It kept stabbing me over and over again. Well, stabbing is maybe too harsh a word, but my pullover kept rubbing against my skin more and more the sweatier I got. And boy was I sweaty. Drops congregated in the small of my back as the day progressed and appeared more rapidly when I entered rooms that were warmer. I took one big breath, raised my hands to waist level, and pushed the door with some determination. Inside was a storm of colors and noises, each so unique in their own right that it was impossible to pinpoint just one. Entering the room was like jumping into a pool and having each of your senses being overwhelmed. Hotdogs. I looked to my right and realized that they were grilling some beef franks; consequently, I quickly walked over to where a man was making hot dogs. “Meet me at the register when you’re done,” said the current ninth grader whom I was shadowing. I walked towards the smokey smell and was surprised that everyone who brushed against me could generate such force.

Scare Tactics ran for ten years and is widely considered one of the most successful shows in its genre. From 2003 to 2013, the reality show ran on two different stations--the Scifi Channel and the Science Channel. It did eventually make it onto several other channels as reruns, but new episodes only ever aired on the two aforementioned stations. Scare tactics had three different hosts for its eight seasons. The first, Shannen Doherty, hosted the shows for its premiering season; Stephen Baldwin took the helm of the programme for seasons two and three; Tracey Morgan, a well known comedy actor, took over the show for five seasons after his Saturday Night Live career had come to an end. Despite having the three hosts, Scare Tactics is almost synonymous with Tracey Morgan the comedian.

Standing in line for quite a long while, I surveyed the cafeteria, noticing the bright flashes of color that carpeted people's bodies. I finally got my food. I started walking towards the register and I felt a very firm elbow hit my hands. “Oh s***”, I said as I watched the franks start to fall. The plate rotated like an out of control spacecraft trying to reenter the atmosphere, and shattered when it met the ground. The room of a thousand sounds went utterly silent and then exploded back into life as three other students dropped their trays. Apparently, they dropped their food because they were startled by the sounds of my shattering plate. The cafeteria turned back into a vacuum and remained like that for approximately five seconds. “Is that a shadow who just dropped his plate,” said some forgotten teenager. My small girlish hand worked its way up my sandpaper-like sweater and found my name tag and ripped it off. Almost mechanically, the whole upper school shot rays of laughter at me as I turned to pick up my shattered plate. Immediately realising that I had no idea what to do with the fragments, I stopped trying to clean up my mess. Instead, I swallowed any remaining pride that I had and got myself another beef hot dog.

Charles Feltman was born in Germany in 1841. At the age of 16, he immigrated to the United States of America and eventually made his way into New York. Young and unskilled, Feltman began his career in the food industry pushing a heavy wooden cart around the streets of the Bronx. He was a little man and sought to lighten the load that he carried and pushed and struggled with every day. Consequently, he had the idea to stop selling pies and instead start selling sausages on rolls. The sausages not only lightened his load, but allowed him to provide food without having to give customers silverware and napkins to eat with. They immediately became very popular. Felman’s new food needed a name; he sold them under the name of the “dachshund sausages” and had a small image of a dachshund hound in a small baked roll on each wrapper. In total, Feltman sold 3,686 dogs in his first year of business. The press called them, “average, but very easy to consume.”

Scare Tactics was classified as a reality comedy: most episodes injected humor into situations that unaware contestants were put into . For the duration of the program, Kevin Healey produced and helped write most of the content that was shown. The premise of the show was simplistic, but well received. Each episode, unsuspecting victims would be filmed as they were put in frightening and stressful situations. In the course of the show, guests were convinced that they had killed inadvertently killed others in cult settings, made contact with aggressive extra terrestrials, and stumbled onto the table of several hungry vampires. Routinely, the victims would plead for their lives and scream and cower and act how any reasonable person would if they were put in the situations where they feared for their lives and well-being.

After his shockingly successful first year of business, Feltman bought a substantial amount of property and opened several stores where he predominantly sold his dachshund sausages. On one day particular day, a patron entered the store and ordered a fresh sausage. He took one bite and exclaimed, “Wow mister, that’s one hot dog,” as he spat out the scorching meat and bun. Apparently, Feltman found the name appealing as he started selling his sandwich under the name of “Hot Dogs”. After a period of time he started selling his product with mustard on it.
Before a person would be shown being pranked, Tracey Morgan would give a small description of the person as to give the audience a more intimate relationship with the victim. All the events on the show were captured on hidden cameras and cleverly disguised boom mics. After the victim was thoroughly and visibly afraid, the actors conducting the prank would stop and ask the victims, “Are you scared? Well you shouldn’t be because this is Scare Tactics!” Then the person who signed up their friend for the show would rush out from some secluded area and laugh at and with their friend as they danced around the now hysterical room. For the eight years that it ran, Scare Tactics was the Sci Fi channel’s only listed comedy show. It is rarely shown now on television stations, but it is one of the more frequently streamed shows on Netflix, Hulu, and other T.V streaming services.

Feltman was known for  being very friendly  with his customers and was for the most part liked by all he knew. It was noted that he would routinely tell his customers jokes in an effort to brighten their moods.

Scare Tactic’s tagline was, “Laugh it up. You could be next!”

Eyes pointed at me like searchlights as I walked to find a place to sit down. I finally located an empty seat in a somewhat secluded area where I thought that I could be alone. I felt glares and ill intentioned jokes on the back of my neck as I tried to just watch my phone with as much discretion as I could. The beef frank was heavy in my mouth.