Enough about comics! While I was convalescing at home for two weeks, I came across a commercial. The commercial was for a television show. The television show was Haunting in the Heartland. I had to watch it.
The premise is this: enough of these big city haunts! We're tired of Victorian mansions, Gothic cathedrals and Poltergeist III high-rises! What about the REAL America? Michigan, Tennessee and Mississippi. We've got ghosts, too!
The host is Steve Shippy, although IMDb lists him as Steven "Prozak" Shippy. Not to comment on a person's appearance, but he dresses like a school resource officer. And he has a Steven Seagal goatee. Regardless, this guy hates ghost and he is here to weed them out.
If you've ever been on Prime, you've likely seen the generic poster for a Shippy joint. Now, the Travel Trvl Channel has given Shippy the green light to take it to the hinterlands. Episode one starts slow, with a haunting near Shippy's hometown of Saginaw, MI (see above). The biggest takeaway from this one is that Shippy treats his job like a plumber. He asks for feedback as soon as the hauntee family walks in the day after! Shouldn't they wait a full 24 hours first? Shippy might as well say "alright, that should stop the leak, but call if it doesn't."
Entertainment picks up as Shippy migrates South. Two further themes emerged here, bringing an informal format to the hunts. First, Shippy is good about bringing in local historians for context. But if said historian answers a hypothetical in the affirmative, that's a firm yes for Shippy.
For example, Shippy asked if smallpox sufferers were burned alive. The historian responds: "well, maybe." Later, while debriefing, Shippy said, "so someone with smallpox was burned alive nearby." How can a ghost haunt a house if their house was burned down???
The second theme is more a fun watch-along game: "what is the mental health explanation behind all this?" In Tennessee, for example, Shippy believes this one daughter that died in a car crash was being chased by a demon. Now, I'm no psychologist, but maybe schizophrenia? Or illicit substances? Both? Shippy has only talked to one psychologist thus far, and I'm only three episodes in.
The real doozy is in Holly Springs, MS. The hauntee family consists of two carpetbaggers from New York state. The haunted home they inhabit is full of gaudy decorations, i.e. racist knick-knacks. But that's not all! Their ghost, named Bulah, was an old inhabitant who was involuntarily committed. But she died while institutionalized? Do spirits traverse?
Anyway, the New Yorkers think Bulah possessed their pitbull. How long did they have this pitbull before it attacked its owners and police? Two years, and it was a rescue. Then Shippy tries to tie in a neighboring museum for a smallpox outbreak as another source of ghosts? It gets muddled.
I must update as I finish the final three episodes. Also, in researching this macro-blog post, I made a discovery. Shippy is known as "Prozak" because he is also a rapper. This video is the only place to end this.