VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – Feel like getting freaked out this weekend?

News1130 is giving you a pre-Halloween treat with a behind-the-scenes look at The Monsters of Schlock freak show, now playing in Vancouver.

The Great Orbax and Sweet Pepper Klopek are a couple of regular guys — if your definition of “regular” involves lifting weights with your eyeballs and staple-gunning yourself in the world’s most extreme two-man circus sideshow extravaganza!

“We basically do slapstick; a lot of comedy, a lot of laughs in the vein of  The Three Stooges or Laurel and Hardy or Abbott and Costello, but we do it under the guise of a traditional circus freak show with some new twists,” says The Great Orbax.

“We do things like ‘The Human Blockhead,’ where I hammer nails into my face. My brother, Sweet Pepper, is the Master of Traps; he has several world records for the most mouse traps set off on a human tongue in one minute.”

“We’ve put his arms in coyote traps and bear traps. We put a cinder block on my groin region and hit it with a sledgehammer, all with a  lot of silly comedy along the way. Our goal is always to make people laugh, not freak people out. But the freaking out is always welcome when it happens,” he laughs.


Despite getting a chainsaw, and then 27 stitches, in his face three years ago, courtesy of Orbax, Sweet Pepper says he has complete trust in his partner.

“Of course! We trust each with our lives every day. You get used to it and accidents do happen, you just have to push on and not dwell on it or it will happen again. Let it go,” he says.

You can forgive Sweet Pepper for preferring a less-invasive act. “I’m the King of Traps and I find that super-fun. I love the reaction from the crowd. It hurts. It’s very funny. Good stuff.”

Orbax and Pepper claim to approach their stunts from more of an “intellectual direction” than some other acts; they assess the risks and look at how to do them safely. Maybe it helps that Orbax is a PhD physicist who often lectures at the University of Guelph.

“My students know exactly what I do. There’s no point in hiding it. People always ask if the reason we can do a lot of the stunts we do is because we know the physics of it. I guess, to an extent. I know that if I get hit in the groin, that I fall down. That’s physics,” Orbax laughs.

Last year, The Great Orbax set a Guinness World Record for towing a 9,000-lb truck full of evil clowns over a distance of 111.7 meters using two shark hooks embedded in his back. This year, the main act involves the flesh of Sweet Pepper Klopek.


“We’re going to fulfill a lifelong dream. Sweet Pepper has always dreamed of being tattooed on a roller coaster and I’ve always dreamed of tattooing someone for the first time. Coincidentally, we have access to a 60-year-old wooden roller coaster!” chuckles Orbax.

“It’s going to be interesting, to say the least,” says Pepper, sounding a little skeptical. “When we pulled into the park this year, we noticed it’s actually a very scary roller coaster and a lot taller and bumpier than we remember it to be. We’ll see what happens. I have a lot of tattoos, but think this one will hurt the most.”

They are still deciding on the artwork, but are contemplating a skull or skeleton theme for Halloween.

“I assume it will not look like what we planned by the end of it,” says Pepper, resignedly.

The Monsters of Schlock perform three times nightly at Fright Nights at Playland through October 31st.