Skip to main content

These Are a Few of My Favorite (Halloween) Things


Autumn. October. Halloween. The Magnificent Morgan Fairchild dressed as a witch perched atop a giant pumpkin. These are a few of my favorite things.


The season is upon us, kiddies. The spooky season, when the leaves hit the ground and the evil spirits are all around (especially in Amityville). I like to call it, The Most Wonderful Time of Year, because it never fails to give me life. I mean, I want to live inside a Spirit Halloween every October! Here are a few other reasons why we're currently in the best season ever.


Just the overall spookiness of the spooky season provides such powerful comfort for me. I know it sounds weird to some, but being surrounded by scary stuff throughout October is pure nirvana. Makes sense, though, because horror provides comfort to some of us because it offers a controlled environment for processing our own fears and anxieties.


The Paul Lynde Halloween Special (1976) is a relatively new entry in my list of favorite Halloween things. I'd heard of its legend for years, but finally the variety show popped up on Amazon Prime recently, and holy hell is it a work of mad genius.


Lynde is irreverent as ever. Guest stars include: rock 'n' roll all nighters Kiss! Leggy Pinky Tuscadero herself Roz Kelly! Funniest man alive (at the time) Tim Conway! Immortal comedy legend Betty White! Sweet as pumpkin pie Florence Henderson! It's my new favorite Halloween tradition.


Creepy kids begging for candy at your door? Terrifying any other time of year, but oddly comforting on Halloween.


Halloween gives you license to over-indulge in thrills and scares to your heart's content. 'Tis the season!


This time of year always brings annual reminders that,  yes my dear, it is possible to add "Sexy" in front of any potential costume idea and market it to sorority sisters across America. Well, someone finally took it too far, because this Halloween, "It's a smokin' hot day in the neighborhood."


Yikes, there goes the neighborhood.


As you might imagine, people understandably lost their minds over this. You can blaspheme the Catholic Church all you want with "Bad Habit" sexy nun ensembles every October—available at Spirit Halloween, Amazon, and wherever slutty costumes are sold!—but dammit you will not fuck around with Mr. Rogers. By the way, that AV Club headline in the link up above is the funniest play on words I've read all year. Cheers, you Chicago hipsters!


The Most Wonderful Time of Year always brings me back to memories of watching B-grade horror movies in the fall, on USA Up All Night, with hostess with the mostess Rhonda Shear. Any season that consistently reminds me of Rhonda is the best season ever. On a related note, Rhonda recently followed me back on Twitter after The Retro Network reshared the celebration of all things Rhonda and Up All Night that I wrote for them a few months ago. Not only that, but she was genuinely moved— "humbled" is how she put it—and she called me a good writer! As you might imagine, I blacked out for a minute. If all this sounds like bragging, well, it is. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm hopping in my DeLorean and traveling back to 1991-ish, where I will alert my teenage self to this mind-blowing turn of events (and explain to him what the hell this "Twitter" thing is), at which point he will promptly die from happiness.


Speaking of horror hostesses, no Halloween season would be complete without at least a zillion mentions of the Queen of Halloween, Elvira. I've written about her several times, and even found a way to fill my Christmas post last year with no less than four photos and one gif of the seemingly ageless beauty Cassandra Peterson. This year, I've been asked to write another appreciation for that gal with the shape that drives the boys ape. Stay tuned!


Excellent Halloween-centric articles abound all over the internet this time of year, like this recent one from the always fabulous Dinosaur Dracula about the famous and previously hard to find first television broadcast of John Carpenter's Halloween (1978) in 1981. This is the sort of online journalism that gets my blood pumping. This is important history, especially for Halloweenologists.


This time of year also reminds me of horror legends like Tom Atkins (Halloween III: Season of the Witch, Night of the Creeps, Maniac Cop, etc.), meaning that I walk around shouting "Thrill me!" even more during the fall than I already do the rest of the year.


Horror movie marathons. I get absolutely jacked up on horror in the weeks and months leading up to Halloween every year. My unofficial annual kickoff to The Most Wonderful Time of Year is typically the last week or two of August—yeah, you read that right, I totally ignore the end of summer and pretend it's fall already. Deal with it. So far this year I've watched several dozen horror movies, and there's still plenty of time for more! Here's one of my favorites (which I've already seen several times) that I simply must make time to rewatch again this season:


I'm also prone to reflection on the Masters of Horror who have filled my childhood and adulthood with so many splendid scares, through their unparalleled abilities to tell spooky stories. Stephen King, John Carpenter, Debra Hill, George A. Romero, Clive Barker, Wes Craven, and on and on.


Autumnal vistas like this, especially if you live in the Northeastern or Midwestern United States, are my forever happy place, full stop.


Pumpkin ales. Nothing burns my pumpkin seeds more than a stuck-up beer snob turning his nose up at the mere mention of pumpkin beer, as if it's some blasphemous affront to "real" beer, whatever the hell that is (probably the beer snob's precious IPA, that's what). Every fall I want to shout, "Dude"—and believe me, it's always a dude—"brewing beer with pumpkin dates back to the 1770s here in the United States." As this article from a years ago says, "Like It or Not, Pumpkin Beer is an American Tradition." Now I think I'll go savor a glass of my favorite pumpkin ale:


 Did you know that if you say "pumpkin spice latte" three times in front of a mirror (à la Candyman), a white girl in yoga clothing called The Pumpkin Spice Fairy appears? Surely, this is the stuff of pumpkin-fueled nightmares for haters of the omnipresent fall flavor. Well, this nightmare is real, because it's a thing on the internet. God, this is a magical time of year, isn't it?


Happy Halloween, all you ghouls and goblins out there. May your fall air be refreshingly cool and crisp, your horror movies frighteningly good, your pumpkin ales perfectly chilled, and your Pumpkin Spice Latte Fairies piping hot.



Labels:

Comments

  1. Paul SOctober 1, 2019 at 8:13 AM

    What an awesome story about Rhonda Shear. You must have been tickled pink, and she's not wrong you are a great writer. Your enthusiasm for Halloween is infectious, I wish I could share some Pumpkin ale and a couple of horror movies with you. Have a great month.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

All I Want For Christmas: Phoebe Cates's Monologue in Gremlins

Joe Dante's 1980s classic Gremlins will always be a subversive Christmas favorite. From Spike exploding in the microwave to Mrs. Daigle's "stairlift to hell", the movie is packed with deliciously transgressive moments that turn the holly jolly season right on its ear. None are more memorable, though, than Phoebe Cates delivering her legendary "worst thing that ever happened to me on Christmas" monologue. It's a jaw-dropping, tour-de-force moment, a truly horrific story that's also one of the most darkly comic moments in Christmas movie history. Cates really shines during this scene. There's no denying just how seminal that scene of hers in Fast Times at Ridgemont High was for a generation of young people, but her speech in Gremlins is equally important and a wonderful showcase for her serious and comedic acting skills.  Here's the speech, in its entirety. No Christmas season is complete without at least one viewing ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Blowing in the Wind: Marilyn Monroe and That Iconic White Dress

This month marks sixty-five years since one of the most iconic moments in twentieth-century popular culture: Marilyn Monroe’s angelic white dress being blown sky high by wind rushing up from a subway grate beneath her feet in the film  The Seven Year Itch . Billy Wilder shot multiple takes, while Sam Shaw snapped photo after photo for what had to be the biggest publicity stunt ever staged at the time. Marilyn wore two pairs of underwear for the shot, yet, as noted in Lois Banner's critical biography Marilyn: The Passion and the Paradox  (2012), "a dark blotch of pubic hair" remained visible to the 100 male photographers and over 1,500 male spectators, all of whom crowded eagerly around the set to gawk and drool.  Due to strict 1950s movie censorship laws, photos had to be doctored to white out the offending blotch, but those in attendance saw it, over and over, shot after shot. Marilyn's husband at the time, the extremely old fashioned Joe DiMaggio, stormed off th...
Post a Comment
Read more

It Came From the '90s: Kelly Bundy and the Alternative Family Ideal

This series looks back at the 1990s and its influence on the generation of people who came of age during the decade. Very few television series in the 1990s were as polarizing as Married...with Children . People either loved it or they loathed it. TV critics and good upstanding Catholic families like mine fell into the latter category. Soon after it debuted during my first year of junior high in 1987 (not quite the '90s, but on the brink), my parents made it clear that we would not be watching. I believe the words they used were "vulgar," "unfunny," and, one of their perennial favorites, "risque." Of course, this meant it immediately took on a prurient appeal for me. Parents can never win, honestly. Kelly Bundy—the talented Christina Applegate, who never gets enough credit for elevating the blonde airhead trope into an art form—only further piqued my interest. She was like the girls in school with the absurdly voluminous hair and ridiculously sh...
4 comments
Read more

"That girl looks just like Pat Benatar"

Linda, that girl looks just like Pat Benatar. I know. Wait, there are three girls here at Ridgemont who have cultivated the Pat Benatar look. I was just a kid when Fast Times at Ridgemont High opened in 1982. Still though, even at the tender young age of seven, I knew who Pat Benatar was, because a.) her music was all over the radio and even then I recognized the utter awesomeness of her vocal talent in songs like "Hit Me With Your Best Shot", and b.) some of the older girls around town were obviously cribbing their looks—clothes, hair, makeup, strut—from Benatar's own style. Benatar was ubiquitous. So, when I see or hear vintage-era Benatar now, I think of Fast Times , but mostly I remember that ubiquity—of both the performer and her legion of young imitators. I know it's not true, but when I recollect those years I swear every older girl looked like either Benatar, Juice Newton, or Joan Jett. It's easy to forget, years later, that...
Post a Comment
Read more

Misspent Youth: Joanne Whalley

Looking back at the pop culture mainstays of this Gen-Xer's gloriously misspent youth. One of the most famous and oft-quoted Seinfeld scenes involves Bobka and Jerry's discovery of the existence of Cinnamon Bobka. After Elaine scoffs at the notion of such a thing, even calling it a "lesser Bobka," Jerry unleashes one of the great defenses of a freshly ground spice ever delivered: People love cinnamon. It should be on tables at restaurants along with salt and pepper. Anytime anyone says, "Oh This is so good. What's in it?" The answer invariably comes back, Cinnamon. Cinnamon. Again and again.  Joanne Whalley is like Cinnamon. Yes, I just compulsively double-checked my DVD copy and it's the unrated version, thank you very much. Let me explain. You see, during the formative years of my misspent youth, if I stumbled on a movie featuring the doe-eyed, petite, beautiful English actress, invariably I'd feel like Jerry does about Cin...
2 comments
Read more

Misspent Youth: Randi Brooks

Looking back at the pop culture mainstays of this Gen-Xer's gloriously misspent youth. ***** A note on the series and this site: This might be the final post in the "Misspent Youth" series - at least here. Maybe it'll eventually move with me. Oh, right, I buried the lede: I've moved, and would love for you to come visit me at my new site, The Starfire Lounge ! Moving forward, this site will likely cease to be updated, but will remain around for posterity and your continued reading pleasure. I have a few more things to post here over the coming days or weeks as a sort of "everything must go" send-off to the old girl. I also plan to write a final farewell post to my main online home for the last five years. Stay tuned and, as always, thanks for reading. ***** It's no surprise that the talented but now mostly forgotten Randi Brooks would make an appearance in the Misspent Youth series. She may not be a household name, but her resume...
Post a Comment
Read more

It Came From the '90s: My Secret Crush on The Nanny

This series looks back at the 1990s and its influence on the generation of people who came of age during the decade. For six seasons in the 1990s, The Nanny made many of us laugh. At times, it could be downright hilarious . At others, well, not so much . This isn't a review of a '90s sitcom staple, though. No. This is simply an excuse to come clean about something I've kept buried deep inside for over two decades now: I had a secret crush on The Nanny herself, Fran Drescher. The unadulterated nineties-ness of this is practically blinding. And I love it. While The Nanny was sometimes quite funny, thanks largely to Drescher's spunky charisma and wholehearted commitment, the show was never considered hip. People my parents age seemed to love it, but my friends preferred, well, Friends . That smile! Those legs! That dress! It's all overloading my circuits. I watched Friends with my friends, but I also thoroughly enjoyed The Nanny , to...
2 comments
Read more

Margot Kidder and the Childhood Crush That Will Never Die

"I dream about sex, flying, and being chased by Nazis." — Margot Kidder,  Rolling Stone , "The Education of Margot Kidder", 1981 ***** File that quote under, "Reasons why I love Margot Kidder." Last month, Margot hopped a one-way flight with old pal Chris Reeve off into the stars and beyond, where they could reenact their iconic moment from  Superman  (1978), for all eternity. I wrote a little about Margot, here and here , trying to explain why this particular actress meant so much to me as a kid growing up in the 1980s. I thought that would be enough. It wasn't.* Those posts were my fumbling attempts to sort out just how large an impact Margot had on my young life, and, to my present-day surprise, how much she still means to me now. Before news of her death, I hadn't thought of her in ages. I assumed the early childhood crush I harbored for my Lois Lane had dwindled and faded. Ha! I was a fool. My crush on Margot was very ...
4 comments
Read more

"Opium Wars" by Zoe Lund

She wants there to be more of her. More space taken by her body, More decibels conquered by her voice, More time by her wakefulness, More equations by her addition. She wants more, I want less. Her blade is rusty, musty, sweaty and vain. I like it clean and sharp and dark-bright. She traffics in surplus, I bare my essentials. Her world is elastic but brittle. Mine is bony but moonlit. Hers flows, she ebbs. Mine ebbs, I flow. She dies in life, I live in death. —Zoe Lund, “Opium Wars”
3 comments
Read more

Double Feature: Michelle Pfieffer and Al Pacino

Revisiting—or in a few cases, watching for the first time—and celebrating the work of Michelle Pfeiffer,  the best actress of my lifetime.* If you've been paying attention around here lately , you know that I adore Michelle Pfeiffer. She's likely my favorite actor, hands down. Al Pacino, however, also sits right there at the top of my personal pantheon. So it's no surprise that their two film collaborations are extremely special to me. They first starred together in Scarface (1983), Brian De Palma's wildly ambitious and searing critique of power, avarice, and the American Dream, as told through the rise and fall of a drug kingpin. That film belongs to Pacino, with Pfeiffer in a smaller, yet crucially important role. Eight years later, they shared the screen again in Frankie and Johnny (1991), Garry Marshall's warm, tender, and honest look at two damaged people falling in love. This time, Michelle's Frankie is the film's real focal point, with Al'...
14 comments
Read more