Well, it's that time of year again...
Welcome to the 2006 X-Entertainment Halloween Countdown -- a two month tribute to all things spooky, old and new, stupid and awesome. Barring circumstances beyond my control, like exhaustion or laziness, new articles will be posted every weekday between now and Halloween. That's almost forty tributes to terror. Kicking off this year's Countdown is a look back at Flying Funkins, a line of creature bag balloon kits that turned anyone's front yard into something the kids should beware.
Big thanks to Brian Jacks, who came through for us with yet another fantastic design. This is the best looking Halloween Countdown yet. So pretty.
Of course, not everything I pick up this season will necessarily be worthy of its own Countdown entry, so look for a continuation of the frightful festivities here on the blog. I'll be using this space to cover a lot of the smaller stuff, like say, bags of candy corn.
Those krauts at Target have figured out a sneaky way to get people to buy Candy Corn and "Autumn Mix," which is essentially just candy corn in different shapes. This is not a candy that can be trusted to do well on its own, because most people have a five piece limit on eating candy corn. Anything above that brings on the sick, and thus, there's virtually no reason at all to buy entire bags of the junk, unless you're one of those traditional types who can't stand having a coffee table without a full bowl of candy corn on it during the Halloween season, even if nobody touches it.
While most people just skip the shit altogether, Target's trick will get even the most devout candy corn haters buying bags by the truckload. Hidden in each bag are paper scratch-off could-be gift certificates, giving consumers the chance to maybe possibly potentially win 500.00 Target gift certificates. The thought of it was enough to get me to buy two bags, which is just my way of not admitting that I actually bought six bags.
Ah fer Christ's sake.
Posted by Matt on 09/10/2006. E-mail me!
Chestnuts roasted by 
I think it was perfect timing.
Hot diggity-damn! I’ve read the Halloween Countdowns for the last 3 years but this is the first year I’ve been posting on the blog. When I saw this at lunch, I felt like I did when I was 9 back in 1980 and found a Yoda figure on the pegs after weeks of looking. Yes, I felt THAT special.
I bought my first Halloween non-candy goodie over the weekend, a glowing pumpkin that is so plain that it is spectacular (I don’t like pumpkins with exaggerated faces). I recently got a promotion so I have a little more “entertainment cash” to spend on my Peter Pan complex. I came damn close to buying a hanging grim reaper-ish ghoul and a seemingly-floating head at Walgreen’s. The floaty head is in a crystal ball-like orb and is darn fun. It moves around with subtle mood lighting inside as it talks…..awesome. However, my 2 and a half year old daughter went completely batpoop when she saw some of the spooky stuff. Sigh, she didn’t do that last year. I’ll have to crank back the ghoulishness at the freudguy household this year.