The Witching Hour

An awesome last minute find from earlier today... this rubber witch mask by French company Cesar.


Had fun as always with the Countdown to Halloween this year. Looking forward to next year when I can pull out and dust off some more cryptic treasures.

Witch, Pumpkin, and Black Cat

Happy Halloween!

This tiny plastic jack-o-lantern from the '50s or '60s is a candy holder, which I imagine once held a few Tootsie Pops for some lucky kid.

Buckets of Candy

I picked up two new jack-o-lantern candy buckets this year. The first is a small unmarked bucket from the '70s that apparently belonged to my wife when she was little.


The second bucket, that I found at a thrift store, was made by Liberty Plastics, and judging by the writing on the bottom, it got its first use in '74 and was later used again in '96.

Glow-in-the-Dark Hunchback

A few years ago I put up some images of a set of Universal Monsters figures made by Uncle Milton, but I couldn't find all of them as I was missing the Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Recently I gave up and decided to track down a new hunchback. So now I have the complete set of glow-in-the-dark Marx figures, and I couldn't be happier.

EMCE Creature

I knew that I wanted this figure long before I ever saw it in person, and the only thing that I hate about it is that it looks so cool carded, that I'll probably never open it.

I haven't loved everything that EMCE has done, but their line of Universal Monsters figures are great. It's hard for me to imagine just how thrilled I would have been as a kid to mingle this Creature from the Black Lagoon figure with my Mego Spock or Batman, but obviously the guys from EMCE know that a few of us were dreaming of it.

Mezco Creature

This is another one of those things that I wasn't so sure about until I saw it in person, but once I had it in my hands I knew I had to have it.

Mezco Toys has had a pretty good run so far with their various "stylized" versions of popular characters, and this rather hefty 9-inch scale version of the Creature from the Black Lagoon is probably my favorite.




Ordinarily I'm not a big fan of cartoony characterizations, but this one is done really well... the whole line of Universal Monsters figures looks great actually. I'm probably going to go back and pick up the Frankenstein figure, and then eventually The Mummy when he turns up.

Hot Rod Herman

This is one of those times when I'll see an early photo of something, and think, "Yeah, that's good, but I'm not really interested." and then when I see it in person it's much cooler, so I end up buying it.

Hot Rod Herman by Diamond Select Toys is a very cool figure.





Diamond Select has managed to build a really nice, sturdy, and ultimately charming version of this character, that's full of great detailing, and is genuinely fun to play with. The "Hot Rod Herman" Munsters episode is a favorite of mine... if Diamond had actually made a properly scaled version of the Munster's Coach, I'd be completely thrilled.

Vampire Blood

I can't adequately express just how important this particular product was to me as a kid. In 1979 I was eleven years old, and horror movies were a really big deal to me. As you might imagine, horror make-up was equally important, as just about all of my friends and I had big dreams of one day working in movies, and we all wanted to do special effects that involved massive amounts of fake blood.

This simple product was pretty much the gateway drug that lead me to latex, burn-scar effects, and making my own horrible batches of sticky and nasty fake blood. Finding this carded and unused tube of old "Vampire Blood" just a few days ago was kind of a big deal, and I'll admit that I'm having a hard time resisting the urge to open it up... but I won't.

Marx Frankenstein

Simple and sweet. From the '60s line of Universal Monsters figures by Lois Marx & Co. comes this bright orange Frankenstein.

Chimp Mask

There are a lot of reasons to love the month of October, but the sudden appearance of rubber masks in all the stores is one of my favorites.

This "Silly Chimp" mask was both funny and cheap, so I couldn't pass it up.