Monster Mish-Mash

Back in the first Hallowe'en post I said that I wasn't going to commit myself to a post-a-day countdown thing because that way lies madness, as they say. 'They' being William Shakespeare. He was all the time saying that and it got annoying after awhile. Anyway, I sat down this morning and jotted down all the Hallowe'en things that I wanted to post about before the end of the month and then I counted the number of days left until the 31st and there turns out to be quite a discrepancy between the two. There may have to be some cuts made! In the interest of finding the space to post everything today's post is a grab bag of assorted Hallowe'en hoo-ha, none of which was really worthy of a post of it's own, but when combined together become a force to be reckoned with. Like the Superfriends.

-------

I had what I thought were two great ideas for interesting posts, the first of which revolved around a pile of old British comics from the '70's & '80's that I own. I thought it would be interesting to scan some Hallowe'en related comics, give non-Brit readers a little taste of what their comics are like. Now, I know that Hallowe'en is not as big of a deal over there as it is in the States, probably less so 20-30 years ago than today, but I thought that it was interesting enough to catch a comic strip artist's imagination. These British comics come out every week and have been published non-stop since around 1324 so I figured the artists involved would grab onto any holiday just to have something different to write about. No luck. Out of all the late October/early November issues of Beano, Whizzer, Dandy, et al I only came across one Hallowe'en themed strip. And here it is-

-------

This is the cover of an issue of Jack and Jill magazine that I kind of liked, even with

the bottom third having been torn off. Unfortunately I only have the cover so I can't tell you if there was any Hallowe'en content inside the book.

-------

You usually don't think of Starbucks when you think of cool Hallowe'en loot, but I was in there the other morning getting all caffeined up and I saw these two guys-

Only 4.99 each which is about half the price of a cup of coffee at the place. There was also a little orange octopus-like fellow which I didn't buy.

-------

Here's a badge I made to show all you witches out there that this blog is a safe haven. No burning stakes here! Please feel free to use it on your own blogs, or follow that link at the bottom of the pic and make a badge of your own. There's not a lot in the way of Hallowe'eny images, but there was a skeleton and a few other things, I think.

-------

A Hallowe'en postcard sent to Miss Virginia Riker(?) of Harrisonburg, Virginia from Dean & Eddie who were in Rock Island, Illinois at the time-

In case you don't want to strain your eyes trying to read that handwriting I've deciphered most of it- "Hi! Got your letter & card & I meant to send this sooner. Had lots of rain for 2 weeks but had a good frost & sunny & cool now. We are O.K. except Eddie got hurt on his eye & cheek but getting better. Very painful. The last 2 weekend went to see leaves - North & South of us. We also went on a wienie roast. This Sat nite going out with couple to celebrate some anniversaries(?). Sunday going to John & Ilene. Work during week. Love Dean & Eddie"

-------

Here's a Hallowe'en gum ad that I held back from my "Some Gum Fun" post-

-------

The second of the great ideas mentioned above had to do with the Monster Cereal line from General Mills. They were some of my favorite cereals as a kid and seeing as how I've held onto every cereal premium I got, I figured I could dig out all the Monster-related ones and make a post of it. However, after digging through several boxes of little plastic doodads this is all I could come up with-

Two Booberry figures and a Franken Berry with his finger melted off. Not much of a show. Not even a Count Chocula. My kingdom for a Count Chocula! I seem to remember more Monster goodies than this. I wonder what happened to them all?

To make up for the lack of Monster Cereal goodness here's a link to a very cool Booberry website and here are a few old television ads direct from YouTube-

-------

Well, that's cleaned house up a bit. Maybe we'll get everything posted yet!