Spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon putting together the trick-or-treating bags. I first made the bags in 2020, when the pandemic made it necessary to get creative with trick-or-treating. They went over so well, I've made bags for trick-or-treaters and given out traditional candy ever since. That's what that bag of party favors I bought from Westmont Party a couple of weeks ago was for, and the vampire teeth and Moon Pies and bags of Tootsie Roll variety candy were for, too. Had just enough time for a quick lunch before I got ready for work.
Watched Sinners while I worked. This huge hit from earlier in the year about twins who open a nightclub in 1932 Louisiana, only to encounter a supernatural force who wants to use the music to raise his community, was a huge hit earlier this year. I go further into it at my Musical Dreams Movie Reviews blog.
Though the rain had ended by quarter after 2, it remained cloudy, windy, and very humid. Not to mention, everything was still soaked. I called Uber for a ride to the school. I actually had to go through two before one picked me up...and they took almost 20 minutes, making me late to the Thomas Sharp School.
I think you can guess no one went outside today. Though it wasn't raining, the playground and blacktop were too wet for games and running around. After the little kids had their snacks in the library, we set them up with two projects. The first, and more complicated, of the two had them gluing Q-Tip "bones" to outlines the teachers drew of their hands to look like skeleton hands. Most of them honestly did pretty good with that, once they got the Q-Tips to actually stick. The second involved them sticking eyes, ears, noses, and other accessories onto Halloween figures - witches, zombies, ghosts, or vampires. They really liked that one, and some of them got really creative with the extra eyes.
While the skeleton hands pictures dried, we moved the chairs and tables aside for a Halloween dance party. The kids played "Freeze Dance" to "Ghostbusters," both the Disney Goofy and original versions of "Monster Mash," "The Batty Dance," "Do the Garbage," and several songs from KPop Demon Hunters. It was utterly hilarious to see the poses the kids froze in! I hadn't laughed so much in ages. They all loved the bubble wands they won for the best freezes, too. Unfortunately, it got so hot in the library, and the kids got so crazy, we ended up moving them to the cafeteria/gym with the big kids.
Since it still wasn't raining when I finished, I walked home. Wanted to stop at Dollar General and get more Halloween candy, too. Heard a woman tell two teen boys not to come back in. Apparently, they'd been caught shoplifting the day before and hadn't gotten the general idea that this is not a good idea and will get you thrown out.
(Incidentally, it did rain really hard again, about a half-hour after I got in. Thankfully, that ended around 8 PM. I don't think it's rained since.)
Returned to the Disney well for two of their vintage Halloween specials as I worked on the Sinners review. Halloween Hall of Fame from 1977 has Johnathan Winters as a security guard at the Disney studios who discovers a grumpy jack o'lantern (Winters) hiding out in a crystal ball. Seems Jack thinks Halloween just isn't scary enough nowadays. Winters directs him to the shorts "Trick or Treat" and "Pluto's Judgement Day" and the featurette "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" to prove otherwise.
Disney's Halloween Treat is the Disney Channel's Halloween special. A far friendlier jack 'o lantern narrator introduces the cartoons "Donald and the Gorilla," "Mickey's Parrot," "Pluto's Judgement Day," and the Oscar-winning "The Old Mill," along with the Wizard's Duel segment from The Sword In the Stone and a segment on the cat's contribution to horror mythology. The Magic Mirror (Hans Conried) takes over with "Disney's Greatest Villains," a special from 1977 focusing on the best bad guys in Disney movies up to that point. (The 1977 release date does explain the inclusion of Madame Medusa from The Rescuers near the end. The Rescuers had just debuted that summer.) The special ends with what's probably Disney's most famous horror-oriented shorts, the Goofy/Donald/Mickey romp "Lonesome Ghosts" and Donald's nephews teaching him not to mess around with "Trick or Treat."
Switched to the original 1984 Ghostbusters during dinner. After being fired from Columbia University, paranormal professors Peter Venkman (Bill Murray), Ray Stantz (Dan Ackroyd), and Egon Spengler (Harold Ramis) goes into business for themselves as professional ghost chasers. Business is sparse until classical musician Dana Barrett (Signourney Weaver) insists she's seen a monster in her refrigerator. Venkman's thrilled to take on her case, but as it turns out, she's far from the only one seeing ghosts. After the Ghostbusters catch a slimy spook in a major hotel, they suddenly have more work than they can handle. In fact, they hire a fourth man, Winston Zeddemore (Ernie Hudson), to help them out.
Their secretary Janine (Annie Potts) says she can't help feeling something bad is going to happen. As it turns out, she's right. When an official from the Environmental Protection Agency (William Atherton) insists on shutting down the containment unit holding the ghosts, the spooks break loose. Not to mention, Dana and her nerdy neighbor Louis Tully (Rick Moranis) end up possessed by the demon Gozer. The Ghostbusters are put in jail, until the Mayor (David Marguiles) realizes there's only four men who can save New York from this supernatural menace. Now, it's up to the guys to stop the ghost and the giant marshmallow man, before downtown Manhattan becomes the world's largest charred marshmallow.
The 1989 sequel isn't bad, I still think the 2016 all-female remake gets a bum rap, and I haven't gotten around to seeing the recent movies...but for my money, the original is really all the Ghostbusters anyone needs. This is one of the funniest movies of the 1980's, and certainly one of the funniest horror movies ever made. Murray and Ackroyd stand out as the most and least skeptical of the four, but everyone gets some great lines in. The special effects still hold up really well, too, especially Slimer in the hotel! If you want to find out what the franchise is all about, this is the best place to start.
Finished the night with the soundtracks from Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters II. The title song of Ghostbusters is by far the best-known song from either of these. It was as big of a hit as the move in 1984, and continues to be frequently played during the Halloween season to this day. I also like the eerie "Magic" by Mick Smiley and the Doo-Wop spoof "Cleanin' Up the Town." The hit from Ghostbusters II was Bobby Brown's "On Our Own," which while not being as ubiquitous as the title song, still managed to get a fair amount of airplay during the summer of 1989. Doug E. Fresh's vibrant rap "Spirit" is the other big number here.
Here's even more vintage Halloween specials to tide you over until trick or treating!
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