Happy New Year: Oddball Traditions From Around The Globe
Happy New Year: Oddball Traditions From Around The Globe
Welcome To The Oddity Shop, Where The Bizarre is Always on Sale. This Week, Curator Zach is Springing you into the New Year with some wild traditions
Midnight isn’t just a timestamp; it’s a thin place where old stories exhale and new ones rush in. We packed our bags and crossed borders to explore how different cultures welcome the year: by smashing plates, hanging onions, racing with suitcases, counting grapes to a chiming clock, ringing 108 temple bells, burning human-sized effigies, and throwing coins into a house lit bright as noon.
Along the way we share origins, folklore, and the practical “why” behind each tradition, then stitch them into a respectful, irreverent New Year relay race you can adapt at home. It’s part history lesson, part party plan, and fully about intention you can sense: noise for cleansing, flame for closure, circles for fortune, bells for release.
Oddball Holidaze: We Got You a Murder! (Michigan True Crime)
Oddball Holidaze: We Got You a Murder! (Michigan True Crime)
Welcome To The Oddity Shop, Where The Bizarre is Always on Sale. This Christmas, your Curator Kara is gifting us all a Michigan True Crime Story.
\We revisit the Michigan co-ed murders across Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti in the late 1960s, where a clean-cut college student hid behind charm and familiarity while women disappeared. This isn’t a lurid deep-dive into a killer’s mystique. It’s a careful retelling of the victims’ lives, the warning signs people ignored, and the moments of courage that finally cracked the case.
We walk through the shifting “safe” culture of a college town where hitchhiking felt normal and dorms stayed unlocked. Witness after witness noticed the small things: dead, cold eyes in a wig shop, a hovering presence, a fresh coat of paint in a basement that smelled like bleach. When those observations were reported early and clearly, the investigation turned. Forensics aligned with accounts, and the murders stopped. That’s the point: vigilance is a practice. You don’t need to be a detective to make a difference; you just need to act on the feeling that something isn’t right.
Hans Trapp: The Cannibal Christmas Scarecrow
Hans Trapp: The Cannibal Christmas Scarecrow
Somewhere in the borderlands between France and Germany a scarecrow waits by the road. We follow the threads of Hans Trapp, the “Christmas cannibal,” from his roots in the very real Hans von Trotha. A petty, powerful baron who feuded with an abbey and defied the Pope, to the folklore figure who haunts December nights with straw-stuffed sleeves and a sharpened stick.
We unpack how a historical grudge spiraled into legend: dams built and shattered, towns flooded, papal letters ignored, and excommunication that turned authority into theater. Then we trace the folklore’s second life, as Hans Trapp becomes Saint Nick’s dark companion across Alsace. Santa offers sweets while the scarecrow tallies sins with sticks and chains. Along the way, we talk about why December carries so many shadow-creatures, how negative reinforcement outmuscles kind intentions.
If you love haunted history, European folklore, and the strange places where church politics meet campfire stories, this one’s for you.
Ten days In A Madhouse: Nellie Bly is Committed to Blackwell Island
Ten days In A Madhouse: Nellie Bly is Committed to Blackwell Island
Welcome To The Oddity Shop, Where The Bizarre is Always on Sale. This week, your Curator Kara Has Gone Mad with Nellie Bly
We open the doors to Blackwell’s Island, once home to New York’s almshouse, workhouse, penitentiary, and the infamous asylum, and follow the razor‑sharp path of Elizabeth Jane Cochrane, better known as Nellie Bly, whose undercover reporting forced the public to look straight at what it wanted to ignore. From the ice-cold intake baths to rancid meals and nights spent shivering under thin blankets, we revisit the details she recorded and the people she met: grieving widows, immigrant women who couldn’t be understood, and a teenager who didn’t know why she was there.
We walk through how Bly engineered her commitment, the moment she dropped the act and was believed even less, and the terrifying reality of the “credibility trap” once you’re labeled insane.
This story isn’t just Victorian scandal; it’s a mirror. Understaffed psychiatric wards, overwhelmed hospitals, and carceral “solutions” still echo the same logic: out of sight, out of mind.
If this resonated with you, use your voice: share the episode, leave a review, and subscribe so more people find these stories—and the courage inside them.
Oddball Guests: Jeff Belanger On Lore and Life Lessons
Oddball Guests: Jeff Belanger On Lore and Life Lessons
Welcome to a Very Special Episode of The Oddity Shop! In The Shop This Week we have a special guest: Adventurer, Author, Speaker, And So Much More - Jeff Belanger!
What if the ghost’s unfinished business isn’t theirs at all, but ours? We sit down with author, researcher, and longtime Ghost Adventures writer Jeff Belanger for a fast, funny, and deeply humane tour of the paranormal that treats legends like cultural sermons. Jeff traces his path from teenage encounters near the Warrens’ Connecticut home to crafting TV stories that ask the only question that matters: why here?
We wander into folklore’s global rhyme scheme: puckwudgies matching fae and Inuit little people before descending into winter with Grýla, Krampus, and Jeff’s Fright Before Christmas, where fear becomes the lever that shifts us back toward redemption. Then we tilt our eyes to the sky: if “aliens” look and breathe like us, maybe they’re future humans: time travelers with a vested interest in our better choices.
Whether you come for Ghost Adventures secrets, New England legends, or a smarter way to think about hauntings, you’ll leave with more than goosebumps. Subscribe, share this with your favorite oddball, and tell us: which legend still won’t let you go?
Check Out His Website:
Madison Seminary: Ohio's Most Haunted Spirit Hub
Madison Seminary: Ohio's Most Haunted Spirit Hub
Welcome To The Oddity Shop, Where The Bizarre is Always on Sale. This week, your Curator Zach has a Tale of Madison Ohios Haunted Seminary.
Step into the seminary’s timeline: a mid-1800s school that became a Civil War refuge, a home for veterans and nurses under the Ohio Women’s Relief Corps, and later a patchwork of care facilities, government offices, and a work-release site. Each era left a distinct emotional charge, from classrooms buzzing with youthful focus to rooms filled with grief, comfort, and end-of-life care.
The stories are personal and palpable. We follow the remarkable life of Elizabeth Stiles, a teacher turned Union spy recruited by Abraham Lincoln who spent her last years at Madison. We explore the reported spirits so many investigators talk about: Sarah, the childlike presence who collects dollar bills; Steven, the boy often seen in the main building; the watchful “Colonel”; and the basement’s territorial male energy.
Why does Madison seem so active? We consider the stone tape theory, the idea of egregores, and how more than 10,000 visitors might seed an evolving social energy. Along the way, we celebrate the people preserving the site, from owner Adam Kimmel to Jeff Fent, Lauren Hellekson, and so many more who share their finding!
The Fox Sisters: From Tiny Knocks To A Global Movement
The Fox Sisters: From Tiny Knocks To A Global Movement
Two sisters who turned raps in the dark into a movement that rewrote how we grieve. We follow Maggie and Kate Fox from Hydesville’s tiny room to roaring theaters, where audiences asked questions and the walls answered back. As their older sister Leah took the reins, seances spread across America and Europe, offering something people craved: a way to keep love alive with tangible signs, moving tables, and messages you could feel and hear. Spiritualism.
Then came the bombshell: Maggie’s 1888 confession that the raps were toe and joint snaps, performed on cue before a stunned crowd. We walk through the contradictions with care: comfort versus deceit, belief versus proof, and what it costs to be the face of a phenomenon.
You’ll hear why spiritualism exploded when it did, how it gave people hope, and why the Fox sisters’ complicated legacy still shapes ghost hunting, mediumship, and the way we talk about death.
Miracle Of The Andes: 72 Days of Horrific Survival
Miracle Of The Andes: 72 Days of Horrific Survival
A bad day can spiral fast. Were heading to 1972 and a chartered flight over the Andes that never made its landing. The crash of Flight 571 left a rugby team, family, and friends in brutal cold with little food, less shelter, and a strong will to survive. What follows is a stark, deeply human account of ingenuity and ethics under pressure.
We don’t sensationalize the hardest part. The group confronts cannibalism with consent, ritual, and faith, reframing a taboo as a last-resort act of respect to preserve life. An avalanche buries more hope. A radio announces the search is over. And then two men decide to walk over 40 miles to get help.
The Corn Husk Witch: Brooding Hag or Harvest Queen?!?
The Corn Husk Witch: Brooding Hag or Harvest Queen?!?
The fields get quiet first. Then the air thins, the leaves rasp, and every step seems to wake something older than the rows. We follow that feeling straight into the legend of the Corn Husk Witch—a figure braided from European harvest rites, Native American teachings, and the American habit of turning warnings into campfire shadows. What began as the Corn Mother, a sacred spirit kept safe in the final sheaf, evolves across time into a crackling guardian who walks the edges at dusk, reminding us that gratitude is not optional when you live by the land.
If folklore, harvest history, and a little seasonal dread are your thing, hit play and join us in the rows. Then tell us: is she a protector, a monster, or a mirror? Subscribe, leave a review, and share this one with a friend who loves spooky season and old-world lore.
Halloween Special: Haunted House Showdown!!
Halloween Special: Haunted House Showdown!!
Welcome To The Oddity Shop, Where The Bizarre is Always on Sale. Today, We have for you, our Annual Halloween Special Episode!!!
Its our favorite day of the year. The Oddity Shop door creaks open and you get to choose what’s waiting on the other side. We turned Halloween into a haunted house showdown, pitting three legendary locations against each other and asking you to crown the scariest: The Myrtles Plantation with its Southern Gothic lore, the Stanley Hotel and its Shining-fueled chills, and the Villisca Axe Murder House where an unsolved crime still echoes in the walls.
We kick things off with a full video experience—costumes, set dressing, and a game-show format that keeps the tension fun and the stakes high. Be sure to check this one out on YouTube for the full video experience!
Cast your vote for the champion of terror and tell us where you’d actually spend the night. Watch the full video on YouTube, subscribe to catch more spooky stories, and leave a review with your pick—Myrtles, Stanley, or Villisca?