Category Archives: Halloween

Today in Halloween: Don Post masks

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If, like me, you grew up reading Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine, you remember ads featuring Don Post Studios masks.

Post, who died in 1979, was famous for creating deluxe, top of the line Halloween masks. Before Halloween was the industry that it is today, Post’s masks were the stuff of legend, the go-to masks for Halloween parties and trick-or-treating.

Post’s masks were not your typical dime-store stuff. Looking at vintage ads now, I’m surprised that some of them sold for nearly $10. That was a lot of money for kids in the 1960s but these were beautiful, full over-the-head latex creations.

Post’s masks have taken on a life of their own that has continued through the decades. Some of us fondly remember the masks Post created for the ersatz “Silver Shamrock” company for “Halloween III: Season of the Witch.”

His William Shatner mask was, famously, used as Michael Myers’ mask in the first “Halloween” movie.

Of old-school Post masks, I will always think of his Tor Johnson mask, based on the 1950s wrestler/actor in classics like “Plan 9 From Outer Space.” It’s the scary fellow at the top of this item.

Here’s to Don Post and his masks, Halloween fixtures.

By the way, there’s a blog out there with everything you could possibly want to know about monster masks. It is http://monstermasks.blogspot.com/

 

Today in Halloween: More creepy costumes, decorations

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It’s spooky how close we are to Halloween. So it’s time for more iPhone photos of cool Halloween masks, costumes and decor.

Above is one of the coolest pieces of decor I’ve seen this year. There’s plenty to find creepy about clowns. But this freaky skeletal horror clown is enough to give anybody nightmares.

Aww, it’s a … Halloween vampire jack-in-the-box featuring a vampire. Hmm.

What would we do for a cheap Halloween costume without Michael Myers masks? Or should I say William Shatner masks?

Here’s a strange one. Slobbering dog. You provide the slobber, buddy. I guess this is for those parties where you want to be called a “dawg.”

Oh my god! They’ve killed and scalped the Hulk! Oh the humanity!

While we’re in the cranial portion of the Halloween costume shop, how about them zombie brains? How have them zombie brains been treating you?

If you’re a fan of Marvel Zombies, I’d suggest pairing the zombie brains above – and a loin cloth – with this mask for your pal: A zombie chimp. You could go as Zombie Tarzan and Zombie Cheeta.

Finally, werewolf hands. As in, “Get your damn werewolf hands off me.”

More next time.

Today in Halloween: The return of Count Chocula

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It’s that time of year again. Time for the return of the ultimate trio of monster cereals.

Count Chocula, Franken Berry and Boo Berry, of course.

I was at Target today and snapped the picture above of a Count Chocula box. It was part of a display, near the checkout, of the three General Mills monster cereals.

Talk about your impulse buy aimed at 30-, 40- and 50-somethings.

Although there are plenty of indications General Mills makes the three cereals year-round, they seem to show up on store shelves every fall.

General Mills’ own website makes the connection to the fall release of the cereals:

Remember the excitement of autumn back in your childhood years?

Fall brought pumpkins, falling leaves, and a fun holiday when you could morph into anything you desired. With a mental image of the character selected, you devised a brilliant Halloween costume idea. There were parties, caramel apples, and chewy peanut butter kisses, and breakfast.

Monster breakfasts.

Count Chocula and Franken Berry were introduced not for Halloween, though, but in March 1971. Boo Berry, a ghostly figure, came along in December 1972.

General Mills doesn’t say so, but the cereals were almost certainly intended to capitalize on the rebirth of interest, beginning in the late 1950s and continuing into the 1970s, of the classic Universal Studios monsters like Frankenstein, Dracula and the Mummy.

That interest had been kicked off by the release to television of the “Shock Theater” package of 30s and 40s Universal horror classics.

While I was fond of the cereals, I don’t remember some of the spin-offs and freebies. Like a record, “Monster Adventures in Outer Space,” that must have been included in cereal boxes.

Anyone else remember the two discontinued monster cereals? I can’t say that I remember either Fruit Brute or  Fruity Yummy Mummy.

They were introduced at a later date and didn’t have a long shelf life. Pun intended.

The monster images changed somewhat over the years. Above is an earlier Count Chocula image.

One thing that hasn’t changed? The monster cereals are “part of this nutritious breakfast!”

 

Today in Halloween: ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’

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Considering what a clever show Joss Whedon’s “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” was, it shouldn’t be surprising that its treatment of Halloween would be exceptional.

More than a few series use “Halloween” as an easy holiday to hang an episode on. “Community” and “Roseanne” got some good laughs out of putting their characters into freaky costumes and situations.

But part of what made “Buffy” Halloween episodes special was the premise that Halloween was indeed different for the Scooby Gang and the rest of the people living on the Hellmouth.

Halloween, the characters note, is something of a night off for real-life creatures of the night and the people who battle them. Self-respecting vampires like Spike consider Halloween “amateur night,” kind of the way big drinkers feel about New Year’s Eve.

The series’ second-season episode, “Halloween,” finds Buffy, Willow and Xander going out in costume to trick-or-treat. What they don’t know is that the costumes are cursed and make the wearer adopt the traits of the outfits. Buffy’s old-timey lady costume turns her into a shrinking violet. Willow’s ghost costume turns her into … a ghost.

It’s a great episode, the first of three set on Halloween that the series featured.

Random observations:

Xander’s guise as a soldier – and his instant depth of knowledge about the ways of a warrior – are retained, in a way, after the episode ends. His skills come in handy in later episodes.

The episode introduces not only costume shop/chaos worshipper Ethan Rayne, an old frenemy of Giles, but gives an early indication of Giles’ past as much more than a stuffy old watcher.

We once again see Oz, Willow’s future significant other, as the series continues to tease us with important characters still to come.

Today in Halloween: Who’s a cute little Frankenstein?

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Could. Not. Be. Any. Cuter.

Seriously, our latest dip into vintage Halloween costumes is probably the cutest picture yet.

The devil on the left is pretty doggone cute.

But the Frankenstein on the right? Wow.

Maybe it’s the cute grimace in the mask. Or the cheesy tunic.

But I personally think it’s the upraised hands, fingers curled in monster-ific fashion.

Awwww!

Bonus points if anybody can identify the costumes. I did Google image searches to see if the costumes were from Collegeville or Ben Cooper, big makers of kids costumes in the 1950s and beyond, and didn’t come across them.

Today in Halloween: Scared people in Canadian haunted house

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I might as well link to this since everyone else is.

Here’s a link to one of many, many places online where you can find pictures taken inside the Nightmare Fear Factory, a haunted house on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls.

The haunted house’s owners put still and video cameras at strategic scary parts of the haunted house. The resulting photos are hilarious.

Enjoy.

Today in Halloween: Clowns and Indians?

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Here’s another of our looks back at old-timey Halloween costumes, pulled from the vast array somebody plunked down on the Internet.

Your guess is as good as mine – likely better – on a time frame for this snapshot. The boots on the kid in the middle are interesting and make me guess early first half of the 20th century.

As for the costumes?

The fringe on the kids on the outside makes me think they’re western getups, maybe Indian costumes.

And while I can’t quite figure out the mask on the kid in the middle, that outfit sure looks like one worn by a clown or jester.

More next time.

Today in Halloween: Let’s join the circus!

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Here’s our latest look at vintage Halloween photos from the World Wide Web.

In my ongoing half-assed effort to guess about the origin of these pictures, I’m going to speculate that this photo depicts high schoolers in the area of Peru, Indiana, in the first half of the 20th century.

Why?

Because Peru has always been a haven for circus performers and the abundance of clowns in the picture makes me think these kids borrowed some of their parents’ professional makeup.

I don’t know what to make of the guy at lower right. Devil? Yellow peril?

Today in Halloween: A truly frightening bust

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Here’s another dip into the vintage Halloween snapshots resource that is the vast series of tubes we know as the Internet.

I’ve seen a lot of these photos on the web but there’s little explanation of their origin. I’ve been making some (not-so) educated guesses on a few of them.

This one seems to be another with a rural setting, based in part on what looks like a field or rolling hills in the background and … holy hell, what’s the deal with the trick-or-treater on the right?

The other three have that mix of old clothes and bizarrely terrifying masks that we’ve become accustomed to in these vintage photos. Ditto for the one on the right, with two very noticeable exceptions.

Maybe I’m missing the point here, but wonder why this kid put on a creepy mask and then stuffed her bust with a couple of couch cushions?

We’ll never know.

Trick-or-treater on the right, I dub thee Zombie Mamie Van Doren.

Today in Halloween: Razor blades in apples

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It’s possible it never happened, but it’s too good a story to resist. Some madman in some city – maybe one not all that far away from your own – slipped a razor blade into an apple given out one Halloween to a trick-or-treater. The kid bit into it and the razor blade lodged firmly in the roof of his mouth. Ouch!

Since I was a child, the rumors of razor blades in apples has been one that haunted kids – but even more so their parents – every Halloween. Parents insisted on inspecting the contents of the trick-or-treat bag for tampered-with apples and candy before kids were let loose to indulge their Halloween gluttony.

Some hospitals even offered free x-raying of Halloween candy to make sure no foreign objects were included. I’m not sure if the irradiated candy was any more dangerous than the unscreened treats.

You know it’s a “real” urban legend when there’s a Snopes.com page dedicated to the subject, encompassing razor blades and the equally insidious pins and needles in apples and candy.

Perhaps surprisingly, Snopes quotes an expert, Professor Joel Best, who says he’s confirmed about 80 cases of sharp objects in Halloween treats since 1959.

I guess if your chances are 80 in … how many billion? … treats given out over the years, you’re probably pretty safe.

By the way, Best wrote a 1985 paper, “The Razor Blade in the Apple: The Social Construction of Urban Legends,” that is available for download.

Interestingly, Snopes notes that poisoned candy was the fear from the post-war years until the mid-1960s, when sharp objects became the thing that parents could obsess about.