Boo Buckets

I was alive in 1986, when McDonald's first served its Halloween-season Happy Meals in pumpkin-shaped pails nationwide. This first iteration of what were later dubbed "Boo Buckets" featured bright orange pails with expressive jack-o-lantern faces printed on the side, pumpkin-top lids to match, and black handles. Although I don't remember owning one myself, I'm pretty sure my sister got one of these original pumpkin pails when she was a kid. 

A recent TastingTable article looked at the full history of these buckets. I hadn't remembered there being so many different editions of the buckets over the years—though considering I aged out of ordering Happy Meals before 1990, this is no surprise.

With my youngest needing a pail for trick-or-treating this year, and both my sons still young enough for Happy Meals, I recently decided to treat them to Boo Buckets.

While I would have preferred orange pails (since that's what I remember seeing most as a kid), the McDonald's we visited had only white buckets available that day. My boys enjoyed them regardless.

Because it had been decades since I'd seen a real-life Boo Bucket, I was a little disappointed that they lacked lids and seemed a little flimsier than expected. However, I thought it was cool that the food came covered with a round cardboard card that had glow-in-the-dark stickers on one side (for customizing each pail—a plus when you have multiple kids). Printed on the other side was a Halloween-themed maze (though the activity cards may vary). I was pleasantly surprised that the Happy Meals cost about $4 each.

From the YouTube channel The Haunted Drive-in, here is a 1986 commercial for the original Halloween Pumpkin Happy Meals:

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?

McDonalds Safe Treats gift certificates (1984)

Here is a 1984 McDonalds commercial for Safe Treats: gift certificates that posed much less of a risk to children than traditional Halloween give-aways. Think of how much fun Halloween would be if every house gave these out! I can't imagine real children being as excited over Safe Treats as the ones depicted in the commercial. Safe Treats are similar to the Easter Seals Safe Halloween Coupons.