Ghoulash for the Ghouls (1991)

Happy Halloween!

Well, it's finally here. It didn't exactly sneak up on me, but when you have small kids and family priorities, plus work to think about, festivities sometimes take a back seat. We put up some fall decorations indoors, but didn't get out all the ones specifically for Halloween. I'll assemble our harvest figure this afternoon. With other stuff going on earlier in the week, we haven't even carved our pumpkin yet—though we plan to do so after lunch.

However, I dug out a circa 1991 cassette tape recording that my sister and I made—a radio show we wrote and performed, titled "Ghoulash for the Ghouls."

In Scene 1, Dr. Gazinta and Igor try to figure out who (or what) left a large scratch on a piece of glass in the laboratory. Igor tells the doctor that perhaps The Brain did it. This turns out to be a red herring, though, because later—after the pair search the entire house—Igor finally admits to seeing the doctor himself accidentally scratch the glass.

Scene 2 is a sound-effect-heavy description of a woman's terrifying experiences inside a haunted house—though with an unexpectedly happy ending.

Scene 3 is an episode of "Freaky Family Game Show," a Double Dare-type game hosted by a character who sounds like Dracula, and with The Bride and The Mummy as featured contestants.

In Scene 4, The Wolfman observes Dr. Jekyll drinking a potion and transforming into Mr. Hyde. But somehow, this is less of a plot point than the fact that The Brain (the same one from Scene 1?) is growing larger and larger. In a slapped-on ending, the narrator announces: "It did get bigger. And soon it was big enough to conquer the whole world!" A cover version of "Monster Mash" serves as the lengthy outro.

After the recording cuts off, there is a second, though unfinished, episode of "Ghoulash for the Ghouls," written and recorded by my sister and her friend. The short skit describes the experiences of a boy alone in a haunted house. 

The first episode makes a little use of a Halloween tape titled "Horror Sounds of the Night," which I mention in this post, but most of the music and sound effects are from a later cassette, "Monster Mash Party," released by Parade Records in 1988. Here are sides 1 and 2 showing the track listings:

Most of "Monster Mash Party" was later re-released, with a few different tracks, as the 1996 cassette "Shivers! Monster Mash Party," which can be heard here:

Party Favors

My sister, brother-in-law, and nephew throw a fabulous Halloween party just about every year, and the one they hosted last Sunday evening was no exception.

Their house—decorated to the hilt with candles, pumpkins, holiday lights, cardboard skeletons and ghosts, and a homemade model of a haunted mansion—was warm, cozy, and inviting. What a joyful time we had talking, laughing, and watching the children, who ranged in age from about 10 months to 10 years.

My nephew had set up a haunted house in the basement, with cobwebs, a skeleton, a ghost, a blacklight, spooky music, and phosphorescent dots all over—thanks to a poked and shaken glow stick. Out in the front yard, stood a cluster of several weathered-looking, styrofoam gravestones.

After bowls of delicious chili for supper, there were treats to eat, such as cake, brownies, and several varieties of candy.

The children took home even more treats. They each got a treat bag that contained a sheet of stickers, two monster fingers, two sets of fangs, a bat ring, a stackable push pencil (familiar to any child of the 1980s), an eraser, a small drawing pad, a glow stick, and a "boo" swirly straw. There were also "popcorn hands" to take—clear plastic gloves filled with popcorn, with a candy corn at each fingertip. Lastly, each child got a small pumpkin, which they could have carved during the party.

Thank you sister, brother-in-law, and nephew for your generosity, and for providing a whole lot of Halloween fun!

(Updated Nov. 4, 2024) 

Halloween Mixtape

Okay, the title is a little misleading. But "mix DVD" doesn't have the same ring.

About 20 years ago, back when DVD burners were still standard computer hardware, I made my own two-disc compilation of some of my favorite Halloween TV episodes. Most of the episodes were ones my family had recorded off television onto VHS, and I converted them to digital video. I should add that this was probably a year or two before YouTube even existed.

The first disc contains full episodes while the second is a mix of full episodes with various Halloween-themed segments from other programs.

Disc 1 (menu music: Theme from Disney's Haunted Mansion)

1. Three Stooges: "If a Body Meets a Body"
2. Bewitched: "Safe and Sane Halloween"
3. Brady Bunch: "To Move or Not to Move"
4. Brady Bunch: "The Slumber Caper"
5. Brady Bunch: "Fright Night"
6. Happy Days: "Haunted"
7. Happy Days: "The Evil Eye"

Disc 2 (menu music: "The Skeleton Dance")

1. Little House on the Prairie: "The Monster of Walnut Grove"
2. That's Incredible: Haunted Castle in New Jersey
3. That's Incredible: Haunted Toys R Us
4. Eye on L.A.: "Halloween 3-D"
5. Jack White at the Old Margo Theater
6. Saturday Night Live: Halloween with Matt Foley
7. Our Gang: "Shivering Spooks"
8. Mickey Mouse: "Haunted House"
9. Silly Symphonies: "The Skeleton Dance"
10. 1984 McDonald's Commercial
11. 1985 Vincent Price Commercial
12. McDonald's Commercial: "Scared Silly"
13. Brady Bunch: "Out of This World"
14. Brady Bunch: "Two Petes in a Pod"

In its own way, my amateur DVD compilation helped inspire this blog, The Ghosts of Halloweens Past, which I initiated several years later with posts about many of these same programs. I appreciate the low-fi quality to the VHS transfer, and the fact that I can watch these programs on a TV screen and not have to be connected online. Makes the experience a little more old-school, like when mixtapes were a thing.

What would be on your Halloween DVD compilation?

The Halloween Aisle, Part 2

It's a given that Walmart, Party City, and other big stores are going to have a wider variety of Halloween costumes than your local drug or grocery store will. However, when I was a kid, the drug store was usually our first stop when time came for costume shopping.

I wrote about this last year, in a post about the Halloween aisle of our local Walgreens. While heading out on some errands this morning with my eldest son, I decided to stop by there again, so that he could check out the Halloween aisle for himself.

The offerings were quite similar, particularly in the scarcity of costume items—though I admit that it's late in October and that there may have been more on the racks a month ago. Today there were only two masks: a skull face and an alien. 

There were several different packages of Halloween makeup—tubes of fake blood and creme makeup, oil crayon makeup, and a "Deluxe Makeup Kit" that included various pots and tubes of grease and creme makeup, as well as fake blood, "tooth out" and "fake scar," and several applicators. 

Hanging near the makeup kits were some clothing accessories—witch gloves, a pumpkin beanie, and a few different pairs of Halloween socks. Underneath those were decorations such as light-up jack-o-lanterns and strands of holiday lights, and also some classic-looking jack-o-lantern candy pails.

Other decorations included signs, skeletons, witches, ghosts, spiders, and cobwebs.

Some of the items weren't easily identifiable. I did spot some treat bags—though not the cool paper ones my mom used to get. 

The sweets heavily outweighed the costume and decoration offerings, though marked-up Halloween candy undoubtedly brings the bigger profit. I always enjoy seeing the holiday packaging.

The store had a better—though still slim—selection of costumes last year, but overall, the offerings were about the same. Not great, but certainly better than nothing. Next time, I might try CVS, less than a block away, or the Kroger across the street, to see what they have in stock. 

Disney Wonderful World of Reading: The Haunted House (1975)

Along with the Robert Bright book "Georgie," one of the first books I ever read about a haunted house was one I received around Christmas 1981. It was a Disney read-along book and cassette titled, simply enough, "The Haunted House." 

The story begins as many other haunted house stories do—with travelers driving along a dark country road. When their car runs out of gas, the travelers walk to an old, dilapidated house nearby, hoping someone lives there who can help. ("The Story and Song from the Haunted Mansion" opens with another variation: two travelers are walking home from a dance, when a rain storm, not an empty fuel tank, prompts them to approach the house.)

In this case, Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Pluto are the travelers. Through the house's windows, they see lights and shadows inside, and decide to ring the doorbell. 

That's when things get mysterious. The front door opens and immediately slams shut by itself. When the trio enters the house, a portrait hanging in the hall seems to be watching their every move, then whirls around, pulling the trio into a secret passage. Three ghosts appear there, and Mickey, Donald, and Pluto quickly escape through a laundry chute into the basement. Finding some steps that they hope will lead to an exit, they make their way back upstairs, only to encounter bats and a dancing skeleton. However, the bats prove to be fake, and Mickey begins to suspect that someone doesn't want them there and is playing tricks. 

The trio finally learns the truth when they stumble into a room and discover bags filled with money. All the ghostly happenings are the work of three bank robbers, who tie up Donald and Mickey, but aren't able to catch Pluto before he escapes with a bag of money and runs to alert the police.

One fun thing about this storybook: the Fisher Price tape that came with it was blank on side B, so that you could create your own recording.

Other stories where the hauntings are the work of individuals trying to scare away unwanted visitors include "The Haunted House," a 1963 episode of Andy Griffith; the 1966 Don Knotts film The Ghost and Mr. Chicken; and "A Haunting We Will Go," a 1984 episode of Diff'rent Strokes.