It's Monday, send help

It's Monday and you know what that means... misery. I would vastly prefer some more weekend right now. Doesn't help that I'm sleepy and the garbage truck has a new siren that's apparently just on for the sake of it. All that aside, it was a great weekend. The Mrs and I did our weekly shopping which included shopping for our Halloween presents to each other. That'll be next weekend when we exchange them, it'll be fun. We watched the new Haunted Mansion movie which is pretty good, but could have been better. Just didn't seem like the Haunted Mansion... you know? We fixed the lights for our Halloween decorations outside in the yard. Last weekend I put them out, but the lights didn't work right. Well, now that's fixed and it's all good. The Mrs made chilli and a cake that I'm still thinking about. It was pretty dang good. 

The Halloween Optimus Prime in the picture up there? He was released last week and the Mrs helped me order one that came in Friday. In addition to that, she also got me a Beast Wars ReAction Dinobot. I found Core Class Slag Slug, Sludge, and Snarl while we were out. Snarl is my favorite Dinobot and getting a new one at Halloween is great! I need to combine all the Core Class Dinobots now that I have them. I was worried that I'd never find them all and I've grown to love Volcanicus. 

Well, I've got some errands to run and need to swing by the comic shop. I forgot to pick up the new Transformers comic and am going to try to do physical copies instead of digital. Hope everyone is enjoying the Halloween posts. We're in the last month of Pumpkin Spiced Mayhem, so let's make the most of it. It's hard to believe it's already almost over, I guess that's the passage of time for you. Thanks to each and every one of you for continuing to support Zone Base. Please share with your friends!

Halfway 2 Halloween~ Ha! Ha! ...Hell

I've never worked for Disney, so I can't tell you who got fired over Eddie Murphy's Haunted Mansion movie. What I can tell you is, it was so bad that they waited 20 years before doing it again without seemingly learning anything. Regardless of some of their bad choices, Disney has always been synonymous with Halloween for me. Between their impeccable Halloween Treat special and all the other ways they downright wallow in pumpkin spiced mayhem... it's just a part of the spooky season for me.

Weekly Halloween~ Ghostly Mansion

I'll never live in a mansion. Sure, it would be nice, but that's not the life I was meant to live. It's probably for the best as mansions seem to breed ghost stories. The Haunted Mansion at Disney, the Haunted Mansion at Long Beach, and the Haunted Kreischer Mansion in New York. Just one look at that thing and you know something spooky is going on.

Grim Grinning Freaks

One of the original plans for the Haunted Mansion was for it to feature some of the Disney Villains. I guess that's why I find the above segment as interesting as I do. These kids find themselves debating if they should go in the mansion or not. The little girl imagines various Disney Villains performing Grim Grinning Ghosts in front of the mansion (with those awesome spooky trees) and it really works. I could see a haunted house starring some of these guys, even though the Evil Queen did have her own spooky ride.

The video also reminds me of this kid I went to school with for a few years. At Halloween, he'd show up wearing a Captain Hook mask. Nothing else of the Ben Cooper costume, just the mask.  I strongly remember him just standing while the bus drove off watching us leave, wearing that mask. I didn't understand why it was creepy, but even the older kids on the bus got quiet. Pure evil. I don't know how long that mask survived, but I'm pretty sure he wore it while doing horrible things.

Phyllis Diller Spends Halloween At Disneyland

Disney does Halloween right. They do Halloween specials right. Somebody behind the scenes of The Mouse Factory did drugs wrong. I don't know if Phillis Diller did drugs, but I do know her name is slang for cocaine. Which I'm sure there was a mountain of offstage on this episode.

Spooks and Magic, the Halloween episode of The Mouse Factory features Phyllis Diller as the guest star going absolutely insane with Disney characters. At one point she's breaking into the Haunted Mansion and harassing the ghosts, the next minute she's having a Halloween costume party with Donald Duck. Said costume party doesn't sound bad until she shows them her batshit family slides then runs them off by singing.

The whole thing ends with her forming a witches coven with King Louie, Goofy, and Witch Hazel. The later is sent to Donald Duck's (who just left) house as a set up to the classic Disney 'Trick or Treat' short. In the end, Phyllis uses her evil witch powers to steal Snow Whites identity and... it just ends. That means she's still out there.

Hell yeah Haunted Mansion... not that one

The problem with most haunted attractions is that they look super great until you actually go inside one. Between the cheesy black plastic hung up standing in for walls and the workers annoying you with bad acting, you kind of regret going. Not to mention the only real scares after a certain age are jump scares, and well, I'm pretty sure we've all been startled by the toaster on occasion. Sure the big budget ones like Halloween Horror Nights are amazing, but your local haunt is usually pretty ratchet.

If it's a charity haunt, you're more likely to look past the cheesiness as it's for a good cause. A local for profit... well... I paid 20$ to get in here and the damn cashier from the gas station that wears the same Marilyn Manson shirt every day is apparently a vampire... and still wearing that shirt... just jumped out. It startled me initially and now he's saying really stupid lines. I'm switching gas stations.

Though when you look at pictures or even old commercials for them, like the Haunted Mansion (no relation) commercial above, it's pretty charming. Though age helps. Those older ones have a charm that can't be replicated. Admittedly it's perspective, the witch was the lady who works at the bowling alley and wore the same Dio shirt every day.

Super 8 Haunted Mansion

When the crypt doors creak
And the tombstones quake
Spooks come out for a singing wake
Happy haunts materialize
And begin to vocalize
Grim grinning ghosts come out to socialize

Haunted Mansion ride through

SInce I was just talking about Disney and Halloween... well shucks, can't not talk about the Haunted Mansion! This is a really good quality video, though I will say it bleeds out some of the better projection effects (Leota, Constance) and the sound is a big wall of sound. Normally each sound comes at you from individual places while the music plays in the background and all of it on top of each other in the video drowns out the Ghost Host who's speakers are in your Doom Buggy. Regardless, the video quality is so good you can really make out a lot of the details. Speaking of a Ghost Host who's audio is drowned out in the video, one of the reasons I picked this one was you can clearly see the crow. He's a little easier to see here than in the ride itself in some parts. Fun fact, at one point he was intended to be the Ghost Host, which is why you see him whenever the narration comes on.