on the wall at the foot of my bed.
A few years ago, before I came across the LP again, I told the Bloody Tower from memory to my daughter at her Girl Scout campout after the girls begged me for a scary story. They didn’t sleep after that! (But I got to go home and sleep in my own bed).
Thanks for the cover art!
I loved this album as a kid, and have been hoping to find a CD reissue for nearly 20 years! I was overjoyed when I saw the mp3 version of it here, but the link is broken! Can you help with that? Thanks, and happy holidays! 🙂
This was one of my favorite records as a kid in the 70s. I’m sure that this is because of how creeped out I got when listening to it. I was highly impressed by anything that could control my emotions so. The two that frightened me the most were The Hitchhiker and The Railroad-signal Man-“Look out! Look out!” I also believe that the connector between stories was the sound of the whisping wind.
Wade Denning “Famous Ghost Stories With Scary Sounds
The Hitch Hicker scared me to death as a kid! I’d love to hear it again, but the link doesn’t seem to work. Is there any way you can re-set it or send it to me directly? Thanks!
I was trying to find MP3 files of those old “Honeycomb” cereal records, and came across this post via Google (amzingly, after all these years, I was still able to remember that one of those stories was called “The Miser’s Gold,” else I’d probably not have found very much.
I’d love to download that Wade Denning album, but when I clicked on it, I got an error message. I used to check-out Halloween-themed LPs from the library back in the 1970s, although most of them were kinda jokey, rather than scary, like the one about “The Chinese Water Torture,” where the guy gets water dripped onto his forehead, until he finally starts gibbering in stereotypically east Asian-sounding dialogue, at which point he says, “What am I saying? I don’t even know how to speak Chinese!”
Good times.
Something reminded me of this album last night, and after remembering some of the track titles, I finally found the album here! Very cool! But what’s not cool is that the link to the sound files is broke. There are many posts about what happened to the link, but no answers. Are the sound files of this album still available? Please help!
Many many thanks for posting this. When I was a kid I begged Mom to buy Honeycomb so I could get the Headless Horseman record–I loved that story in particular because of the Disney cartoon. She finally bought one box and, since the story wasn’t listed on the record, I held my breath till we got home to see if I got the Horseman story. I did, but the record was so scuffed it wouldn’t play! Aargh! And there was no way Mom was going to buy another box! So finally, after 30 years, I get to hear my Horseman story. God bless you, sir!
Thanks for the memories, man. This version of The Tell Tale Heart was what started my love of literature, so Mr. Denning’s efforts have had good beyond the record. Right on.
This is so completely awesome…. Thank you so much for having this available. This LP fired my imagination in my youth, and no other version of “The Tell Tale Heart” has ever been able to compare.
Hullo down there! Look out! I’m another grown up kid who was terrified by this record in the seventies. I’d forgotten all about but I have to admit that I got a chill just from seeing the cover on your site. The wind between the stories still gives me the creeps. Thanks!
I loved that record and I still have it somewhere. I used to put this on and my brother and I would hide in our fort made with couch cushions. I wish I would have seen this site before my brother died last month, he would have loved it. Thanks for the memories!!
I had “The HitchHiker” as one of those cereal box 45’s (still do, somewhere, I think) and even then it skipped a bit & would never lie flat. Wonderful not only to hear thses again but clearly too! Thanks! Now to share them with my nephews 😉
WHERE CAN I GET A COPY OF THE BOOK (PICTURES) THAT CAME WITH THE RECORD???????????????????????????
As for the Pickwick Records 1978 Spooky Stories Honeycomb Cardboard Flexi Record #3, it starts out as: “Late 1 afternoon, assistant scientist Tory Callahan & his friend Rick Hill are flying in Rick’s airplane..” They talk about rock formations on the hill then some aliens talk to them about a secret formula, but the record being in bad shape skips to the end & no idea what happens. Does anyone have a copy of this record in better shape? If so PLEASE make it avail. maybe as an mp3 or something 🙂 Also anyone know the actual TITLE of this story & the album it actually came from? Thanks!
Lots of removed links. Shame.igbevyhg
I do remember this scary stories cereal box record. I’m looking for it myself.
Almost a year since the last post on this page…
Any new leads on availability of Mp3 download or
purchasable cd modernization of this classic LP?
Hi! I was surfing and found your blog post… nice! I love your blog. 🙂 Cheers! Sandra. R.
Hi! I was surfing and found your blog post… nice! I love your blog. 🙂 Cheers! Sandra. R.