Kut the Pumpkin, not your Finger

Back in the old days, you had to rely on kitchen knives for carving your pumpkins. Ever carve a pumpkin? It's ah... not exactly the prime shape to safely use the knife Dad will carve the turkey with in a few weeks. That's where the Pumpkin Kutter comes in! You can carve all sorts of fun faces without chopping off your finger! Wow!

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.

Fuddruckers Fucking Pumpkins

In 1989, Fuddruckers had a pretty amazing kids meal prize. A freaking pumpkin included with your meal! As an adult I usually get about 3-4 pumpkins a year, but when I was a kid. We got ONE. If we'd just gotten dinner at Fuddruckers, we'd probably still have just gotten one... but it would have been that one! Nothing beats a good pumpkin at Halloween and that would have been a great way to get one!

Cursed Halloween In Bed

No matter how much I hate for Halloween to be over, it's super nice to stretch out in bed after everything's all said and done. Usually the wife is fast asleep while I watch Treehouse of Horror on FXX before passing out myself. Something about Autumn makes sleeping so much better. Especially this year where the part of Daylight Savings Time everyone likes is on Halloween night! Extra long Halloween AND morning after!

I've never been to The Bedroom (the store). As somebody who just bought a brand new bed last year, I wish there was one around here. Look at those prices! But really, it's hard to focus on those prices when there's a FUCKING HUMAN FACED PUMPKIN IN THE WINDOW. That pie joke sure would be funnier...it wouldn't ... who opened the window for him anyway? STOP WATCHING ME SLEEP YOU ORANGE FREAK.

A Goofy Samhain

Disney is well regarded as the de-facto source for family friendly entertainment. It's because of this that many spooky urban legends revolve around the company. You just can't have something that pure without a dark secret or two. Thing is, Micky and the gang are no strangers to spooky shit. They do Halloween every year and they do it right. Celebrations, merchandise, TV specials, you name it. At the parks they even have a spooky summer celebration of their own before starting Halloween stuff in August. Just like here! It really is the happiest place on earth! 

This is Haunted Halloween, a Disney educational short that teaches a mix of Halloween history and safety. It's a clip show from various Disney cartoons with footage from Disney's Halloween Treat. Speaking of Disney's Halloween Treat, the pumpkin from one of the various editions narrates this with Goofy. It truly is a special pairing.

When I was a kid, about a week before Halloween, either the VCR cart or projector got rolled into classrooms and we'd be shown one of a few different safety videos. I've posted the most common ones before several times (here and here for example). I watch those one a week all year long for my own benefit. Never can be too careful. 

Haunted Halloween? Once. I saw it once and never again until finding it on YouTube a few years back. For the longest I couldn't get anyone to believe me about this awesome Disney education short with druids. I wondered for awhile if it was some sort of Mandela Effect thing. Now I can show people this wonderful thing without sounding like some crazy person talking about Goofy being taught Celtic superstitions. Now I just sound crazy. If this was a Facebook post, I would have typed LOL there. Maybe LMAO. That's how hard I laughed, that mother fucker just fell the fuck off.

The Conjuring Halloween Special

I've got something to admit, I was terrified of Raggedy Ann as a child. While The Conjuring movies are great, most people don't know those "true stories" they're based on happened somewhat recently.

Thanks to The Exorcist and The Amityville Horror, paranormal and occult stuff was pretty much all over the place during my childhood. Add in 80's Satanic Panic and you've got the recipe for much needed therapy. One popular ghost story was the possessed Raggedy Ann doll.

I'm of course talking about the real life Annabelle, which was an object of terror to a generation of children. It doesn't help that Raggedy Anne dolls were still everywhere at the time and someone gave her a Halloween Special. It's about the doll bringing a lonely pumpkin and child together. You read that right.

The Bloody Pumpkin Is A Lie

Ever hear about that scene in Halloween where they find a bloody pumpkin with a knife sticking out of it? I used to hear about it all the time. That and how Michael Myers was based on a real guy. I'll get to the 'real guy' thing later, but for now I kind of want to chat bloody pumpkins and the Halloweens they weren't in. It's the weirdest urban legend as I never see anyone talk about it online. The Jason using a chainsaw thing? Yeah, I still see that occasionally. Bloody pumpkin? As offline as the official Bloody Pumpkin MySpace profile I planned on making in 2005.

It wasn't even that long ago my mom said it when I mentioned looking forward to the new Halloween (wait, that was 2018... ) and she said the original was 'so scary with that big knife sticking out of that pumpkin'. Clearly it's folks mentally combining imagery. Maybe just a little excited playground exaggeration from the one kid who's parents let him stay up and watch it mixed in.

See the commercial up above? It's an old school homemade spot for a local stations airing of Halloween 2. Homemade commercials used to be pretty common back in the day. Did you uh... notice Michael? Somebody got creative to make him look 'badass'. Making monsters look badass is a staple of Halloween and teenagers really into Ozzy Osbourne. Named Chet.

I think it's from some of these type of commercials where folks get that bloody pumpkin imagery. A bloody pumpkin with a knife sticking out of it isn't exactly rare at Halloween. I know I've seen one or two in the past. I've even poured fake blood over a pumpkin myself. Why not? Make it look badass.

Pumpkin Light Your Way

I can't express just how important it is to have some sort of light when trick or treating. According to every psa leading up to Halloween is that you are completely invisible to drivers. Something about a car windshield makes trick or treaters invisible. Real talk, you need a light.

There's always that flashlight your mom keeps on her nightstand, but don't be ratchet. You need a specific Halloween light. I was always partial to glow sticks, and let me just tell you. You can tie some yarn to that sumbitch and make a necklace. Maybe one of those cool pumpkin flash lights. They do the job pretty well and let you represent properly. Top tier though, is the Pumpkin Light.

A more premium light that as you've noticed has dual uses. Either in place of a candle in your jack o' lantern, or around your neck. A pumpkin shaped medallion that puts off a blinking light ensuring near death by the way of Ford Taurus isn't in your future. The Pumpkin Light is a quality product that's gonna last for years. It's going to sit on your nightstand for awhile before being going in the closet for next year. When you'll buy another anyway.