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Shrunken Halloween Heads!

Taking tonight off, but I'll be back tomorrow fer shure. I need some quiet time to adjust to my newfound alien superpowers, or I'm just exhausted. I won't leave you empty-handed, though. No, I'll leave your hands full of heads.


I used to buy these really crude, plastic shrunken heads from Johnson Smith all the time as a kid, and my fascination with shrunken heads has stuck with me ever since. Not for real shrunken heads, mind you -- don't really care about where all that voodoo came from, but because it was the genesis for such cool toys, I respect the roots. Shrunken heads in general have become a bit more taboo in the world of toys as the years passed, but during the Halloween season, the coppers always look the other way.

Shrunken Head Dude #1 on the left came from Party City, and is part of a fairly large line of similarly rotted, disgusting, drooping eye heads with bits of lifelike hair. They're nice and squishy like a doggy chew toy, stopping short of actually squeaking because they're shrunken heads and shrunken heads aren't supposed to be cute. I really like how Shrunken Head Dude #1 in no way, shape or form skimps on being ghoulish or gross. Usually, only the bigger, pricier Halloween decorations get away with being legitimately creepy. Shrunken Head Dude #1 is perfect for a bloodlust on a budget.

Shrunken Head Dude #2 is more of a "bust" than a "shrunken head," but let's pretend otherwise for the sake of me getting to call a toy "Shrunken Head Dude #2." Found this guy at a craft store; again, he's part of a larger line consisting of many different creatures of the night. The others in the set are probably more desirable (and recognizable), but I had to give this random lilac-skinned vampire dude the nod because he looked like the kind of guy who'd suck blood and play the piano at the same time.

Both are in the five dollar range, if not a bit less, and make for great around-the-house Halloween decorations that won't require you to clear out four square feet of space to set up.

Survey Time, Survey Time: How have you decorated for the Halloween season? Best finds? Best heirlooms? Best shrunken heads? Lawn only, or indoors, too? Tell us about it and win a prize. Okay there's no prize.

Posted by Matt on 10/04/2006. E-mail me!



Discussion Thread: 57 comments

My girlfriend and I pulled out the artificial tree, hit the dollar store for decorations and dressed the tree. A ghost garland, orange and purple beads, little jack o’lanterns, bats, plastic rings of bats, spiders, witches and skulls. Topped the tree with a spider and his web. Our tablecloth is covered in ghosts, and we have 3 pumpkins. Due to finances, that may be all we’re going to be able to do, but we’re happy with it right now.

Chestnuts roasted by Teriyakibroth @ 10/05/2006 9:41 AM

We just moved into our apartment, and havn’t done very much at all (fall candles, big creepy head candy holder, a pumpkin). Mostly because my wife and I are just starting out and are pretty poor, but just wait until Christmas. We’ve got enough Christmas decorations to make elves’ heads explode, just waiting for November.

Chestnuts roasted by Fox @ 10/05/2006 9:51 AM

Not too much going on yet, though I did purchase two gargoyles and some halloween-scented candles from Target. I like to think that the gargoyles add a certain ambiance. I hope to get something up on the door later, because when living in an apartment building, the door is like your lawn.

Chestnuts roasted by Jessica Marie @ 10/05/2006 9:54 AM

My Halloween interior decor includes a “haunted” basement with an overwhelming spider theme. The walls are plastered with this tarp-like shit that has spider webs all over the place and skeletons within said spider webs. Additional fake spider webs are utilized wherever possible, for more of a 3-D effect.

There is a “Halloween Tree” in the corner, which is a regular fake tree that has been spraypainted black and decorated with orange lights AND awesome eyeball lights. There is some fake spider web action on the tree and a realistic-looking crow perched atop that always falls off.

An all-too-realistic decapitated mannequin (“Jerry”) sits in a chair, next to a table with that orange spider web table cover thing and a Halloween shrine with an electric jack-o-lantern, bone candles and other Halloween-style candles, an evil bloody chalice with heart inside, a whole bunch of Simpsons Halloween toys from Burger King, a coffin filled with candy, and a book written by some asshole minister about how rock-n-roll is evil.

There are also green and purple strings of lights, regulation lightbulbs replaced with red lightbulbs, a strobe light, too many wall decorations from Halloween Express (including a bitchin’ Freddy Krueger silhouette thing), a motion-activated skull mobile, hand drawn posters, and other mystery surprises. Despite all this, I’m still not done! Soon, there will be a hidden stereo that plays Halloween sound effects all day.

Outdoor decor includes light-up skull and many skeleton hands. I have yet to make a “Rockwell RIP” tombstone, as seen in the video for “Somebody’s Watching Me.” There will probably be a humanoid figure hung from a tree.

Hey Matt, this Halloween I am going to be none other than…The Shockmaster!!! Seriously.

Chestnuts roasted by Rick Vodicka @ 10/05/2006 10:05 AM

I have decorated! I’m so excited for Halloween! I posted my photos on my blog!

Chestnuts roasted by stevie @ 10/05/2006 12:04 PM

Last night was torture! The town I work in just got a brand new Wal-Mart (the biggest I’ve ever seen) and I was stuck there for almost an hour waiting for a ride because my car broke down. They had the largest halloween section I’d ever seen in a Wal-Mart, and of course, I didn’t have any money. Oh well. Right now I’m trying to decide if I should be Mighty Max or a dead emo kid. What’s everyone else going to be?

Chestnuts roasted by Tommy @ 10/05/2006 12:04 PM

I totally think that shrunken head should squeak, yo. I’d pay money for that.

No decorations yet, as we live in a 5th floor apt and no one would see them, anyway. Uh… we have a black cat. Does that count?

Chestnuts roasted by Da Nator @ 10/05/2006 12:06 PM

Romus_Z- No joke! I wish Texas had any semblance of fall. I’ve lived in Houston, Dallas, and Austin, and each city has the worst seasonal transitions in the world. It stays hellishly hot from April to November, and then it cools down to about 60-70 something for a month or two. Once February and March roll around, when you’re ready to have it get warm again, it starts to get colder. Last Christmas we had to have the a/c on. :(

Chestnuts roasted by Eddie Lightning Frog @ 10/05/2006 12:15 PM

we’ve got few things up here at work, but not all he stuff, yet. I’m going to We’en up the home next week, probably throw the lights on the 13th. Witch means, deco shopping this weekend! I always try to have as many All Hallows’ stuff as Christmas.

One day, I shall win the lottery, buy a fairly large house, and have Hallowe’en all year.

Chestnuts roasted by kingklash @ 10/05/2006 12:44 PM

I have some lawn decoration. I have some porch decoration. The inside of the house is pretty Un-Halloweeny though.

Chestnuts roasted by bdsghost @ 10/05/2006 1:03 PM

It’s my first time commenting here, although I’ve been visiting this great website for more than half a year. I’m a bit nervous and hope I won’t make stupid mistakes. But enough of that, I’d like to tell you a bit about my Halloween decoration.

As I’m living in an apartment with my mother and my little sister, we don’t have a lawn to decorate, but try our best inside. My room is currently decorated with lots of pumpkin shaped votive holders, fake spider webs (which I bought way too much of XD) and all kinds of rubber and plastic spiders. Then there are a Halloween garland, a glow-in-the-dark ghost and a big banner on the walls. I also used some cute pumpkin and ghost plushies and Halloween PEZ dispensers to give my desk a bit of the holiday spirit (I also put Halloween wallpaper and icons on my computer desktop, but I guess that doesn’t count ^^).
The rest of the room is decorated with random stuff like candles or bat shaped confetti.
I think my favourite prop is the big, battery powered light up pumpkin which is as big as a real pumpkin and very well made. I was given that as birthday gift a couple of years ago, it was (and still is!) one of my favourite presents.^^

Now that I read all this, it probably sounds nicer than it actually is. *g*

Chestnuts roasted by Kapprika @ 10/05/2006 1:35 PM

I just have the lame battery operated chosties hanging from the back porch. I have a few “Happy Halloween” window clings up, and some homemade tombstones I made out of cardboard and silver spraypaint out in the yard. I will make my traditional dummy dude full of dead leves once the trees start shedding their foliage. I really have not done much at all in the house since my 2 year old daughter is afraid of monsters this year.

Chestnuts roasted by Old E @ 10/05/2006 2:18 PM

battery operated ghosties*

Chestnuts roasted by Old E @ 10/05/2006 2:19 PM

Hey, I live in Texas and we get Fall. The leaves change and everything.

Of course, I do live in a Northen part of Texas.

Chestnuts roasted by Deuce @ 10/05/2006 2:32 PM

I found an awesome skull candle at Walgreens. It looks like a normal skull on the outside but it has red wax on the inside. After the wax gets all hot and gooey it starts to ooze out of its eyes and ears (or where the ears would be if it had skin). It is awesome in theory and in the picture on the box but needed a little helping along in practice. Anyway, it’s still awesome and only $2.99!

Chestnuts roasted by bobshumway @ 10/05/2006 2:34 PM

Neither I nor my family have decorated all that much for Halloween. Throughout my life, we never went much further than making Jack-O-Lanterns. But when I lived next door to my aunt and uncle in the ghetto area of Sacramento, they would really do it up for Halloween. I always loved going over there during that time of year. Too bad they were the only house that I was allowed to trick or treat at, cuz we lived in the ghetto then.

Newfound superpowers? Umm, are you gonna be the next new character on Heroes. If so, then woo hoo (even tough I know it’s probably not true)!

Chestnuts roasted by Nate @ 10/05/2006 2:55 PM

I am loving HEROES so far. I can’t wait to find out what is up with the blonde chick. Speaking of TV shows. Did anyone else watch the new South Park last night? I almost peed a little during the “7 months of slaying boars in the woods” montage. I love that they made fun of WoW, and left my City of Heroes alone.

Chestnuts roasted by Old E @ 10/05/2006 3:23 PM

Well, we don’t decorate much right now due to lack of space. We plan on buying a new house here in the next year or two and I have already warned my wife to be prepared for Freudguy’s House of Horrors. She got pissed until I explained that it was “horrors” and not “whores”. For now, I am settling for a plastic light-up pumpkin, a really cool antiquey-looking ceramic ghost and some Halloween votive candle thingies. I have some really cheesy plastic jack o’ lanterns that I will be placing outside this weekend on our front deck.

Chestnuts roasted by freudguy @ 10/05/2006 4:13 PM

I was trying to figure out if that was a Heroes reference. Still not sure if it is, but I’m glad I’m not the only one who thought of it. I bet on Six Degrees over Heroes as the new ensemble show to add to the lineup, a regrettable decision that I’m already trying to rectify.

Chestnuts roasted by squee4242 @ 10/05/2006 4:14 PM

Ah Halloween in Louisiana. I have my newly christened Buried Treasures Graveyard up and going. So far I have put out my 6 foot columns topped with gargoyle statues and my cemetery fence. I also put out my life size coffin, complete with body and various tombstones, all hand made and complete with epithaphs of Jason, Freddy, etc. I have also put out a few freaky scare crows and I have my micky mouse pumpkin on my coffee table. More to come this weekend.

Chestnuts roasted by Tigerfan @ 10/05/2006 4:45 PM

Tigerfan, wb! and show us some pics, too!

Welcome all other new people who post or are just reading this now because some jerk in the office told you about the previous MLP article, but welcome nonetheless!

Halloween decorations? I really don’t like putting them up around here, just put my blasphemous non-carved pumpkins on the stoop and that’s good enough.

And…I FINALLY GOT THE HALLOWEEN JONES SODAS!!! I’ve only tried Monster Mojito (and, if I’m correct, Candy Corn, Berried Alive & Spider Cider I’ve tried already last year), and I have to say…it tastes pretty good. Like apples, but not like caramel apples. *shudders*

Chestnuts roasted by Invader Norbert @ 10/05/2006 5:07 PM

I’m in Waco, TX. We get fall in the form of “cooler Temps” (70s-80s) instead of 90s.

But no leaves turning. :(

Chestnuts roasted by Cameron T. @ 10/05/2006 5:35 PM

If broomstickjockey can decorate for Halloween 75 days early, then it’s open season for decorating for Christmas on Tuesday.

Chestnuts roasted by jrh @ 10/05/2006 6:57 PM

I’ve already assembled my trick-or-treat bags. I have enough for 40 trick-or-treaters, but I doubt I’ll get that many. Each bag contains a mini Play-Doh, Great Pumpkin Fruit Snacks, a sticker sheet, a couple plastic flies and spiders, a plastic spider ring, and either a mini Peppermint Batty, Peanut Butter Pumpkin, or Hershey Ghost. I’m hoping that Wendy’s is gonna have their Jr. Frosty coupons 10 for $1 thing again this year, so I can attach one to the bags when I staple them shut. Gonna be a good time for anyone stopping by my house this Halloween. Though I’m kinda hoping I have some leftover Play Doh. :)

Chestnuts roasted by Mystie @ 10/05/2006 8:00 PM

Mystie- There was ONE house in my neighborhood that gave out goodie bags on halloween. I always made sure to hit their house first, even though it kinda made my route kinda screwy. They had cool bags, but no where NEAR as cool as the ones you have set up! The trick-or-treaters that come to your house are some lucky kids!

I have spent my time today watching my roomates 4 kids…lucky for me, the oldest decided to watch The Maxx with me, so at least I haven’t been driven too crazy!

Chestnuts roasted by MissJess @ 10/05/2006 8:53 PM

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 4th, 2006 at 11:18 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.