Skulltronix Information

Skulltronix was founded by Jerry Jewell. Jerry's industry accollades include not only awards for the best haunt products in the industry but his work with the ScaryU program also earned Best Haunted House awards two years in a row. So he has been on both sides of the haunt industry. Jerry Jewell began designing haunted houses in 1991. For 10 years his haunt was, like many haunters, built in his front yard. But after expansion into the neighbor's yard resulted in over 1,000 people visiting on Halloween night it was time for a change of venue. At the time, Jerry was also active in trying to establish a teen performing arts center in Rancho Cordova and incorporated the program under the non-profit "The Jewell Performing Arts Center, Inc. Jerry then merged the haunted house efforts into the non-profit and established the world's first (and only?) haunted house school, "SCARY U". Scary U struck a deal with the local Park district and the Sacramento Valley Live Steamers to move the haunted house and Scary U program to Hagan Park. It has resided there for a number of years now. Scary U now provides 30 local teens per year with a free, two month leadership and teamwork program. In the program the teens build and run a commercial haunted house, building and all. While only occupying a 40x40 tent, the Scary U haunt has twice won national awards as "The Best Haunted House in the Country". During the 3rd year of the Scary U program Mike Fox joined as Creative Director and brought a level of professionalism to the animatronic voices, animation and sound tracks never before seen in the haunted house market. All would have stayed the same but during the build of the haunt in 1984 Jerry became ill and was bedridden for 6 months. The diagnosis: Lupus. The illness forced the sale of his computer retail store and web hosting business. Recovery was slow and Jerry needed to find a way to keep his mind and hands occupied. So he decided to take on the project of creating a professional level talking skull to replace the poorly constructed ones that were then available. Three months and thousands of dollars later Jerry showed Version 1 of the SkullTroniX at the HauntX show in Los Angeles. The SkullTroniX Talking Skull won the HauntX "Best Haunt Product of the Year Award" and was an immediate hit with haunt owners. Since then the SkullTroniX has undergone many revisions and continues to sell out each season. The voices and animation by Mike Fox brought the SkullTroniX to life. Mike's routines are still available and he remains a partner with Jerry in custom projects, although he has started his own company: "NightFrights.net". SkullTroniX has moved from a garage operation to a large work shop and has established itself as leading force in animatronics. Jerry's second product to market is the "Board of Chuckee". The BOC is a 16 channel servo controller which operates on the popular DMX protocol. SkullTroniX' skulls had a need for a better servo controller so a completely new board was designed from the ground up to suit the needs of haunters, not programmers or electrical engineers. Our most advanced product to date is the new "SkeleTron". The SkeleTron is a full-size animatronic skeleton with all the motors and electronics actually buried inside the bones. This was an incredibly challenging project. Jerry hand-carved all of the bones from which the molds were made. Even the servo motors and gears had to be custom built to power the huge torque requirements of the SkeleTron. Jerry and the staff at SkullTroniX continue to develop new products and improve the old ones. Our latest releases are the Dead Ringer, Blackbeard's Chest and the Creature Crate. SkullTroniX continues to strive for the best possible customer service and highest-quality products possible.