Halloween with Morris and Boris (1975)

While we're on the topic of Halloween-themed books, here's another one that predates me but which I only learned about through library books my wife checked out for our sons—Halloween with Morris and Boris, written and illustrated by Bernard Wiseman.

Like the Nate the Great books, this series features recurring characters. In this case, the two main characters are Morris the Moose and Boris the Bear, and the rapid-fire humor and running gags in these books are very much in the vein of old vaudeville and comic teams such as Abbott and Costello. In other words, you may find them occasionally tedious—as Morris constantly misunderstands Boris (the comedic foil of the duo) and Boris responds with mounting frustration.

Halloween with Morris and Boris is no different, though in my opinion, it's the most interesting book in the series. Here Boris must explain to his simple friend how trick-or-treating works, to convince Morris to participate. The characters literally stumble into their costumes, but have to swap when people are too scared of Boris to give him any candy. The pair end up being invited to a children's Halloween party, where they bob for apples, play Pin the Tail on the Donkey, and listen to ghost stories—before Morris gets frightened of his own reflection and runs away.

Wiseman's illustrations are great, and his limited color palette of orange, blue, and black works surprisingly well. It's fun to think of this odd couple of clowns roaming my neighborhood tonight, trying their best to fit in.

Happy Halloween to you and your loved ones!

Nate the Great and the Halloween Hunt (1989)

I don't remember reading or even hearing of the Nate the Great books when I was a child, even though the first in the series by Marjorie Weinman Sharmat was published in 1972, almost a decade before I entered kindergarten.

But I discovered and came to enjoy the character through my eldest son, who has enjoyed checking out these stories from the library and even adding some to his own book collection.

Nate the Great and the Halloween Hunt is, naturally, one we enjoy reading together this time of year.

For those not familiar with the books, Nate is a nine-year-old detective whose friends enlist him to solve various problems—typically a lost item or pet. Nate interviews people and, with his dog Sludge, follows their leads from location to location, gathering clues along the way that eventually reveal where the missing object is.

In Halloween Hunt, a cat belonging to Nate's eccentric friend Rosamond goes missing, and instead of trick-or-treating, Nate spends his evening following the trail of clues—even sneaking into the neighborhood's "old haunted house," where the cat ventures every Halloween.

My favorite part of this short book is Marc Simont's artwork, which is wonderfully atmospheric.

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:

The Halloween Aisle, Part 3

Happy Halloween Eve! Family, work, and other responsibilities left me little extra time for updating the blog this month—my apologies!

However, the holiday has been on my periphery over the past few weeks. I actually stopped at CVS with my sons in early September to see what Halloween items were in stock. So here is this year's entry in my Halloween Aisle series.

First off, this was my first CVS visit specifically to evaluate its Halloween offerings. In my last two installments (see Part 1 and Part 2), I profiled the Halloween aisle at my local Walgreens. This time, it was plainly obvious that CVS, at least the store closest to me, had much less to offer. There were only a few packages of grease and cream Halloween makeup, and a couple of different fake tattoos. What was there seemed overpriced. 

For example, CVS is selling one 0.7-ounce tube of white cream makeup for $4.99 this year. Last year, Walgreens sold a $5.99 cream makeup kit that included a 0.75-ounce tube each of white and black cream makeup, along with three smaller tubes of red, green, and metallic makeup. Have prices seriously inflated that much in one year?

Cans of colored hairspray actually seemed more reasonably priced. Seeing these always brings back memories of dressing as the Joker, with sprayed-green hair, for Halloween in 1989. 

Unfortunately, the cream makeup, fake tattoos, and colored hairspray were the store's only available options for dressing up. Well, I take that back—there was one "ghost face" mask inspired by the Scream movie franchise. Almost all the other items in the Halloween aisle (really only half an aisle) were related to decorations. There were a couple of different pumpkin carving kits.

These kits with paint, stickers, and other push-in/stick-on applications allow younger children to decorate pumpkins without having to carve them. For the same age group, CVS also had a couple of Halloween-themed magic ink activity books.

The fake cobweb fluff—which we sometimes put up by our front porch for Halloween when I was a kid—seemed reasonably priced.

The next several photos show the miscellany of other Halloween items for sale—knick-knacks, candles, themed blankets and accent pillows, and candy buckets.

Here are a couple of animated Halloween decorations that the store was selling (please pardon my blurry photos). One item I didn't get a picture of was a skeleton hand that, with the push of a button, "walked" on its fingertips. My sons enjoyed trying that one.

At least in early September, CVS's selection of Halloween candy was small, compared with what Walgreens stocked in the past couple of years, though I've seen worse prices.

Judging by what's available near me, I would definitely choose Walgreens over CVS if those were my only local suppliers for Halloween costumes, makeup, decorations, and candy. Maybe CVS stores in other locations are better stocked. 

Even so, my sons and I enjoyed checking out the Halloween aisle that day, back when we were still anticipating the official arrival of autumn.

The Day-After Halloween Pumpkin

Our jack-o-lantern enjoys a warm and dry November 1, after spending Halloween evening lit-up on our front stoop, watching over the bowls of candy (which we leave on the front steps while we're out trick-or-treating). 

For the past several years, my eldest son has requested that we model our jack-o-lantern's face on the title character in Nora S. Unwin's 1953 book Proud Pumpkin, which I highlight in this post. 

Here are some of that book's excellent illustrations, showing the "round and bold and glorious" jack-o-lantern as it appeared on Halloween, but also as it was subsequently abandoned and allowed to decay in the woodshed:

We brought our jack-o-lantern inside before we went to bed last night, sparing it a soaking from the forecasted rain shower. 

Still, it will inevitably suffer a fate similar to Proud Pumpkin's. Soon we'll take the pumpkin out to a mound of dirt and brush in our woods, and there it will sit until the shell gradually rots and composts itself, becoming part of the mound, as our other pumpkins have done since we moved here.

Thankful for the small measure of light this pumpkin provided, and overall for another joyous Halloween to share with loved ones. See you next year!

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)