10 questions with Elvira’s Cassandra Peterson on returning to Knott’s Scary Farm

The 'Yours Cruelly Elvira XXperience' will celebrate the Queen of Halloween's 20 shows over the past 40 years at Knott’s Berry Farm.

Elvira star Cassandra Peterson misses all the Knott’s Scary Farm fans even if she doesn’t miss the grueling three times a night shows that she performed as her alter ego over the past four decades at the Buena Park theme park.

Peterson will be back at Knott’s this Halloween season even if the Mistress of the Dark won’t be making personal appearances.

The “Yours Cruelly Elvira XXperience” will celebrate the Queen of Halloween’s 20 shows over the past 40 years at the annual Halloween Haunt event at Knott’s Berry Farm.

Knott’s Scary Farm returns on select nights from Sept. 19 through Oct. 31 with more than 1,000 monsters lurking in the haunted mazes, scare zones and fog-filled streets throughout the park.

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Elvira Mistress of the Dark was the best known and longest tenured of the celebrities who served as the face of the annual Knott’s Halloween event — a list that included Wolfman Jack, Sinister Seymour and “Weird Al” Yankovic.

Here’s our lightly edited conversation with Peterson on her return to Knott’s Scary Farm for the “Yours Truly Elvira XXperience.”

1) What can the fans expect when you return to Knotts Scary Farm?

Well, it’s not going to be the usual live show. This is going to be more of an experience. It’s going to be a retrospective of my career at Knott’s going back through the shows of the ‘80s, ‘90s and 2000s.

There will be a lot of great clips, footage and photos. I think fans who have grown up with my shows at Knott’s will find it really, really interesting.

It’s going to be a fun experience for the fans. I think they’re going to have a great time.

2) How does it feel to be back at Knott’s Scary Farm this year?

I’m excited. I have so many friends there that I’ve worked with for 100 years. OK, not quite 100, but almost.

I really miss Knott’s in a lot of ways. I don’t know if I miss the grueling three times a night shows, but I do miss the people and the fans.

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Honestly, I saw the fans grow up. I’ve met fans who were coming up to my knee and then they had families and they’ve come back and they’ve got their kids.

It’s a great crowd. They really, really love me. I’m excited to go back out there and connect with them again.

3) Do you remember your first appearance at Knott’s Scary Farm?

I really hadn’t sung or danced for more than a decade when I went out there. I really didn’t know if I could do it again. So the dancing and the songs were very rudimentary. They weren’t anything too fancy.

I remember singing and skipping around to “Ghouls Just Want to Have Fun.” I was very, very nervous about it, but it turned out great. I was thrilled. I couldn’t wait to come back again.

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In the beginning it was pretty amateur. We started out so simple and so easy. The shows got better and better. Every year we added a little more. We added more sets, more dancers, more singers. It felt bigger and bigger and more and more professional.

By the last show, it was ready for Vegas. It was really good. Which was a bummer because just when it was getting super good I quit.

4) Are there any moments that stand out from your 20-year career at Knotts Scary Farm?

It was a very collaborative endeavor every year to put together a show that the fans would like and that would make me look good. It was really fun just working with all the people that did the sets and the music and the costumes.

It was a really, really fun thing to do. It was one of my favorite things to do.

It was like making a movie or a TV show, but only in a few weeks time. You know, start it, boom, do it.

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With almost every show we would film a little mini film about something that pertained to that year’s show. Putting those together was a blast. I loved doing that and the audience always really loved it.

Honestly, the worst part was driving there from Hollywood at 5 o’clock. You can imagine the traffic from Hollywood. Man, it was like a two-and-a-half-hour schlep.

Then I had two hours of makeup. By that time I was in a coma and it was like, ‘Now you’ve got to do three shows.”

5) Do you remember how you felt after you played your last show at Knott’s in 2017?

For one thing, I thought it was our best show that we’d ever done.

It was really hard to hang it up. It was heavy because I’d been doing it for so many years.

The fans were so great that night. Everybody was crying. I was crying.

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I went off and I changed out of my costume and all of a sudden they said, “You have to come back.” Because they’d been standing there applauding for like 20 minutes.

So I threw on a bathrobe and it was just really, really moving. Very much like the end of an era.

6) How did the Elvira show change through the years at Knott’s? What became harder to do?

Walking in those heels of mine. Dancing in those things became a lot harder.

I can’t run around in that costume forever. I’m not Cher. I don’t know what she’s got going on, but I don’t have it.

It was just getting more difficult to do. The energy that you have to expend. It’s hard doing live shows. Especially if you do two or three of them a night. It kicks your butt. I was just like, “I can’t do it anymore.”

7) How hard was it to step away from dressing up as Elvira after 40 years? Or was it a relief?

I still work as much as ever. In fact, I think I work more. I’m not kidding.

I wrote my autobiography, which became a New York Times bestseller. I’m writing two more books right now. I’m working on a documentary. I’m working on a movie. And doing lots of appearances. I did a podcast already this morning. I have two more podcasts coming up this week. And then a bunch more jobs.

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Mostly, my income is all based around my licensing and merchandising of products. I do a tremendous amount of that now. More than ever. Dolls, pinball machines, games and you name it.

I am busy, busy, busy.

I’ve got October coming up. This is supposed to be my downtime. It’s not really working out that way.

8) Is there a way for a character like Elvira, who represents beauty and sex appeal, to age gracefully?

If I’m playing the character, probably no. But I don’t need to play the character.

There’s so much archive footage. I can do animation. Of course, I have comic books. The character is going to just continue to live on like a sexy little Santa Claus for Halloween. So I’m not too worried about it.

It really took me a long time to decide that the character can function and live and go forward without me actually getting into the costume.

9) Who were Elvira’s influences and how did they deal with aging?

I don’t know who the heck Elvira’s influences were. I could say Morticia Addams. I didn’t know about Vampira at the time when I started. Now, obviously I know about her a lot.

With Morticia Addams they kept getting new actresses to play the part. That would have been nice. I gave that a shot.

I did a reality show called “The Search for the Next Elvira.” It did not work. Nobody wanted to hire her. It just didn’t happen. I had all these grand ideas about what I was going to do and they just didn’t fly.

10) Could we someday see a virtual Elvira?

I think she’s perfect because she really is not quite a human being. She’s more like a cartoon character in a lot of ways.

The character lends itself a lot to doing anything with all kinds of AI or whatever they got up their sleeve.

I’d be happy to do that — as long as I’m getting a cut of the money.