We're having a few friends over tonight, mainly to see how much alcohol it will take to make horror movies we've seen 75,000 times continue to seem fresh and exciting. Thanks to the power of a laptop and diverted attention, I'll drop by for the SNT no matter what shape I'm in. A brief scan through the TV listings confirms that there aren't too many spooky movies on tonight, but if you're desperate, check out Return to Halloweentown on Disney at 9 PM EST, and The Crow at 10:30 on TMC. I'm leaning more towards a poker night with the windows open and the jukebox blaring.

Getting down to business, it's time to name the big winners of the Whatever-O'-Lantern contest! For those having trouble remembering the specifics (which would be odd since the specifics are still clearly listed on the main blog page), I challenged everyone to make a jack-o'-lantern out of anything other than a pumpkin. A little over fifty of you gave it a whack.

Choosing a winner was hard. Very hard. While some of the entries featured a nigh-perfect level of execution, others were just so off the wall that it seemed criminal not to pick them. Still, at the end of the day, my eyes kept turning back to one specific entry, not because it took the creator a hundred hours to forge, but because it was the only one that made a swimming pool look Halloweeny...

Your big winner is Wes, who cut up a few garbage bags and floated the pieces over his swimming hole to create the weirdest Whatever-O'-Lantern in X-E history: The "Pool-O'-Lantern!" Wes will be happy to learn than his skill in cutting up garbage bags and floating the pieces over a swimming pool have guaranteed him the grand prize of A Nightmare on Elm Street DVD box set!

Our first runner-up is Emosewa, who created this marvelous spread of random food items with pumpkinny faces carved on. It's the "Smorgasbord-O'-Lantern!" With everything from olive-o'-lanterns to egg-o'-lanterns, I couldn't possibly omit an entry that featured no less than twenty Whatever-O'-Lanterns from the winners' circle. Emosewa wins a random horror DVD of my choosing! Emosewa should pray it isn't Ghoulies IV!

Since I'm apparently a sucker for expedited YouTube videos set to ridiculous music, our second runner-up is Ricky H., for his wonderful "Dancing Pepper-O'-Lanterns" video. Fortunately for Ricky, the second runner-up gets the same prize as the first runner-up.

Congrats to the big winners! After the jump, check out twelve more entries that really warmed my soul. You might think some of 'em are even better than the winning lanterns. As it turns out, making jack-o'-lanterns out of things other than pumpkins is a pretty subjective thing, and it's really difficult to judge. My apologies to all of the non-winners...you still did fantastic and weird work.

"Snacks-O'-Lantern" -- Created by Jerrod

"Ridiculously Gory Fruit-O'-Lantern" -- Created by JJ

"Fan-O'-Lantern" -- Created by James FW

"Pepperidge Farm Goldfish-O'-Lanterns" -- Created by Sharen S.

"Pop Tart-O'-Lantern" -- Created by Steven S.

"Spider Watermelon-O'-Lantern" -- Created by John O.

"Pizza Box-O'-Lantern" -- Created by Matt

"I Don't Know What Kind Of Fruits These Are-O'-Lanterns" -- Created by Polkalessons

"NES Play Action Football-O'Lantern" -- Created by Krepta

"X-Entertainment-O'-Lantern" -- Created by Fox

"Cake-O'-Lantern" -- Created by Thomas & Hoverbored

"Potato & Pineapple-O'-Lanterns" -- Created by Bill

These spotlighted entries were chosen purely at random -- many others were just as amazing, and I'll show you some more of 'em tomorrow!