September 22, 2006:
In an earlier article, I wrote about the evolution of Halloween decorations, and how they've suddenly gone to a Christmas-level complexity which has made them much cooler, but also much more expensive, and thus, bought more exclusively by those who are really into Halloween. I can't believe all of that was one sentence, but my point is, Halloween decorations may have suffered from becoming too cool for their own good. Generally speaking, people aren't ready to accept Halloween as a holiday worthy of all that hardcore cash money spending as the holier happenings of December.
Fortunately, there are some nice "middle ground" items that cost more than pumpkins and window clings, but not so much more that you'd have to be the kind of person who drinks rat blood to justify purchasing. I've seen lots of great, semi-affordable stuff at party stores this season, and while the item I'm featuring today isn't as outright awesomely ghoulish as some of the other junk I've seen, I really like how it bridges the gap between "not too scary for kids" and "spooky enough to not make me feel like a lame asshole."
From Tekky Toys, it's the "Scary Flying Ghost" -- good indoors, good outdoors, good everywhere! It's part of a large line of creepy creatures that move to and fro on a big long cable, including a "Lab Monster," "Witch," "Vampire Bat" and "Vampire." The newer editions cost around 20 bucks, but some of the elder statesmen have been spotted on clearance for as little as three dollars. Even though it fell on the pricier side, I picked the "Scary Flying Ghost" because it made the most seamless, natural transition to a Halloween decoration that floats around on a big wire.
What's cool about this collection is that, for decorations with such a great payoff, there's very little in the way of complicated setting-uppage. I didn't have to spend an hour inflating anything by mouth, I didn't have to go buy "D" batteries for the first time in fifteen years and I didn't have to call people with bigger brains than mine to figure out what I was doing wrong. So simple are the decorations that they don't even come with instruction manuals -- the short steps are printed right on the box. This is excellent, because I very much doubt my ability to take an instruction manual for a Halloween decoration out of its box and not lose it two minutes later.
Of course, I'm something of an idiot, and managed to have trouble dealing with the whole two steps of setting up my Scary Flying Ghost.
The ghost comes alive on the power of three "AA" batteries, which is awesome, because even if you're living in the one house on the planet that doesn't have ample quantities of "AA" batteries in its kitchen junk drawer, they're just as easy to swipe from various remote controls. You'll be pissed when you have to actually get off the couch to change a bad Seinfeld rerun later that day, but instant gratification is a seductive bitch.
Finding batteries was not my problem. Getting said batteries inside my Scary Flying Ghost was. See, the battery compartment is protected by one of those ultra mega ridiculously tiny screws that nobody outside of people obsessed with bifocal care have screwdrivers for. What I don't get is how no screw company has caught on and made ultra mega ridiculously tiny screws that are perfectly sized for steak knives, because everyone in the free world uses steak knives to unscrew those things...even if they never work. Usually, we just end up mangling the screw enough to where it disintegrates on the spot, which on one hand makes the steak knife successful in getting the motherfucker out of there, but also ensures that you'll never be able to close the battery compartment tightly again.
And don't tell me that I could just go out and buy a replacement ultra mega ridiculously tiny screw. That's not a solution; that'd be contributing to the problem.
Making matters worse for me was the fact that the Scary Flying Ghost's big giant cable had to be tightly tied and perfectly horizontal. It's no secret to those who've watched me grow that nobody ever bothered to teach me how to tie sneakers, and to this day, any knot stands a good chance of defeating me in the squared circle.
I...cannot...tie knots.
Typically, I end up just wrapping the strings around the target object enough times to where there's no loose threads hanging out, which provides me a good eight or nine seconds of bondage before they all unwrap and ruin my life.
So bad am I at knots that even here, where all I needed to do was coil a pole and hook the cable into place, took a good thirty minutes. I'd be close to finishing one side, and the other side would come undone. Then I'd walk over, fix that and find the finished side cackling as it unraveled into a pit of fuck you. I can't hold this against Tekky Toys, though, since I'm sure normal human beings are perfectly capable of stringing up a cable and putting batteries in a battery compartment. I just suck.
Eventually, I stopped sucking and had a Scary Flying Ghost hanging from a cable that was just horizontal enough to let the thing work. The ghost's arms can be posed by readjusting the flexible wiring hidden beneath its folds of white. Though the box recommends that you bring the Scary Flying Ghost inside whenever it rains or gets really windy, I'm going to have to call that one BULLSHIT. I don't care if there's a meteor shower or if your neighborhood's on fire. Once you go through the trouble of getting this thing going, there's no way you're taking it down before November 1st. Absolutely no way.
Fortunately, the "sheet" is made from a pretty resilient plastic that feels like it'd both survive a mild storm and keep the battery compartment dry. Next time it rains, I'll find out for sure. I can't wait!
All in all, I think my ghost looks pretty cool. He wouldn't even need to do anything to be worth the effort and money I put into him, but he does! He does many wonderful things!
You weren't putting batteries up the ghost's ass just for the sheer thrill of it; no, those three "AAs" allow the ghost to slide up and down the cable, spinning as he does. It works really well. The ghost's movement is ostensibly controlled by loud noises, but I've found that he just comes alive whenever he damn well pleases. It's not like you'll have to stand around clapping like a dickhead to have him get on with the dog & pony show -- he'll dance whenever the mood strikes, and the mood seems to strike pretty often.
If you end up buying the Scary Flying Ghosts or one of his Scary Flying Cousins, I'd suggest stringing him up as high as you can -- it'd be a lot cooler to see my ghost shake what his ghostmutha gave him twenty feet in the air than two feet off the ground.
Okay, so now we've got a cool looking ghost doing cool looking stunts on a wire. Can this thing possibly do anything else? Yes, yes it can. This ghost double-majored in college, yo.
The final temptation is the Scary Flying Ghost's ability to make a bunch of creepy sounds as it strolls along. The sounds include the typical "oooooooh oooooHEWWWWW" ghosty "boo" chatter and a persistent "MUAHAHAHAHAH," but both sounds occur simultaneously, making me believe that my ghost is actually the spirit of more than one person. I'm guessing that's why he cost fifteen dollars more than the "Scary Flying Vampire Bat." Click here for a video of the ghost in action, and don't try to come up with any excuses involving the audio levels of my digital camera's video recorder -- he really is that loud.
I'm paying tribute to the Scary Flying Ghost for a specific reason. He's the kind of decoration you'll pass by a hundred thousand times this Halloween season at stores, and while you may inspect the box briefly, you'll probably pass. This is a case of a decoration being a heck of a lot cooler than it seems in concept, and if you've got space to string up a 25' cable with a 3' loudly-screaming plastic ghost, you won't regret buying him. Your neighbors might, but you won't.
