Switched to Match Game '77 next. This one started off with everyone teasing Charles over his blue and orange satin shirt that made him look like he was racing Secretariat in the Kentucky Derby. Dick Martin, Fannie Flagg, and Patty Duke join in to help the contestant figure out the Audience Match "___ Buds."
Headed out after that to run a few quick errands. Started at Westmont Plaza again to avoid running into kids coming out of school. Picked up coconut milk and more of those Olympus breakfast sandwich cookies at Sprouts. Mainly needed mouthwash and fish oil vitamins at Target. I was hoping they'd have even one Halloween aisle left. Nope. They were just starting to put out the Christmas items. Couldn't find more of those amazing cinnamon cashews, either. I got the donut glazed almonds.
I had more luck at Starbucks, where I tried a small Vampire Frappucino. It was strawberry syrup mixed into Vanilla Bean Frappucino to look like dripping blood. Watery, yes, but also tart, thanks to the strawberry syrup. Not bad as one-time-only holiday treat.
It was such a nice day at that point, I took the long way across Collingswood to the PNC Bank. Sunny and warm, in the lower 70's, breezy and humid for late October. Even as I stopped at the ATM machine in their drive-through, I could see dark clouds rolling in over the horizon. Heavy, cold winds arrived with the clouds. It must have dropped a good fifteen degrees as I made my way across Newton Lake Park, past Collingswood High School and the Parkview Apartments. I waved at the most adorable little girl whose mother was teaching her to ride her first big-girl training wheel bike on the sidewalk as I headed down the White Horse Pike.
Stopped at Dollar General next. Last year, we gave away a ton of candy along with the Mystery Bags. I bought Halloween ring pops as my contribution to the candy pile. Figured they were something different that the kids would get a kick out of.
Wanted an adult treat for tomorrow, so I stopped at the Mexican bakery on the way home. Oddly, they didn't really have much for the holiday. Thought I'd try some shortbread tarts with chewy jam in the middle. Not bad. Crumbly and not too sweet.
Had a sandwich and strawberries for lunch at home while watching The Halloween Tree. Ray Bradbury adapted his 1972 book as this spooky animated special in 1993. Four kids - Jenny, Tom, Wally, and Ralph - await the arrival of their best friend Joe "Pip" Pipkin so they can begin trick-or-treating. When they arrive at his house, they learn that he's having his appendix removed. He leaves a note to begin without him, but they don't think it would be fair to leave their buddy behind.
When they see what looks like his ghost, they follow it to a forbidding black mansion. The owner, a shriveled man named Moundshroud (Leonard Nimoy), shows the children a "Halloween Tree" with pumpkins representing those who have passed on. He can't believe that the kids don't know why their costumes - Jenny's a witch, Tom is a skeleton, Wally is a Quasimodo-type monster, and Ralph is a mummy - are so significant to the holiday. Pip takes off with the pumpkin that has his face, prompting Moundshroud to recruit his friends to help recover it. They follow him through ancient Egypt, medieval Ireland, the building of the Notre Dame de Paris, and a Day of the Dead celebration in Mexico, learning how the customs pertaining to the dead and the changing of seasons in each time period contributed to Halloween traditions and lore.
Bradbury wrote and narrated this himself, and it's a dark, yet touching look at Halloween customs and traditions that aren't as often covered as those for Christmas. It's truly sweet to see not only how much Pip means to the kids, but what they give up for him in the end. Nimoy makes a great Moundshroud, too, pushy and spooky as he explains each time period and their significance to the kids. Highly recommended if you want to show your older kids and pre-teens how many Halloween customs got started.
Moved to the original Ghostbusters as I cleaned up from lunch and took my laundry downstairs. After paranormal scientists Peter Venkman (Bill Murray), Egon Spengler (Harold Ramis), and Ray Stantz (Dan Acroyd) are fired from their jobs at Columbia University, they go into business as professional ghost-catchers. They don't have much luck until classical musician Dana Barrett (Sigourney Weaver) goes to them insisting she's seen a spook in her icebox, and then the guys have to clear a certain hungry little green ghost out of a fancy hotel. Suddenly, the phone is ringing off the hook and ghost sightings are popping up all over the city. They're so swamped, they hire Winston Zeddmore (Ernie Wilson) to help out.
Their receptionist Janine (Annie Potts) worries that something is going to go wrong...and it turns out she has a good reason. After EPA executive Walter Peck (William Atherton) orders the containment unit with the ghosts shut down, it bursts open, sending ghosts flying all over New York! The Ghostbusters are arrested...but they may be the only ones who can save the Big Apple from an otherworldly menace on top of Dana's apartment building determined to turn the town into the world's largest charred marshmallow.
I did hear good things about Afterlife, don't think Ghostbusters II is all that bad, and still believe the all-female remake from a few years ago has an undeserved bad rap, but this is really still the only Ghostbusters film most people will need. The entire cast is a delight, with Murray the stand-out as smarmy Venkman, throwing out some of the funniest one-liners of the 80's while backed by special effects that look good to this day.
Worked on writing after the movie and putting my laundry in the dryer. Cora and her father are surprised to see a pair of velvety brown eyes peering around a corner. They belong to an ugly hunchback with a misshapen face, spiky whacked-off hair, hairy ape-like arms, and loping legs, who shyly gives Cora a flower. She thinks he's a dear, but Stephen would rather she not pal around with his servant...
Watched the two horror episodes of The Muppet Show on Disney Plus during dinner. Horror movie legend Vincent Price lent his elegant spookiness to one of the best episodes of the first season. He and Uncle Deadly give Fozzie and Gonzo a fright in a haunted house, Kermit bites him in the neck after they discuss acting during an interview segment, and we see one Muppet monster eating another while singing "I've Got You Under My Skin." Price finishes off the show by serenading the Muppet monsters with "You've Got a Friend."
Alice Cooper was one of the earliest "shock jocks," known for his crazy makeup and scary songs like "Welcome to My Nightmare" and "School's Out." In his third season episode, he tries to tempt various Muppets in to selling their souls, but Gonzo is the only taker. Meanwhile, teeth complain of a toothache, and the crew of the Swinetrek turn invisible after Captain Hogthrob contracts a space disease in "Pigs In Space."
Finished the night at Buzzr and YouTube with Halloween game show episodes. Buzzr's been running Halloween episodes all weekend as part of their second annual "Halloween Spooks and Frights" marathon. Sale of the Century really got into the holiday during Halloween week 1988, with pumpkins that matched the set and vampiresses and mummies introducing scary prizes that included a trip to Transylvania.
To Tell the Truth has had many a frightening liar on the show during its 70-plus year run. The first episode from 1974 began with three female pilots who survived a horrific plane crash in the snow. The second guests were a lot more florid. Three men in costumes based around famous movie villains claimed to be a major horror movie buff who had set up a museum of horror movie props. Gene Rayburn, of course, couldn't resist trading bad Dracula accents with the guy in the vampire costume.
The 1990 episode of Truth kicked off with a Bride of Frankenstein who found her perfect Frankenstein monster while working at Universal Studios Hollywood and married him in a ceremony attended by other Universal ghoulies. The second group were three women who claimed to be part of a project searching for intelligent life on other planets.
Moved to YouTube for other favorite Halloween game shows. Sale wasn't the only NBC show taking part in Halloween fun during 1988. Super Password had Edie McClurg and Christopher Hewitt pulling out a bag with "treats" - useful little items - for winners and "tricks" - little Halloween or horror-themed dollar toys - for losers.
Halloween goes back a long way on game shows. Peter Lorre turned up during a 1960 episode of I've Got a Secret with a most unusual "secret." He shows the panel how to discern different scents without seeing them, then pulls the haunted-house thing by letting them touch objects without seeing them and guess what they're touching. Garry Moore probably found the squirmy two-year-old in the opening whose "secret" was he owned a lamb, a goat, a monkey, and nine dogs to be far scarier!
Though the Storybook Squares spin-off had long ended by 1977, Hollywood Squares still did occasional themed weeks with families and kids playing and everyone in costume. Paul Lynde lumbering into the center square as Frankenstein's monster makes this episode especially appropriate for Halloween. Other celebrities included a sweet Big Bird, Soupy Sales trying as Thomas Edison trying to perfect his latest record player, Pat Harrington as Leonardo DiVinci, Jo Ann Worley as Martha Washington, George Gobel as King Henry the 8th, Connie Stevens as the Queen of Hearts, and a hilarious Florence Henderson playing against type as tough outlaw queen Belle Starr.
Hollywood Squares' comedy panel rival Match Game didn't get to a Halloween show until 1990, but it's the best episode of that series. Host Ross Schafer makes an especially handsome Dracula, while Vicki Lawrence wishes her Little Red Riding Hood dress wasn't quite so short. Charles Nelson Reilly is an unlikely Superman with inflatable muscles. His favorite drinking buddy Brett Somers reprises her little girl costume from Christmas 1978. It's Ronn Lucas and his dragon puppet Scorch who manage to come up with the most terrifying Halloween costume of all.
The Price Is Right has done a Halloween episode every year since Drew Carey started hosting. His first Halloween show in 2007 had him trying to explain pricing games through a mouthful of plastic vampire teeth. The models, dressed as a vampire and a mummy, have a somewhat easier time showing off Showcases filled with trips and prizes that would drive off a vampire and make a mummy happy.
Family Feud also does annual Halloween episodes. John O'Hurley hosted the one from 2008 as a rather unhappy giant teddy bear. The families costumed as a farmer and his cow, pig, chicken, and penguin and a demon, priest, monk, and angel seemed to have a lot more fun.
Run these delightfully frightening episodes at your Halloween party this year!
And here's even more vintage Halloween specials to tide you over until trick-or-treating!
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