Previous Article - X-Entertainment - Next Article --- By Matt - 9.24/'02

Continuing on, here's a few old school Halloween-themed board games. You might remember Yipes! from a previous article, but if you don't, think Pop-O-Matic Trouble, just with a lot more TROUBLE. However much the game costs nowadays is worth it, as the box art is the only place in the world where you can see the Mummy and Dracula trading play money.

In the back: I Want To Bite Your Finger. I can't remember how the game was played, but I recall that the loser was the one who Dracula bit first, leaving a fangmark made of red ink. Folks, they don't make them like they used to. I wish today's board games would attack me occasionally.


We changed all the light bulbs in the front room to those party hardy red ones. Kind of sets the tone. Also helps me develop film without paying those Kodak bastards money better spent on more cotton webs. (Item Cost: 4.00, Total Cost 39.41)


Nothing says 'Halloween' more than a string of pineapple-shaped Tiki lights. Talk about personification! The spookiest illumination available.

Okay, so they're not really Halloween lights. I just didn't have the heart to take 'em down. I love my pineapple lights. They're my happy thought. I considered painting upside-down crosses on them in pig blood to make them more in tune with the holiday theme, but while I'm pretty sure I could buy pig blood, I doubt I have the balls to actually touch it. So the pineapple lights remain as is, the outcast and pariah of my Halloween town. I don't mind them, but the grim reaper lights look more grim than they usually would.


I also bought one of those outdoor Halloween runner-light sets, the kind you line your sidewalk with. To date, I've been too lazy to set it up. Somehow I doubt I'll ever get around to it, so I've christened the set as a special 'Halloween Jump Rope.' Now I don't have to worry about it. Besides, I like decorating the house. I see no need to make the mailman feel all festive by decorating outside, too. Especially since he hasn't brought me my Norman Rockwell Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle yet. A jumprope it will stay. (Item Cost: 7.50, Total Cost: 46.91)


Just some assorted crap - we bought some real pumpkins to go along with the many fake ones, but I'll never carve them because the smell of pumpkin innards makes me violently ill. Also notice the Boo Berry bank - a great way to save up for breakfast.

While the wolfman doll is pretty dull, I like the bucket he's sitting in. It's one of those old McDonald's Happy Meal trick-or-treat buckets, featuring Birdie dressed up as a witch. Ronald doesn't need to wear a costume, already being a clown and all. Nobody wears two costumes, even in McDonaldland.


I bought a Halloween party tray to put out assorted expired chocolates and other Halloween items no one will ever eat or look at. It looked really cute at first, but it's turned into our makeshift junk drawer. While it's meant to play host to Halloween candy, it's now full of keys, phone numbers, change, and a few cigarettes I put out there when I was too lazy to find the ash tray. Halloween isn't all a bed of roses. (Item Cost: 1.00, Total Cost 47.91)


Inside the tray, a bevy of spooky goods! Halloween chocolate 'coins'. I bought them from a dollar store so there's little chance I'll be eating them without getting the okay from the FDA first. I also bought a few small spooky notebooks; the 'Tongue Twisters' one is like Mad Libs, only less interesting. But it had a chubby Dracula on the cover, so who could really resist?

Also, some stickers and a few plastic maze toys which completely do not work. If I tried giving any of this crap away on Halloween, kids would skip the eggs and start throwing bricks at my house. I'm not saying that's without it's merits, because at least it'd be an interesting story. "Hey, did I ever tell you about the time kids dressed like N'Sync threw bricks at me? Oh it's a hoot! A major major hoot hoot hoot!" Telling the story, of course, is just a cover excuse for me to do owl impersonations.


We decorated the coffee table with assorted candles and spooky things, including one strange item I picked up - a rubber bee atop a pile of guts inside a plastic jar. What? I have no idea, but they were selling it for 2.99. I'm still not sure what bees atop guts inside jars are supposed to represent, but once I filled it halfway with green-tinted water, it looked natural in our Halloween room. Unfortunately, I know it won't be removed until next spring, so I'm going to have to dodge a lot of 'hey what's that bloody bee doing there?' questions from November through April. (Item Cost: 3.00, Total Cost 50.91)


The Scary Mummy Door Cover looks pretty dumb, but you have to appreciate his trick-or-treat bag. The cats love clawing at this thing. I, in turn, love clawing at the cats. (Item Cost, 1.00, Total Cost 51.91)


A few months ago, I broke one of our mirrors. I couldn't throw the frame away because it looks like something they'd decorate a Trump Taj Mahal hotel room with. Finally, with Halloween coming up, I could put it to good use. After writing the word 'HELP!' on it and covering it with shitty webs, the broken mirror came very close to being a passable Halloween decoration. Close, but not quite there. I knew I should've smashed some live crickets onto the cardboard backing first.


Probably our best decoration, the Haunted Scary Tabletop Tree features a redwood with red eyes, assorted bats and rats, and even a witch with lifelike hair! I've got nothing funny to say about it because it's just that damn scary. Originally fifteen bucks, but I switched the price tags in the clumsy closeout store and nailed it for a mere fiver. The sickness makes you a thief. (Item Cost: 5.00, Total Cost: 56.91)


The Creature From The Black Lagoon and Yano, The Storytelling Alien are both scary enough in their own right, but once you add fake webs and five-cent spider rings, you've got a bona fide terror on your hands. That's right - you got a terror. It's a noun now. The creepiest noun in the whole wide world. Well, besides 'yam.' Brrrrrr.

Note that Yano's wearing removable bunny ears. Cute little guy thinks it's Halloween already. I'm not sure what I'm going to be this year, but if the lack of anything in my wallet is any current indication, looks like it's Caucasian White again. Think I'll win the trophy? I hope so. Gold is fun.


More web action, this time including a giant spider made out of pipe cleaners. It took us nearly three full hours to get the spider up in the web without crashing off or pulling all the cotton off the wall. We called Guiness to see if we'd broken any sort of record, but the damn place doesn't have office hours on Sunday. Sir Alec must be rolling around in his grave, seeing his brainchild go down the tubes like that.

Anyway, we finally got the spider up there, but he still falls if there's any vibrations in the house, or if either of us make any sort of noise whatsoever. We figured this would be a good time to take up that vow of silence against terrorism. People will think we're virtuous, but the reality is that I'm plain old sick and tired of hanging up the same stupid toy spider ten thousand times a day. (Item Cost: 1.00, Total Cost: 57.91)


We've also got a lot of plastic mice. And I do mean a lot, probably in the realm of 50 or 60. That's a lot of plastic mice. They're everywhere - we had to make room in the kitchen for the 25 who wouldn't fit anywhere else. It wouldn't be so bad if the mice looked reasonably realistic. Some are gray, but others are fluorescent green. Who's ever heard of a fluorescent green mouse? The good people of Taiwan should be ashamed, making products like this. I'm never eating Chinese food again. (Item Cost: 3.00, Total Cost: 60.91)


Just to make sure anyone who comes in the apartment thinks I'm a total idiot, here's our special Halloween wall banner, complete with pop-out paper ghost. I'm starting to think that maybe I shouldn't have shown you all this. I mean, it's not a picture of me in bed with a duck, but it's still incriminating in it's own little way. (Item Cost: 1.00, Total Cost: 61.91)


Finally, an old wood storage chest converts nicely into a creepy coffin, assuming you own a porcelain hand. Of course, I own several. It's what I do. The hand rarely stays popped out for very long, and I can't tell you how much I enjoy replacing it at every ten minute interval. Oh, how I suffer for my art. Oh, how the sickness has clouded my judgment with cotton webs and Frankenstein posters. Oh, Oh Oh OH Oh. The right stuff.

And that's it, or most of it anyway. We finish out with a total cost of 61.91, which really isn't too bad, all things considered. I usually spend double that for Easter, and I don't even like that holiday.

I don't know where this sickness will take me, or when it will end. I don't know if it will do me good, or do me in. I fly blindly, or at least walk blurry. I have given up on fighting the affliction - I've made peace with it. I've also made peace with the check I just sent to Johnson Smith, 150.00, for their fabulous ghost-themed kitchenware set. I am one with my sins. I hope you can overcome yours with as much stealth, and I hope you get ghost plates out of it, same as I. Take care, and be good to you and yours.



Madd Matt Volume I: The Crenshaw Melon Jack-O-Lantern
Madd Matt Volume II: Cheap Halloween Costumes
The Ghoulies Go To College Movie Review
Vincent Price's Shrunken Head & Other Monster Toys
Lizzie From Rampage's Secret Diary
Kingdom of the Spiders Movie Review
99 Cent Store Halloween Costumes
Halloween Cartoon Specials Hall of Fame
X-E's 'The Worst Witch' Four-Part Super Special

- Matt
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