October 21, 2004:
I'm not sure who invented Halloween, but if I could bottle up all of his thoughts and subsequently drain them out in order of importance, the first drips would spell a promise that nobody's Halloween season is complete without the addition of a novelty serving platter with battery-operated singing demon inside. So strong was this belief that spending 16.99 to attain such a thing didn't once register as a bad idea. Retrospectively, Spookytime's "Head On A Platter" is likely the most annoying thing I've bought all month.
So you've got this big bulbous plastic platter; it doesn't look realistic, but any attempt to craft it as such would've been foolhardy since the big "LIFT LID FOR A CRAZY SCARY THING TO HAPPEN" sticker is impossible to remove and kinda hurts the prank factor. Don't plan to trick the treaters with this one -- its appeal is more akin to that of the Duracell driven dancing soda can. Amusing for three seconds, it then becomes something you passionately despise yet refuse to throw away for years and years and years until finally, finally, the once-loved doodad just ups and disappears forever. It's still in the house somewhere, but you won't be able to find it and will never have a reason to try.
Underneath the lid is something unexpected, something that can sing and something that beat me to the punch in a lifelong dream to figure out a way to make my eyes blink red. This something is chewing on a bone, because anyone driven to weave a theme of pointlessness would do well to be thorough. Presenting, a bone-chewing head on a platter:
I've not quite decided what the creature reminds me of, but can admit that I only spent half a minute looking at it. The head is animatronic or something, meaning it chomps down on its big rubbery bone while belting out the most showtunniest Halloween anthem of all time. Really awful song. Think Jackie Mason reading Poe and trying to make it sound all pop. That's a tough one to picture, but I swear, that's exactly what it sounds like. Even more remarkable is the fact that I can't really remember what Jackie Mason sounded like, and am only basing this on the way a small "Jackie Mason Handheld Insult Machine" my father owned more than a decade ago said "you're a schmuck, the biggest" whenever I hit the upper left button. Huh.
Anyway, Beastmanthing's song is almost too loud for anyone to allow a complete performance, in part because making the toy shut up is as easy as closing the lid. I assume Spookytime's "Head On A Platter" is a godsend for grade school teachers forced by some citywide mandate to hold Halloween parties for their classes next Friday afternoon, but for everyone else in the world, there's cooler junk to piss your money away on. This one's just too clunky and blah. I'm in a bad mood.
