Today I will regale you with tales of Doritos and color-changing cars. It’s exactly how you wanted to spend the weekend.

I’m not sure if it’s possible for me to love this any more than I do right now. Maybe if it blew me. Frito-Lay always spends October marketing its mini-sized snack bag as trick-or-treat fodder, but for 2009, the push is extraordinary. Doing away with the more basic stylings of yesteryear’s multi-packs, Frito-Lay has crafted these unbelievable “Haunted Snack Mansions,” made of shiny cardboard and stuffed with 18 bags of Doritos and Cheetos.

The Doritos and Cheetos are nothing special, or I should say, they’re no more special than normal. The real star is the “mansion” itself. Big, spooky and with working doors, it has all the makings of the perfect action figure playset, and had Frito-Lay been making these back when I was age-appropriate, there’s no way Hordak and Cobra Commander wouldn’t have warred to claim it.

Beyond that, the box would work wonderfully as a “starter piece” for a Halloween crafts project. Paint over all of the product emblems and turn it into a true spookhouse! I think I just gave my Saturday a purpose. By the stroke of midnight, I’ll have transformed Frito-Lay’s Haunted Snack Mansion into a real Castle Dracula. Or maybe I’ll just go to bed early.

I can’t remember exactly how much Target charged for this, but “9.99″ sounds like a good guess. Ten bucks for 18 mini-bags of chips is reasonable in a borderline sort of way, but the fact that it comes in a cardboard Bates Motel puts it over the top. Recommended!

Another score! From Hot Wheels, it’s a two-pack of “Trickin’ Treats” Color Changers, which are infinitely more awesome than the five-pack of boring regular Hot Wheels cars I reviewed last month.

The packaging includes a mad scientist with a fiery tie, who defies mad scientist society’s stereotypical fixation on esoteric ingredients by proclaiming his secret formula to be nothing more than “icy water.” No bat wings, no rat blood, no owl pellets — just plain old cold water. That’s not very “mad” of him. I suppose he’s more of a regular scientist than a mad one. Don’t judge a book by its cover, or fiery tie.

I always approach color-changing toys with some apprehension, as historically, the gimmick never seems to work well. This time, it did. The second I poured cold water over the cars, they changed colors. And not in that cheap, stripey way either — we’re talking about completely new paint jobs, with the yellow car turning green and the orange van turning…a deeper shade of orange. It’s all so magical and wish-fulfilling.

Also nice is how you can use your fingertips to “swab” them back to their original colors. They’re like the toy car versions of those old Hypercolor t-shirts.

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HEY. Did you know that I’ve been doing these Halloween Countdowns since 2003, and writing about Halloween nonsense on the site for even longer than that? X-E’s Halloween celebrations have been around for longer than some of your children, and in celebration, here’s a random sampling of my older spooky articles. Pick your poison!

Enjoy! You can also view all of last year’s Halloween Countdown starting with this blog entry. Just keep clicking the “next” links at the top of each entry to wade through nearly 40 days’ worth of year-old creepy content.

Now, how about we take a look at a few more of your Spooky Die-O-Ramas? See five more entries, after the jump! I seriously wish I could’ve given prizes to everyone who entered, but I’d never be able to afford things like Cheetos castles and Hypercolor Hot Wheels if I did.

(Click here to see a larger photo!)

“Haunted McNugget Mansion”
Created By: Jason Lillard

Even though it didn’t win, I’m not sure if any of the other entries were quite as joyous as Jason’s. This Die-O-Rama is definitely a happy place, filled with all the things that make happy places happy, like Chicken McNuggets, lollipops and Food Fighters. I especially like the random Heineken bottle coaster. Jason’s entry is the Halloween Mood Table of Spooky Shoebox Die-O-Ramas.

(Click here to see a larger photo!)

“Linus Summons The Great Pumpkin”
Created By: Lynn

Interestingly, the Peanuts gang appears to be in their more common Christmas wardrobe. I’m not sure if this was intentional or not. Perhaps Lynn was going for some point of symbolism that got lost on my simple brain?

Either way, I appreciate the Godzilla-scaled realization of the Great Pumpkin, and take the lack of Sally to mean that the Great Pumpkin ate her. I have no problem with this; she was such a bitch to Linus in that patch.

(Click here to see a larger photo!)

“Size 9 From Outer Space”
Created By: Ricky Henry

The more I look at this one, the more I think it deserved to be in the winners’ circle. You got gypped, Ricky. Aside from being one of the few entries that really delved into classic horror, Ricky even came up with an awesome name for it. Plan 9 becomes Size 9! (Get it? Size 9? Shoebox? Yes.)

(Click here to see a larger photo!)

“Whoopi Goldberg and Conky Prepare to Explode Peggy Hill Out of the Asylum for Her Annual Halloween Rampage”
Created By: Cliff

Cliff came up with the title for this one, and fortunately for tired old me, it doubles as the description! I love how Conky appears to be egging Whoopi into this, but doesn’t want to get his own hands dirty. He’s like a robot Iago.

(Click here to see a larger photo!)

“Dracula Makes his Move at the Monster Keg Party”
Created By: Eric M.

What first seems to be just an everyday mashing of monsters actually has a story far deeper than that, and I’ll let Eric tell it: “Basically, a blood-drunk Count is making a pass at Frankenstein’s old lady, not knowing that the man himself is right behind him.”

I dig the notion of infidelity-related melodrama surrounding the Universal Monsters crowd. I also dig the cute little table full of bright pink pastries. Look close and you’ll notice that the monster figures are all wearing monster masks!

Thanks again for your entries, everyone! There are still plenty more to come!

Happy SNT.

Posted by Matt. E-mail me!