In the first half, author Stephen Schochet shared weird tales from Hollywood and horror film history. One story that he told was of a Universal Studios tour where a man dressed as the killer from Psycho emerged from behind the Bates Motel set. While the audience was amused at first, their confused guide warned them that the 'visit' was not a part of the program and laughter turned to screams as the man charged at the tour bus wielding a knife. Upon reaching the terrified tourists, the man removed his wig and revealed his identity: Jim Carrey, who was filming a movie on a nearby set. Following the chilling prank, Schochet said, the famous actor took pictures and signed autographs for the starstruck tourists.
Schochet also marveled that celebrities are often forced to endure strange encounters with fans who believe their cinematic exploits are real. To that end, he noted that Curly Howard of the Three Stooges had to wear a disguise in public to avoid being kicked in the shins and that former Superman George Reeves once had someone pull a gun on him because he wanted to see the bullets bounce off Reeves' chest like in the TV series. Similarly, Shochet observed that some actors also place great importance on how roles will affect their public perception. On that note, he said that Ronald Reagan "hated playing a bad guy" in movies and, thus, only portrayed a villain in his final film after being urged to do so by his agent who observed that the future president had become a "has been" and needed the work.
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The latter half of the program was devoted to Open Lines and featured a 'Nightmare Moment' hotline for callers to recount frightening episodes from their lives. Trinia from Tulsa recalled a bizarre experience from when she was five years old. While sleeping in her grandmother's bed, she saw a "figure of an angel with big white wings and a dagger in one hand and a candle in the other hand." This entity, Trina said, was coming at her with the weapon, which caused her to scream out for help and wake her grandmother. Although this may sound like simply the nightmare of a child, Trina revealed that, the next morning, she overheard her grandmother telling her mother that she had found candle wax on the floor.
Later in the evening, Kelly in Green Bay, Wisconsin shared an uplifting story of what may have been intervention from the 'other side.' She explained that, while visiting a consignment shop, she ran into her old neighbors. While they were chatting, the clerk handed the couple some photographs which she said had fallen out of an album they sold during a previous visit. As the couple insisted that they had not brought such an item to the shop, Kelly looked at the photos and saw that they were childhood pictures of her friend who had died four years ago. An astonished Kelly was given the photos and returned them to her friend's grateful family. "I think they were meant to fall into my hands," she mused.
News segment guest: G. Edward Griffin