Countdown to Halloween day 30: The Very Last of the Halloween Goodwill Finds Posts for 2015

Well... this is it folks! The last Goodwill Finds post of the 2015 Countdown to Halloween! I'm not too sad though, because there's always next year to look forward to, and with the end of the Halloween season I get to go back to looking for items in general that tickle my fancy. Halloween, like all good things, must come to a close. 

I have to say too, that I think for a post I wasn't sure I'd even be writing, since I just found all this stuff last weekend... I kind of saved the best for last. Here's a shot of the whole pile, (anything that was actually in with the Halloween merchandise was 50% off) so let's dig in!

First up this little folding screen-thing made up of three black cats. I kind of wish they hadn't done two pumpkins and a skull. Wouldn't a skull, a pumpkin, and a witch have been cool and colorful, and reminiscent of Halloween III? Either way, I think these cats are cool. Serene, majestic... almost stoic.

When I picked this up I thought it was a night-light, but then I realized it was actually an air freshener. I love that he's got an eye patch! He's practically a pirate jack o' lantern!

I think they sell the filling for these at Bath and Body works. I'll have to see if they have some pumpkin spice ones.

This was a surprise! I was really hoping to find the entire set of KISS band members in vinyl toy form... but all they had was The Demon, Gene Simmons! He's pretty much the one you want to find if you're going to find one though, so no complaints. Ever since seeing KISS on the Paul Lynde Halloween special this season, I can't NOT think of KISS as a Halloween band!

This is Ghost Rider's red-headed step-child, Vengeance! He's on one of those bikes that is supposed to have a ripcord to rev up the bike before you set it off on the floor. As an unabashed lover of s**tty 90's comics, there is a soft spot in my heart for ol' vengie here. He's one of the Midnight Sons characters, and he's basically Ghost Rider on bath salts. Plus the colors here are just perfect for the season!

I was pretty excited to find a McDonald's Halloween pail that features the McDonaldLand gang circa 1999. I was pretty chuffed to see that the lid is intact, the handle was on there... and this thing is in great shape!

While I'm not a huge fan of the pails as they creep closer and closer to modern day, THIS bucket features both Birdie and Grimace in that animated style they were doing for the "Wacky Adventures of Ronald McDonald" at the time.

I know next to nothing about vintage Halloween masks. Like how to even tell if they are, in fact, vintage. But these two masks just look way too old, and way too oddly familiar for me to leave them behind. I'm using the McDonald's trick or treat pail here as a model, which I think lends an appropriate level of eeriness to the eyes that I really like. This green guy is just absolutely gorgeous.

I should mention that both masks do actually have markings near the bottoms that should be telling me what the companies are that made these. This might make it easier for me to trace them to a specific time period... but unfortunately they are impossible to read. So... no dice. This devil guy's mouth opens up sideways I guess? Not sure. I love the use of blues and yellows here to make the red look crazy bright. Both of these masks stink like old Halloween masks should. Just smelling their weird cheesy gasoline odor takes me back to the Halloween section of Ames as a kid.

This is another interesting looking book about monsters that I may save for next year's Halloween Read Pile... or I may just read it now. Not sure. But "Scare Scape" by Sam Fisher looks like fun.

I was pretty excited to find this comic book, which is a cheap, indy comic done by creator "Madman" and is touted as:

"Eternity's Halloween Special" which I realize now is the name of the publishing company. "Lunatic Binge" is kind of fun, but kid of rough around the edges. We're talking super cheap end of the old indy comics pool here. It's mostly fun to own for the novelty's sake.

This was another fun find! "World's Worst Monsters & Villains" is another of those weird compendiums that collects monsters from movies, cartoons, myths, fairy tales, video games... whatever, and includes them all with equal fervor... and a equal lack of correct information.

But it's fun to flip through and look at! Here are some particularly monstrous entries in Cthulhu himself and something vampire-y called a Camazotz. If you're an RPG enthusiast like I am, these kinds of books are our bread and butter.

Well that's it kids! I'll be back one more time for this countdown with a final wrap-up post to see us out of the countdown! I won't be hibernating this year during November before my Creepmas and Christmas countdowns in December... so I'm not really going anywhere! Ummm... anyway...

I'll be back soon with more Goonie Goodwill Goodies! So until then, Happy Haunting!

Countdown to Halloween Day 22: Darling Pumpkinheads, Devil's Brew, Deathnote and Darth Vader Too

Hey! Welcome back! I'm finding the Halloween Goodwill finds to be getting a little sparse at this point, so hopefully I'll have more to write about in another couple of posts... otherwise I'm going to be getting very creative! But luckily, I have this armful of stuff right here still left to write about! 

Gaze at the riot of wonder and color that is this post's loot pile! Let's dig in.

I love pumpkin-headed ghosts. And when they're as cute as this guy is? There was no way this thing wasn't coming home. You don't see enough of these guys these days. There's something very victorian-greeting-card about the design of a jack o' lantern with a trailing ghost-sheet-body beneath. 

I almost didn't pick this pumpkin-headed flashlight thing but I just love that vintage, blow-mold looking face. It's so lumpy! I had a reeeeally hard time getting a non-shiny picture of this thing too. I'm trying to decide if I'm going to keep the head on the black handle or if I will remove it and stick it on top of another jack o' lantern to make them look like piled up pumpkins. We will see.

Found these two in a baggy for a dollar. I probably overpaid but I wanted the Frankenstein's Monster more than anything. There are no markings to tell me when these were made, (there is a 50 cent price tag from Brooks drug on the side of each tube) but the UPC stickers on the tubes don't look old at all so I have a feeling these are fairly recent... but it doesn't matter. They have that cheap, fun feel to them that Halloween should have.

They make great finger puppets too! I love Frankie's sideways little grin here.

This bad boy also has no markings whatsoever. He looks like he's meant to evoke a little bit of Casper the Friendly Ghost but the resemblance is does not seem to be official. There does seem to be a piece missing off the top of the ghost's tail, but I can't seem to find this thing online so I can't begin to tell you what could have been there.

I have no idea if this thing will be worth reading or not, but finding a "Mars Attacks!" novel titled "Martian Deathtrap" was pretty exciting. I don't think I've ever read anything by Nathan Archer before, so I'm going in pretty blind. May toss this in next year's Halloween Read Pile... or I may just pass on it entirely and send it along to someone else.

I'm not a Manga person, like AT ALL. But I when I saw the first two volumes of DeathNote for a couple of bucks apiece, I thought I'd give it a shot. And what better time of year to find a manga about a guy using a magic notebook to kill people, and having to deal with death spirits? I have no idea if this is the gateway book that will lead to my addiction with manga, or if it will just enforce all of the reasons why I've never really gotten into them.

There was also this fun looking activity book "The Halloween Grab Bag" which is your typical "Book of Tricks and Treats" with recipes, crafts, costume ideas, games to try, puzzles to solve, etc. Here's an example of why I picked this one up though:

Look at this s**t! Don't you want to try atomic fireball flavored apple juice with ginger ale mixed in? I know I do! Heck, swap out the apple juice for hard apple cider and you got me going! Devil's Brew indeed!

There was also this little four pack of sort-of-papercraft masks you fold and assemble to wear. I'm giving these to my kids, but I'm not sure when exactly.

I really wanted to get a close up look at the example on the bag to show you how not cool these things are probably going to be. But I bet my boys will love them either way. 

Finally I found a nice Halloween themed anthology. It says "Tales of suspense" but I'm not sure exactly what that means. I doubt many of these will be supernatural in nature... but a guy can hope. It includes Peter Straub's "Pork Pie Hat" which really is an incredible Halloween story, but still not one that has any real ghosts or ghouls in it. So I'm guessing crime stories. This one is definitely on next year's Halloween Read Pile for sure, but I'm goig to keep my expectations managed properly.

Well that's it for tonight kids! I'll be back with more Gremlinish Goodwill Goodies soon enough! Until then, Happy Haunting!

Remember, I'm doing this countdown as a part of the official Countdown to Halloween, so be sure to pop over there and look and see who else is participating this year.

Countdown to Halloween Day 11: Anthologies - Ghosts, Monsters, and... Weenies?

Hey there kids! Today let's flip through the pages of a few short story anthologies I've picked up specifically for this year's Halloween Read Pile. 

Here we have a group shot of the four books I'll be highlighting, two books each from two different series of books. Bruce Coville's "Book of..." series, and David Lubar's "Weenies" series. Let's dig right in and get talking spooky stories shall we?

In the "Land of the Lawn Weenies" does not look at first glance like it would be a good Halloween read. I think I often passed over the Weenies books over the years because I assumed they were comedy anthologies. But in fact, the complete opposite is true. Lubar's shorter-than-short tales in the two books I'm featuring here are quite effective. They remind me quite a lot of the stories found in "Half Minute Horrors" which I picked up and read last year.

I felt like "Land of the Lawn Weenies," Lubar's first foray into Weenies territory, is a bit stronger than the other Weenies book I picked up, which I'll talk about below. The stories are unexpectedly bizarre, often deliciously mean-spirited, and some of them border on being genuinely disturbing.

Stories like "The Slide" and "Smunkies" stand out for the feeling that dread that Lubar builds up over the course of a very short period of time, and "Join the Party" manages to be just a little spooky while also being kind of an uplifting, bittersweet story. I felt like "The Evil Tree" and "The Language of Beasts" were a little weak, but almost all of the stories were enjoyable and over in the blink of the eye before I was shuttled along to the next.

There are currently seven books in the Weenies series, and "The Battle of the Red Hot Pepper Weenies" is the one smack-dab in the middle and number four. And unfortunately, it feels a little bit like Lubar is writing a bit too much to cater to the format instead of simply writing stories that genuinely creep you out. There's six years between the two books I have here, and it feels like Lubar is kind of phoning this one in. There are still some great sotires to be found, but this one felt a bit more padded with filler than the previous one. He put out the most recent collection, number seven, in 2014, so I'd be curious to see how that one reads at this point.

There is some shivery fun to be found in "The Department Store," "Braces," and a few others I can't even really recall at the moment, but waaay more of these just fall under the jokey or bizarre category, and the story "Dear Author" just feels like a nasty jab at readers who send him story ideas, or who at least claim to have done so. I might still check out some of the other Weenies books based on my great enjoyment of the first book... but I don't expect much from the later volumes.

Bruce Coville is sort of the unsung, poor-man's R.L. Stine. I actually know him best from his "Into the Land of the Unicorns" series, which my daughter adored growing up... but he's also the guy who wrote all of those "My Teacher is an Alien!" books, and a bunch of Magic Shop books involving haunted or enchanted items bought from a magic shop (one of those, "the Monster's Ring" is a great Halloween read, although very similar to Stine's "The Haunted Mask") This "Book of..." anthology series is not solely written by him, which is a series that includes Books of: Aliens, Nightmares, Magic, Ghosts, Monsters, and Spine Tinglers. With many of those topics actually receiving second volumes as well, making for a total of somewhere around 10-12 books total.

This time around, I'm talking about the weaker book first. This "Book of Monsters" was a semi-fun read but ultimately I felt a little cheated by the end. Many of the stories are just kind of weak, or jokey, or feel like advertisements for other book series. And as much as I like creepy folktales, I like my folktales to actually be creepy, not just kind of a bland retelling. Even Jane Yolen's and Joe Lansdale's stories, (which were each a paltry almost-three pages long) while fun to read, and would have made nice pallet-cleansing stories in a different collection, are pretty much just monster jokes. On the other hand...

Bruce Coville's "Book of Ghosts" had a much better pay-off. There weren't many duds in this collection at all. Almost all of the stories had some sort of spook-factor to them. Even Coville's story, which included characters from some other book or story series, felt standalone and had some good moments of creep and bittersweetness to it.

There's some great talent collected together here as well. We see both Joe Lansdale and Jane Yolen again, who are both personal favorites, and the ghost story maven, Mary Downing Hahn contributes a tale as well. "The Ghost in the Summer Kitchen" was a very nice tale, if slightly predictable, and "For Love of Him" by Vivian Vande Velde actually turned up later in a different anthology in my Halloween Read Pile, and I read through the story both times I liked it so much. I recommend this one very highly!

Overall, I recommend Coville's "Book of Ghosts" and Lubar's "Land of the Lawn Weenies" especially if, like me, you like to gather together creepy collections of short stories for your Halloween reading.

That's it for tonight kids! I'll be back sooner than you're probably entirely comfortable with to share more Gobliny Goodwill Goodies!

And remember, I'm doing this countdown as a part of the official Countdown to Halloween, so be sure to pop over there and look and see who else is participating this year.

Countdown to Halloween Day 9: Anthologies - Monsters "Small Blessings"

Hey there everybody! Today I want to get back to TV anthology shows for another look-see. 

Monsters was an anthology show that lasted for 3 seasons. It was pretty low-budget and had some pretty awful episodes, but it also had some incredibly fun and memorable episodes regardless of its handicaps.

The opening sequence was one of the best aspects of the show to be honest. It features a family of suburban monsters huddling around the TV in the living room to watch their favorite TV show: Monsters! The mother and daughter appear to be from a Ray Harryhausen pedigree, with their horns and cyclopeon eyes. 

The father is a potato-headed lumpy mass with one normal arm and one arm that looks more like a gnarled tentacle. They settle in with their assortment of disgusting snacks for a shared family viewing of the show. And the episode I want to talk about today is "Small Blessings," which really stood out to me as a kid. This is a pretty fun one, honestly. It's all very tongue-in-cheek, played for laughs, and full of some pretty subtle humor mixed with some fairly blunt sight gags.

For an episode of Monsters, it's honestly a bit tame... but it does have some bite... Julie Brown plays new mother, Wendy. I remember the fact that Julie Brown was doing an episode of the show was a really big deal to me at the time. I knew her from MTV and from Earth Girls Are Easy, and she was funny as heck!

It isn't clear what's so different about Wendy's situation right away compared to most new mothers. The viewer KNOWS something is off because 1) they won't let us see the baby as Wendy is trying to convince it to sleep and 2) this is "Monsters".

We soon find out that baby Eric is a fanged, meat-hungry freak baby. His parents love him regardless, though Dad Louis (played by Kevin Nealon) is much more accepting of their bundle of joy than Wendy is. Wendy is having a hard time accepting Eric for who he is, considering baby Eric has been known to disfigure visiting relatives that get their ears too close to his mouth.

For the most part, Eric is played by a fake looking series of dolls. There are a few close up shots that Look a bit better... but if you're looking for sharp, polished effects here... move on. You just have to kind of go with the flow on this one.

Eric is quite the handful. He almost never sleeps. He regularly breaks out of his crib and gets into mischief (like on the ceiling above) and unlike most cranky newborns, Eric was born with a full set of sharp teeth and a hunger for: 

Raw meat! In fact, the meat delivery boy (played by David Spade) comments on how much meat the family has begun buying. Wendy just despairs over the fact that there are only so many ways she can serve raw meat to her hungry boy. 

Unfortunately, it turns out that several pets, and even some people, have been the victims of horrible violence just recently. And Wendy suspects Eric is the culprit. Especially one night when he gets loose and shows up on the front porch with a neighbor's half-eaten pooch. 

In one of the episode's funniest moments, we see Wendy welding a cage in Eric's nursery to keep him contained while dad tries to comfort the child. Domestic bliss! 

But then plot twist!!! Wendy discovers it ISN'T Eric after all whose been going on the killing spree! It's actually Teddy, the meat delivery boy! He's a psycho and he wants to become a famed serial killer! 

Lucky for Wendy, either her welding skills are crap, or Eric is just getting stronger and more aggresiv by the day, or both... because Eric hears Teddy menacing his Momma and breaks free!

The inanimate doll that is obviously NOT a baby of any kind takes a bite of Teddy's leg and sends him running for the hills. Wendy finally accepts Eric in her heart when she realizes the baby loves her too despite his... abnormalities.

Now honestly, David Spade's character should NOT have escaped. It is my one major gripe about this episode. I don't even care that the baby looks fake! It's kind of funnier that way! But Teddy should have been straight up eaten by Eric the monster baby. There is no excuse for not having the episode end that way. Wendy and Louis could still share the warm embrace with their freakish son while he was contentedly digesting a belly-full of meat-delivery boy. Where was this episode's sense of ironic justice!? Could they seriously not have picked up a plastic Halloween skeleton, squirted some blood all over it, and draped Teddy's signature apron over it? It could have been EPIC. But overall, I forgive it for just being so stupid and fun to watch. You can tell Nealon really has some fun delivering his lines defending little Eric, and Julie Brown actually does a great job acting as Wendy the beleaguered mom. overall, I would recommend this episode, but caution viewers to keep their expectations loooow. A lot like many of the other episodes of Monsters actually. But therein lies its charm.

That's it for today kiddos! I'll be back soon with more Grizzly Goodwill Goodies! Until then, Happy Haunting!

I'm doing this countdown as a part of the official Countdown to Halloween, so be sure to pop over there and look and see who else is participating this year.