Sat, Oct 3
Hallowe'en Spooktacular
There is a particular panic to finding something for a five-year-old in October that is actually Halloween and not a trauma. Everything is either a hayride with a cartoon pumpkin or a maze with a man holding a chainsaw. The middle does not seem to exist.
It does, on a stretch of 1st Street, and it has existed since 1963. Bob Baker's marionettes are hand-built, string-operated, and operated in the open — the puppeteers walk the floor with them, so the whole thing happens at eye level with the audience sitting on carpet rather than in rows. More than a hundred puppets come out across the show: dancing skeletons, a pumpkin patch, a sea of ghosts. It is spooky the way a children's book is spooky, which is to say genuinely, and without anybody jumping out at you.
The detail that converts adults: every show ends with ice cream, and the costume parade is for everyone in the room, not just the kids. Plenty of the audience on a given afternoon has no child with them at all.
Runs through November 8. 1345 West 1st Street, Los Angeles. Tickets move quickly once October starts, and the people who know this place book the whole month in one go.
There is a particular panic to finding something for a five-year-old in October that is actually Halloween and not a trauma. Everything is either a hayride with a cartoon pumpkin or a maze with a man holding a chainsaw. The middle does not seem to exist.
It does, on a stretch of 1st Street, and it has existed since 1963. Bob Baker's marionettes are hand-built, string-operated, and operated in the open — the puppeteers walk the floor with them, so the whole thing happens at eye level with the audience sitting on carpet rather than in rows. More than a hundred puppets come out across the show: dancing skeletons, a pumpkin patch, a sea of ghosts. It is spooky the way a children's book is spooky, which is to say genuinely, and without anybody jumping out at you.
The detail that converts adults: every show ends with ice cream, and the costume parade is for everyone in the room, not just the kids. Plenty of the audience on a given afternoon has no child with them at all.
Runs through November 8. 1345 West 1st Street, Los Angeles. Tickets move quickly once October starts, and the people who know this place book the whole month in one go.
It does, on a stretch of 1st Street, and it has existed since 1963. Bob Baker's marionettes are hand-built, string-operated, and operated in the open — the puppeteers walk the floor with them, so the whole thing happens at eye level with the audience sitting on carpet rather than in rows. More than a hundred puppets come out across the show: dancing skeletons, a pumpkin patch, a sea of ghosts. It is spooky the way a children's book is spooky, which is to say genuinely, and without anybody jumping out at you.
The detail that converts adults: every show ends with ice cream, and the costume parade is for everyone in the room, not just the kids. Plenty of the audience on a given afternoon has no child with them at all.
Runs through November 8. 1345 West 1st Street, Los Angeles. Tickets move quickly once October starts, and the people who know this place book the whole month in one go.
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Hallowe'en Spooktacular
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Today ·
Saturday, October 3, 2026
2:00 PM PDT – 5:00 PM PDT
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· until Nov 8, 2026
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There is a particular panic to finding something for a five-year-old in October that is actually Halloween and not a trauma. Everything is either a hayride with a cartoon pumpkin or a maze with a man holding a chainsaw. The middle does not seem to exist.
It does, on a stretch of 1st Street, and it has existed since 1963. Bob Baker's marionettes are hand-built, string-operated, and operated in the open — the puppeteers walk the floor with them, so the whole thing happens at eye level with the audience sitting on carpet rather than in rows. More than a hundred puppets come out across the show: dancing skeletons, a pumpkin patch, a sea of ghosts. It is spooky the way a children's book is spooky, which is to say genuinely, and without anybody jumping out at you.
The detail that converts adults: every show ends with ice cream, and the costume parade is for everyone in the room, not just the kids. Plenty of the audience on a given afternoon has no child with them at all.
Runs through November 8. 1345 West 1st Street, Los Angeles. Tickets move quickly once October starts, and the people who know this place book the whole month in one go.
It does, on a stretch of 1st Street, and it has existed since 1963. Bob Baker's marionettes are hand-built, string-operated, and operated in the open — the puppeteers walk the floor with them, so the whole thing happens at eye level with the audience sitting on carpet rather than in rows. More than a hundred puppets come out across the show: dancing skeletons, a pumpkin patch, a sea of ghosts. It is spooky the way a children's book is spooky, which is to say genuinely, and without anybody jumping out at you.
The detail that converts adults: every show ends with ice cream, and the costume parade is for everyone in the room, not just the kids. Plenty of the audience on a given afternoon has no child with them at all.
Runs through November 8. 1345 West 1st Street, Los Angeles. Tickets move quickly once October starts, and the people who know this place book the whole month in one go.
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