Oooh, it's in the air. Sort of. I've been trying to avoid Halloween mania, as I have much experience in burning out on it too early. (And longtime readers have often had the chance to see this "burning out" happen in realtime.) Still, it's really, really difficult to shield myself from all things spooky when the material world has already put a bullet in summer and moved onto stuff shaped like vampires. Oh, it's in the air, all right. And latching onto a holiday season is just what the imaginary doctor ordered.

We went to Party City yesterday, for an entirely different purpose that's proven so forgetful that I can only consider it as an ostensible one. In truth, I was really there to check out the burgeoning crop of Halloween crap. They've started building the spooky displays, but it's not quite there yet. Dracula's still battling for shelf space with all of the random summertime party goods. By next week, I expect nothing but Dracula, and I'll ask to speak to the manager if these expectations are not met.

I didn't plan on buying anything just yet, but two items (five if you want to get technical) hopped out at me, silently insinuating their awesomeness with such fervor that I had no choice but to be Party City's first customer of the 2008 Halloween season to charge 8 bucks worth of candy to a credit card.

Wow. It isn't even September yet, and I've already found a contender for best new candy of the '08 season. Wonka's Nerds have been redressed for Halloween before, but never in such a righteous and life-changing way as this. In fact, these things are so amazing that I didn't even realize that they were Nerds until I started taking the pictures. Now that I know, my gold has gravy.

There doesn't seem to be any kind of umbrella title connecting this quartet, but essentially, they're test tube candy containers stuffed with spooky-colored Nerds, each topped with a different monster-themed figural cork. I'm having a hard time reconciling the fact that these weren't around during my childhood, as they feel so incredibly '80s. They're just perfect. The test tube concept is brilliant enough, but by the time you inspect the monstrous corks and the old school spooky fonts drenching the stickers, you start floating. And not in that ghastly, ghostly way. I mean you float like someone who did well in life and was given a halo afterwards floats. That kind of floating.

I found four, and though it's entirely possible that Wonka is offering more, I'm going to assume that this is the complete set. The clear leader of the pack is "Vampire Vaccine," combining Dracula and blood red Nerds to be my all-time favorite thing in the universe. The others are tied for second -- there's "Bat Bite Antidote," "Mummy Makeover" and "Werewolf Morph," and I'm just now realizing that the candies have more than a mere visual theme -- they're actually meant to be potions! Yes!

Protection against vampires, cures for bat bites, tools for werewolf transmogrification, and I guess the last one's intended to help you look like a mummy. Bleh. Even with a rare mummy misfire, these are still amazing.

Not to start any misinformed rumors, but I can't help feeling that these particular Nerds are of a larger variety than the boxed brand. They've also been given a less shiny coating -- I'd almost call it "stonewashed." It's not the kind of thing that every Joe's gonna notice, but these small upgrades (or sidegrades, or lateral grades, whatever you want to call them) really help sell the confections as something special. They definitely ain't just Nerds in a plastic tube. Okay, they are. But still.

I also picked up this random rubber Chucky doll, which would need to be considered an "impulse buy" even if it hadn't been stocked right by the register. As far as a Chucky doll that can be stretched to triple its static height goes, I'm not sure if there was any way to possibly improve on this. Well, I guess they could've decreased the copious amounts of text littering Chucky's ass, but that's a pretty nitpicky thing to say about a Chucky doll that can be contorted to slingshot wasabi peas across the room.

I'm fairly positive that this isn't a new item, as the tag bears a Seed of Chucky logo, and there's really no reason for anyone to put money into the production of Seed of Chucky merchandise at this stage. Whatever. If it's old stock, it's still new to me. Incredibly stretchy, I can now mimic virtually every angle from which Chucky has exploded over the course of his 640,000 films -- most notably the "expanding head" scene from Child's Play 2.

As an added bonus, leaving Chucky's tag on lets him stand upright, which is something he finds quite difficult to do without said tag to serve as some sort of misshapen cane.

I am now thoroughly inspired to throw on Bride of Chucky and suck up 28.3 grams worth of Bat Bite Antidote. I'm a boy of summer.

PS: Spellcheck confirms that I misspelled "brilliant" on the first go-around. Is that irony, or just incidence? I've always wondered. Happy SNT.

Posted by Matt on 08/30/2008. E-mail me!