In an effort to keep this blog useful, I have checked my old posts for any video links that went inactive during the past year. Although I couldn't find new links for all of the missing videos, I was able to update most of them. When a full TV episode wasn't available, I tried to find at least an excerpt of the program.
In the past I've been pretty unresponsive to posted comments. I will try to do better at that, just as I've made recent efforts to post new content each October after a long hiatus. I should add that this blog isn't monetized.
Thank you so much for visiting The Ghosts of Halloweens Past. I hope the blog continues to enhance your holiday enjoyment!
We didn't have a Spirit Halloween store near us when I was a kid.
At Halloween time, we had a few other options. We didn't have Walmart, but we had K-Mart. Then there was our local mall. There the Hallmark store usually had, in addition to its holiday greeting cards, a section of Halloween costumes and items close to the front of the store. I vaguely remember picking up a free Halloween costume catalog from Sears in the mid-1980s, though I don't recall ever buying anything Halloween-related there. Another mall staple, Spencer's Gifts, sold Halloween masks years before the company bought out the Spirit Halloween chain in 1999.
Although I remember Toys 'R Us primarily for its selection of magic tricks and kits—such as the Magic World of Blackstone Beginner's Magic Set—the store carried enough Halloween merchandise to publish its own annual costume catalog. And because I watched reruns of That's Incredible during the 80s, I also associated the store with the haunted Toys 'R Us in Sunnyvale, California.
For costumes, candy, decorations, and other Halloween paraphernalia, I mainly depended on the holiday aisle of our nearest drugstore, Sav-on Drugs. The selection was limited, though I didn't think so at the time. It was where I went when I needed a pot of green makeup, a cassette tape of sound effects, or a bag of candy corn.
One cassette tape that I'm pretty sure I bought at Sav-on was titled "Horror Sounds of the Night." I used the tape as the soundtrack for numerous homemade radio shows and videos over the years, including my own "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" movie. My tape copy was defective, as much of it had a screechy sound that was obviously not intentional. Here is someone else's good transfer of the tape on YouTube:
Another fun find from the mid-1980s was the Create-A-Face Complete Makeup Kit, which included six colors of makeup paint, a tube of vampire blood, glow-in-the-dark monster fangs, "icky teeth," an eyepatch, face adhesive, various "special effect pieces" like bullet holes and a stitched wound, and a waxy "blend" that supposedly helped hide the edge of the effect pieces (it didn't). Though the kit looks pretty underwhelming in hindsight, it seemed like the stuff of professionals when I was a kid.
There are no more Sav-on Drug stores as I remember them (most became CVS Pharmacies). So yesterday I stopped by the Halloween aisle at my local Walgreens to buy some candy to give out (in one week!) and to see what other things they had on the pegboard racks.
The costume selection was a bit sad. Space was severely limited by the Christmas merchandise, already taking up half the aisle. And there were no audio offerings. Unfortunately, the days of sound effects albums and cheesy cover versions of "Monster Mash" on CDs are long gone.
There were, however, glow sticks, several packages of grease and cream makeup, fake fangs, and tubes of vampire blood—all similar to the kinds sold when I was a kid. These would do just fine for any kid planning a homemade monster movie.
At the very least, there was a decent selection of candy. And this store had some pretty good discounts. (After all the markdowns I came away with several bags for $15.) For some things, you can still depend on the Halloween aisle.
Halloween 2023 swiftly approaches. Yet at our house, evidence of last year's candy collection remains.
As my eldest son grows older and his trick-or-treating stamina increases, he inevitably brings home a fuller bucket of candy every year. While he enjoys sweets, it doesn't take much candy to satisfy his craving for it. Like his dear old dad did as a child, he prefers "making it last" instead of gobbling it all up in the weeks before Thanksgiving. For him, making it last means occasionally taking out a piece or two at dessert time, unless there's something better in the house—like ice cream or Mom's delicious cookies.
The result is that his bucket never goes empty. Whatever candy he gets on Christmas and Easter gets piled on top of the Halloween loot. So there in the corner of the pantry, the Halloween bucket sits for most of the year with the leftover candy zipped into baggies to discourage ants.
This means that for the next two weeks I can have all of it I want, since it will otherwise be thrown out before Halloween night. I doubt my son will protest against me eating one of his year-old Fun Size Snickers.
