Happy Halloween from Zone Base!

Happy Halloween Zone Base readers! The big day is finally here and I hope you've got your costume ready. Thank you all for celebrating another Halloween with me here on the site. This is my favorite season and I look forward to it all year long. Thankfully tonight's the big night, so Halloween 2024 will go out with a bang! I hope each and every one of you enjoy the holiday. Give out some candy, go trick or treating, carve a pumpkin and watch the all night horror marathon. Whatever you do, I hope you have a great time doing it. Pumpkin Spiced Mayhem 2024 has been a great one. Thanks for reading Zone Base and sharing the site with your friends. Spooky Season might be coming to a close, but we've still got plenty of robots, monsters, and misadventure!

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.

Pumpkin Light, Shine So Bright

If there's a song I sing every Halloween season, it's usually off key. But it's also about the Pumpkin Light. Every year I buy some variation of the same idea to light my pumpkins up (the actual Pumpkin Light isn't available at my local Walmart) as I clearly love the idea. As someone who enjoys Halloween commercials on their own as a source of entertainment, they have some good ones. Like today's for example. The mixture of low rent and literally Halloween supplies for costuming... it's amazing. It looks like something your Uncle and his neighbor made for fun and sent in to America's Funniest People. It'd be worth sitting through Dave Coulier... maybe not.

Pepsi And Universal Studios For Halloween

I've been on cloud 9 for the past few days. Not just because it's Halloween. In that case I've been on cloud 9 since the Halloween season began, which was last January. The specific reason for my numbered cloud placement for the past few days is a special one.

The Mrs surprised me with a trip to Universal Studios. Which we obviously haven't taken yet. I mean... there's a pandemic and all. It's open, but walking around in Florida wearing face masks doesn't seem like the greatest thing.  So we've got an open itinerary for next December. Which is the perfect timing. You know, put back some money, hope things are a little more back to normal by then... have time for a refund just in case...

So how to I shoehorn the thing I can't stop thinking about right now into the thing I think about all the time? Well duh, Universal Studios is synonymous with Halloween thanks to the world famous Halloween Horror Nights. Not to mention the Universal Monsters!

I also love Pepsi, which is just how great this old commercial from 1992 is! I wish this was just their ad every year, but hey... well why isn't it? Dang, I love that pumpkin.

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.

McBoo To You

In the glory days of McDonald's, Ronald rung in the holidays usually with some sort of great Happy Meal promotion. The most famous McD's Halloween promotion would the the various trick or treat pails that were practically an annual tradition. For a few years tacking their commercials onto the 'Scared Silly' spot was another tradition as you'll find various editions paired with that classic bit. 
 
While the obvious intention was to use these trick or treating, they usually became various storage containers. Crayons and other school supplies were a popular use. McGoblin was home to many a Battle Beast in his day in my bedroom. They had a lot of uses, except for actual trick or treating as they were pretty small. 

My cousin generally used them along with his sisters. I'll never forget the Halloween where he was VERY jealous of my Paas make up kit werewolf costume. Dude was a bed sheet ghost with some cold cream on his face. Not even Kooky Spooks and a robe as the official Halloween costume. His McBoo pail got hard spiked into somebodies yard during a temper tantrum after the third time tripping over that sheet.

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.