Brave Six Flags birds get the worms
Imagine 130,000 mealworms slithering, sliming, twisting and twirling in your hair, down your neck and along every inch of exposed skin.
You'll have the chance to see what it's like Saturday at Six Flags Great America, which kicks off its annual Fright Fest this weekend.
To add a little more horror to the Gurnee theme park during Halloween season, officials will award a family pack of 2008 season tickets to the one person each weekend who can lie for one minute in a clear coffin filled with squirming mealworms. The prize is worth about $300.
Brooke Gabbert, public relations manager for Great America, said the idea was the brainchild of park employees. It is designed to up the ante after the 2006 Fright Fest stunt, where people were asked to eat extremely large Madagascar hissing cockroaches. Fans of that contest shouldn't worry -- the roaches are back, too.
But it's the mealworms that will take center stage.
"It's really disgusting," Gabbert said. "Originally, we were only asking people to lie down in 10,000 worms. But it wasn't deep enough, so we ordered about 120,000 more."
She said the lucky contestant will climb into the plastic coffin and get comfortable. Then park officials will dump the worms in the coffin, starting from the head and working down to the feet.
People will wear ear plugs and goggles to keep the worms out of unwanted places. However, she added, the contestants' mouths will not be covered, so screaming is not recommended.
"The worms aren't big, but they squirm and crawl around a lot," she said. "They're disgusting."
She said the worms will be reused throughout the month and will be stored in a habitat created by the park in between contests.
For cockroach fans, the giant hissing roaches are back, along with a bunch of new edible items for the Wheel of Fright.
During the program every Friday at 7 p.m. at Hometown Square, select audience members will spin the wheel and eat whatever critter pops up.
The cockroaches are on the wheel, along with night crawlers, crickets, wax worms, hot peppers and "Rocky Mountain oysters," better known as bull testicles.
"Those things are just mammoth, like the size of a steak," she said. "It's a delicacy in some places, but it's really repulsive in others."
People who compete and win will be given passes allowing them to move to the front of the line on one or two rides, Gabbert said.
"The staff here will determine whether the people can go to the front of one or two rides," she said. "It all depends on how hard the task is to complete."
The theme park also opens a new haunted house called Studio 13: Where Film Comes to Fright.
It features scenes from 13 famous horror movies, such as "The Exorcist," "Friday the 13th" and "Saw."
For children, the Character Candy Trail is planned, where Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and Tweety Bird will pass out candy to children trick-or-treat style.
"We wanted to give more to everyone this year during Fright Fest," Gabbert said. "We have more for children, for adults, and for the people who just want to see disgusting things."
Fright Fest
What: Six Flags Great America Fright Fest
Where: Grand Avenue in Gurnee
When: Fright Fest opens Saturday and runs on weekends in October. Hours are 5 to 11 p.m. Fridays, 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturdays and 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sundays.
Cost: Admission is $54.99 at the gate, but passes can be picked up at www.sixflags.com for less, depending on the weekend. Children under 54 inches tall are $34.99.
Special events: On Saturday at 7 p.m., then every Friday at 7 p.m., the Coffin of Fear and Wheel of Fright contests will take place at Hometown Square. Also, make sure you check out the new haunted house, Studio 13: Where Film Comes to Fright. There's also the Mausoleum of Terror Haunted House, the Dead Man's Party show and The Haunted Castle pictorium.
Special Costs: Haunted houses are $5 before 5 p.m., and $8 after 5 p.m. A pass to both after 5 p.m. is $12.
What is a mealworm?
Before you climb into that coffin, you might want to know what's climbing in there with you.
-- The 130,000 bugs in the Six Flags coffin actually are mealworm larvae. The mealworm is not a worm at all; it's the spawn of the darkling beetle.
-- The larvae's only job is to eat and grow into a beetle, shedding its skin as it outgrows it. It takes about three months for the larvae to become a pupa. Then it cocoons like a caterpillar, and after about two weeks it turns into the beetle.
--The worms are golden yellow and have 13 segments -- a head, three thoratic segments, and nine abdominal segments. They pull themselves around on six stubby legs.
-- The mealworms eat grass, grain and corn meal.
Source: www.lawrencehallofscience.org
Bugs: Whatever you do, don't scream in there