Halfway 2 Halloween~Must be the Season of the Witch

Halfway to Halloween is a great time to watch some classic horror movies and old Halloween specials. Just a good way for some spooky fun in the spring. One of my favorites to watch at Halloween (or any time) is Halloween 3: Season of the Witch. While it's lack of Michael Myers was pretty divisive in the past, thankfully it's finally getting it's just due in modern times. Halloween 3 is a really fun movie that's basically a feature length Halloween special. Part of the fun of Halfway to Halloween is the traditional Halloween stuff. This movie seemed to play on an endless loop during the season when I was a kid. Commercials like these are almost as much of the holiday as whatever they'll flavor with pumpkin spice come autumn.

originally posted on 5/2/2024

Halfway 2 Halloween~Must be the Season of the Witch

Halfway to Halloween is a great time to watch some classic horror movies and old Halloween specials. Just a good way for some spooky fun in the spring. One of my favorites to watch at Halloween or any time is Halloween 3: Season of the Witch. While it's lack of Michael Myers was pretty divisive in the past, thankfully it's finally getting it's just due in modern times. Halloween 3 is a really fun movie that's basically a feature length Halloween special. Part of the fun of Halfway to Halloween is the traditional Halloween stuff. This movie seemed to play on an endless loop during the season when I was a kid. Commercials like these are almost as much of the holiday as whatever they'll flavor with pumpkin spice come autumn.

The Silver Shamrock Trio (Toony Terrors)

Halloween 3: Season of the Witch doesn't have Michael Myers in it. It is a 41 year old movie and that still needs to be explained. John Carpenter really didn't want to  make a Halloween 2, let alone a part 3. So by part 3, he decided to make it an anthology series... which didn't exactly go over to well as the prior two movies were a direct series. So from then on, Michael was the main antagonist with the only deviation being Corey in Halloween Ends. That too has more than it's share of hate. Clearly it's Michael Myers only for the series in most peoples eyes (the darkest eyes)... and that's understandable. However, Halloween 3 is freaking awesome. Hokey and silly, sure, but freaking awesome. It's the only Halloween movie where the holiday is the actual focus. It's like a holiday special on steroids and thankfully it's getting it's due in more recent years. More and more folks are appreciating what a select few of us have been regarding highly this entire time. Fortunately that also means more merchandise!

Neca made a great set of of Silver Shamrock masked trick or treaters a while back, last year they introduced the kids in their cool Toony Terrors line. The Mrs and I exchange gifts at Halloween and I was absolutely overjoyed to see that The Great Pumpkin brought me this cool set. Toony Terrors is Neca's take on classic horror characters in an animated style, I like to compare them to Scooby Doo or Fright Features versions. I've got a few and they're great. This set of the kids is really cool and fits the cartoon theme well. The trio appear in Halloween 3 during the epic montage that's the epitome of local Halloween TV programming for a generation. Even if you don't like the movie, you like them. They're so popular they even appeared alongside Michael Myers in the more recent movies. However... they're still kids. With all the spooky and scariness of the holiday, kids going trick or treating is at the very heart of it. And these kids are the perfect poster children (no pun intended...but I like it) for the spooky season.

As Toony Terrors, you've got a solid set of the 3 kids going trick or treating wearing their Silver Shamrock masks. Each one has a bag for collecting candy and wearing a costume made from various items and their masks. Now to be clear, these are not super articulated action figures. They're more along the lines of expressive display pieces. There's a small range of movement in the arms and a small amount in the legs/feet. The witch, for example, can either put her hand on her hip in a sassy manner, or that arm can hold her masks hood open. You can use that arm to hold her bag... but it's not as natural looking. Skeleton kid can hold up his pillow case from the sides or top. You can tell he's excited. The pumpkin headed one is taller and has more of an awkward stance. I like to think he's nearing the end of his trick or treating years and is feeling a bit out of place. He's kinda just slumping there. The pumpkin kid has always been my favorite of the 3 and this figures just adds to that. I could see him getting really into Radiohead and writing bad poetry. Well... assuming he makes it out after the big give away.

Koopa's got kids

I've always loved the Nintendo cartoons produced by DiC in the late 80's and early 90's. To be fair, I've always been a fan of cartoons made by DiC. They really made great shows that I still watch regularly to this day. Their Super Mario Bros cartoons have always been a bright spot for me as... I freaking love Super Mario. Some of my favorite games of all time and I still have yet to get tired of playing any of them. At the time, media about video games was hit or miss. There was gaming magazines, but I wanted fiction. Prior, there was the Saturday Supercade and Pac-Man cartoons  that gave some extra life to those characters I liked on my Atari. That was much needed as in those days the plot was mostly a basic scenario. I was fully in love with the richer gaming worlds my NES gave me and just gobbled up the characters however I could.

Needles to say, thanks to the time they were made, the shows weren't very true to the source material. Like Saturday Supercade and others before it, some additional world building was needed to make a show out of the games. A boss in a game's personality back then was often a few sentences in a game manual. Not to mention, animation companies like DiC was provided material by the companies localizing the game from Japan. So whatever material they had to give them was likely pretty limited at the time as the game was probably being localized at the same time. We know him as Bowser here in the western world, but in Japan his name is Koopa. So he's King Koopa in those old cartoons. After hearing a Milli Vanilli song on the radio recently, I was reminded of that episode of The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 featuring them. Somehow that thought resulted in me wanting to write about the Koopa Kids from said cartoon and their name differences from game to cartoon. You can blame this post on the rain

Game/Cartoon
Larry Koopa/Cheatsy, he tends to be a cheater.
Morton Koopa Jr/Big Mouth, talks a lot.
Wendy O. Koopa/Kootie Pie, spoiled brat.
Lemmy Koopa-/Hip (twin of Hop), not very smart, but also genuinely innocent.
Iggy Koopa/Hop (twin of Hip), immature and childish, but a brilliant inventor.
Roy Koopa/Bully, calm and collective.
Ludwig Von Koopa/Kooky, mad scientist and elder Koopa kid.

Weekly Update 9/12/22

It's Monday and that means the start of a new week! Thanks for letting my weird little site be a part of it! It's been a while since I've done a themed week and since you all seem to like the bios so much, it's Bio Week here on Zone Base! Halloween will go on as usual, but all regular site posts this week will be the bios of Transformers characters you probably don't think of a lot. I hope you all enjoy it as we sink firmly into the middle of the Halloween season... which is going by a lot faster than I'd like. However seeing the rest of the world have so much fun and fall (no pun intended... this time) back into a more normal groove of things with the season is great! Looks like we're going to have quite the spooky time this year. 

This weekend was fun. The Mrs and I went to Walmart, Target, and Five Below. Somehow I found somentime to work on my room a little as it's pretty messy. A few hours a week should clear that up! We also watched the new Pinocchio movien and I got some of the new Cobra Kai season in. That'll likely get finished tomorrow after the follow up to the latest dentist visit is over. That should take care of that for the rest of the year, and this time I mean it. Winter means a few routine tests and its all the medical attention I can handle. I take back what I said about wanting to grow up when I was a kid. 

As far as toys go, Shawn sent me Cosmos and Override! Finally the Velocitron Speedia 500 collection is complete! Thanks so much Shawn, getting all of these was pretty important to me. I also found and purchased the entire series of Mobile Change Haro! I've been looking forward to these little guys for a bit now. They're super exciting for me. I'll need to get the rest of the Gundam Infinity figures soon as well as a neat blind box line Target had.

The last blind box Gundams I got was in 2017, so it's about time! I also got 2 new Halloween Kinder Surprise eggs with their super awesome new trick or treaters figures. I'll be covering those more in depth in the future. More Halloween stuff was purchased as well as MOTU Origins Leach! I hope to complete the Evil Horde in Origins, but Grizzlor looks to be a challenge. I only planned to grab some TF Micro Machines and some Star Wars Micro Galaxy Squadron toys this weekend. I guess that'll be next weekend! Almost forgot to mention the Bakugan Fangzor bought at Five Below!

Like I said up top, this is going to be a week full of bios! Hope you all enjoy it as well as the fun Halloween content. I treat posts here as a gashapon machine, so hopefully you'll like the surprises in store! I won't spoil anything, but let's just say it's going to be Ultra cool! Thanks for reading Zone Base. If you like what I do, please share it with your friends. That's all I ask!

Everyday is Halloween (3)

 

Growing up in the 80's and 90's meant watching a lot of local TV during the Halloween season. While Disney Channel and Nickelodeon usually had great stuff going on, the real treat was local stations. The marathons of horror movies and specials sandwiched between Halloween PSA's, and montages of horror movies are a corner stone of the season for me. These might be part of why I like Halloween 3 so much. Even if you somehow missed one of the billion airings of it (or part 2) on one of these channels, you probably saw scenes from it during the montage commercials. Say what you will about Halloween 3 (and part 2), but they honestly feel more like Halloween time compared to the other movies.

It's Halloween on Planet Zone!

 

Today is August 1st and you know what that means? It's officially Halloween season on Zone Base! For the next 3 months we're all going to celebrate our favorite time of the year! Don't like Halloween? Well, that's weird. However, don't worry, regular site content will still continue. Just now with an unhealthy dose of Pumpkin Spiced Mayhem! It's my favorite time of the year and I'm so happy you've all come to celebrate it with me!

I've got a bunch of cool stuff to talk about this year and as usual some past favorites will be making a return. The playlist is back (even though i stuck it up early this year) and can be found on that left side bar (click the lines up top to the left if you don't see it). Thank you all for your continued support of Zone Base. Please share with your friends and even your enemies. Happy Halloween 2022 everybody, we're all going trick or treating for the next 3 months! Let's meet up and swap candy later.

Weekly Halloween: No One Comes Home

 

Summer is a Spooky Season.

Two more days till Halloween...

Halloween 3: Season of the Witch is one of my favorite movies. When it comes to the Halloween movies, the first 3 are my favorites. I loved the idea of turning the movies into an anthology series based around the holiday. However you can't rewrite history and they already had made two movies about the same story by the time they had the idea. Last year when Neca announced they were released a set of figures based on the doomed trick or treaters from H3... I was sold instantly. I found them in January. I chose to cover them now. Seemed fitting.

Inside the themed box is the figures representing different costumed kids from the infamous montage sequence from the movie. Each kid has trick or treat bags and two separate versions of the masks. One as it should be, the other as they're dying after watching the big giveaway. If you remember the scene of Little Buddy writhing around on the floor while snakes and all sorts of nasty creatures poured from his face then you know what I mean. The set also comes with a lenticular screen TV to recreate the scene. Fun fact, the original planned ending of the movie was all the screams of the dying children. They didn't go with that, but you can pretend it did with this set of toys!

The level of detail is pretty amazing. Each mask had it's Silver Shamrock button and really looks like it's on screen counterpart. The kids are pleasantly articulated and you can swap around the cloth costumes and accessories if you want. I really should have paired the witches cape with the pumpkin kid for the picture to be screen accurate, but that's how she came out of the box. This is a great set of figures of one of my favorite movies. As the season winds down to a close they felt just right to play with. Halloween is Sunday, that means we've got an entire weekend of spooky fun ahead. I know just the movie to watch.

Trick Or Treating With Michael Myers

While the bag of Chucky capsule toys was pretty great, the best of NECA's surprise offerings is the Halloween II bag. Not only because Michael Myers is better than Chucky, but also because they made a better set of treats. Literally the perfect bunch of prizes for Halloween. As it should. It's the name of the fucking movie.

This bag is specifically themed after Halloween II from 1981. Considering the 2018 film reset everything after the 1978 movie, it's nice to see the original sequel get some love. It may not be the most critically praised film of all time... but movies people actually like never are. 

As much as I love the original movie, it never quite feels like it takes place on Halloween. Despite a few looks at kids in costume, it could be on any day. They captured that feel of the spooky season much more in all the sequels and I've always really loved them for that. 

The capsules are orange and black again, but this time with the Halloween II logo molded on them. I can't tell you just how much I appreciate that. It's just a little thing, but they could have just did a sticker or nothing at all. Mold toolings are expensive, considering the two different capsule logos when they could have just been plain is impressive. Inside each capsule is an individually wrapped prize.

I got shoelaces, a lanyard, a magnet, an eraser, a pin, a keychain,a patch, and two mini masks. The masks and the patch are the most awesome. Most of the stuff has a general Halloween/Michael Myers theme. The eraser has the Halloween II logo, but the patch takes it a step further. It's the patch an employee of the Hadonfield Memorial Hospital would wear on their uniform. Super cool way to go a little more in depth of the bags theme. But the mini masks? Those are the absolute best part of the whole set.

There's Michael's mask perfectly recreated and the skull Silver Shamrock mask from part III. Despite the set being themed after part II, they threw in a little love for good old Season of the Witch. The little masks are REALLY great considering they're tiny plastic toys based on 40 year old movie props. 

The skull mask looks just like the Don Post mask used in part III. It's hollow, has eye holes, and even the little slit on the back that most masks have so you can fit it over your head. The Michael mask though was the best. The same real mask touches as the skull, but they NAILED they was it looks. 

NAILED IT. 

WITH A HAMMER.

For those who may not know and for those who just like hearing things they already know, I'll go over the history of the Michael Myers mask. When they were making the original movie, the crew had a hard time finding the perfect Halloween. Eventually they took a William Shatner mask, altered it a little and spray painted it white. Voila, scary boogie man mask. 

Nick Castle (The Last Starfighter Nick Castle) played Michael in the original movie (among others) and pretty much just shoved the mask in his back pocket when not wearing it. Afterwards, Debra Hill threw the thing under her bed after filming. There it stayed until the production of part II in which they used it again.

Now after years of being in a heavy smokers house and the rough handling during the first movie it was a little worse for wear. Not to mention, it fit differently on Dick Warlock. That's why it looks a little different in the movie. They captured the way it looks in part II perfectly.

A little more trivia, if you watch part 4, you'll notice a scene in the school where the mask looks weird. They gave Dick Warlock the mask after making part II and recreated it for part 4 with a few new William Shatner masks. Somebody grabbed a non altered one when they filmed that scene and the crew didn't care enough to fix the mistake. Hollywood magic.

 

Bill & Ted Face The Music

Ghostbummer

Unfortunately Convid-19 has pushed release of Ghostbusters: Afterlife from July 10th 2020 to March 5th 2021. I'm pretty disappointed as you could probably imagine, and honestly didn't think the virus would effect things in summer. But, with as many other things that have been pushed back and had their schedule's altered... 3 months away is pretty close to rev up the marketing push and everything else that would go into it's release.

That's not mentioning the actual production of the movie which likely isn't done yet (filming maybe, everything else...). Getting this pandemic under control is definitely more important, I'm just a little disappointed. That's all. Guess that just means I'll have another thing to be excited for next year!

Real Mechtech, Fake Linkin Park

I've got two things to admit. One, I'm a fan of Mechtech. Two, I'm not a fan of Linkin Park. While my opinion of a popular band doesn't have any impact of their success, thanks to their involvement in the live action movie soundtracks, there's a portion of Transformers history scored by them. That's fine, just because I don't enjoy a band doesn't mean I think others shouldn't.

It's funny, however, to see the influence used in a commercial for Transformers toys around the time the two were related. Not just for the novelty that makes me enjoy it so much though. One of the reasons I enjoy watching old commercials so much is that their a snapshot of a time that has passed. Dark of the Moon came out almost 9 years ago, which is that weird time frame for these types of things. Often I've found that the 2000's are regarded to not have much of a personality of their own. Which just isn't true. My generation's just getting old and we're not as hip as we'd like to think we are. This wasn't an uncommon music type for the time.

Mechtech though... that was pretty unpopular with a large portion of the fandom. For the life of me I'll never understand why either. Sure, here goes the 'you like everything' response I typically get... which just baffles me. I mean, it's my hobby, I'm not spending time on things I don't like. If you don't hear me say anything about something... duh.

Mechtech to me was a neat gimmick. Move lever on a gun and WHAMMO! Now it's a chainsaw. Overkill? Yeah, maybe, but Transformers has never been known for it's subtleness. It made for a cool toy accessory too. I was pretty fond of DOTM as well as it's toy line. So maybe my opinion might be a little skewed toward favorable on it... but this isn't a site about shit I don't like. Duh.

Friday Night Frights- Return To Castlevania

Another Friday is upon us and y'all know what that means, another spooky edition of Friday Frights here on the Base! This week, Captain N and the gang in an episode themed after the then newly released Castlevania 3: Dracula's Curse! For those not fully familiar with Captain N, it was a Saturday morning cartoon with a teenager from Earth living in the world of Nintendo video games in adventures in a different game each week.

This was way before Castlevania got the anime look we're all used to and was more homage to classic monsters. Captain N was a DiC production and took a few liberties with the characters as you can probably tell. Not to mention... Sypha is a man here as characters were often mislabeled in marketing materials due to localization errors at the time. Regardless, it's a fun silly adventure in Dracula's Castle and that's the kind of Halloween all year spooky shit we can all love.

Cyberverse Season 3 Trailer!

The new trailer for Cyberverse season 3 dropped today and with it pics of new toys! I've quite enjoyed this show and am really looking forward to a new season. The trailer looks great and even gives us peaks at new characters!

Happy Friday the 13th part Christmas

Friday the 13th is great, it's like having a little mini Halloween throughout the year! But what if there's one in December? I guess Christmas themed horror movie marathon? When looking up various fast food Christmas commercials, I found this old Burger King spot with the restaurant giving out dolls of the King! While watching it, I thought the 'employee' sure looked familiar. Which isn't surprising as a lot of actors get their start in commercials. Some continually work in them for their entire careers. I'm sure it's a good paycheck in between spots on tv shows and such. But where do I remember that face...

It might not be... but sure does look like her huh? I could be wrong and I don't mind admitting I am, but man that's pretty big similarity. I seriously wouldn't doubt a old slasher movie kid did a few commercials. Btw, you could totally get a Burger King doll during Christmas in 1977. Pretty rad.

It's Time!

THE BIG DAY IS HERE HAPPY HALLOWEEN YA'LL. OMG, WHO'S READY TO GO TRICK OR TREATING?

IT'S VERY IMPORTANT THAT WE BE VERY SAFE TODAY.

real talk: Anybody else notice Cory's trash can didn't have a bag in it?

Captain N-Return to Castlevania

Long before the Castlevania series on Netflix, we had to do with an episode of Captain N to bring the events of Castlevania 3 to animated form. Yea, they pretty much reinvented everything and got the characters wrong. But I do think Alucard is pretty great here and not only am a fan of Captain N, but DiC cartoons. Not to mention, it's Halloween crunch time. We've got to get our spooky shit all the way in before the next few months of singing that Snowman song.

Season of the Subliminal

I've spoken at lengths about my love for Halloween 3, I think that was the bulk of the Halloween 2017 season here on the site. If you look past the weirdness of being a Halloween without Michael Myers, you'll see that it's basically Halloween TV Special the movie. It basks in the theme of Halloween so much that local TV stations used to use clips of it to advertise their own Halloween programing. It's wonderful... and a little stupid.

So of course I like commercials and trailers. It's a big part of this site, well, watching the original theatrical trailer the other day... I heard something I hadn't noticed before. Mind you, I've seen this same clip a million times, so finding something new (to me) is kinda amazing. I was putting together my Lunchables Uploaded sandwich and heard something faint. What was that? I restarted the video and turned up the volume... There's clearly a voice whispering the name of the movie throughout the trailer.

In my childhood when satanic panic was gripping the suburbs and parents were running their kids records backwards to see if Iron Maiden had subliminal message. Horror movies was another alleged gateway to satanism according to the pamphlets. Here it is all these years later and I finally find a subliminal message. And that message it watch the dang movie currently being advertised.

A spooky season is upon us

Summer may be a spooky season, but Halloween is THE spooky season. 

The Zone Base Halloween Season has begun.

Beware, you're in for a scare.