Spooky Season At Zayre

October Sales Circular
Zayre (1987)
This page from a Zayre sales circular was shared by Dinosaur Dracula last month.

The highlight for me is the ad at the bottom left corner for Friday The 13th, Deadly Friend, Fright Night, The Believer, A Nightmare On Elm Street 3, and Halloween on VHS for $16.99.

This is the candy that we all wanted to find in our bag after we were finished trick or treating... except maybe for the Smarties, which had about the same flavor as the packets of sugar on the table at the Blue Comet.  Also, I still say that Reese's Peanut Butter Cups tasted better when they came in a paper wrapper.

The Count Dracula Chocolate Flavored Candy at the top left of this part of the ad is the kind of thing that savvy kids would trade to their friends for their old boring Hershey and Snickers bars.  The package may be awesome, but they didn't usually taste very good.

Once in a while, there would be a seasonal goodie that you didn't want to give up, like these Alma Skull Crushers which oozed strawberry blood when you bit into them.  I don't think these are still sold in stores in the United States, but I was able to find them for sale on UK eBay and other online retailers under the name Hannah's Skull Crushers.

I was more of a rubber mask kid when it came to Halloween, but makeup was always a solid option.

These cardboard wall hangings sold for a buck and a half back in the 80's,  My grandmother used to wait and buy things like this when they went on sale after the holiday to put away for next year.  These old decorations are considerably more expensive when you can find them on eBay, especially if they're in good condition.

The last thing that caught my eye were these Halloween pinatas.  I can't say I ever remember seeing pinatas out for a Halloween party when I was a kid.  The witch in the center is giving off Viola Swamp vibes.

When The World Is Running Down...

Zenyatta Mondatta
The Police (1980)
The third studio album from The Police is turning forty five years old today.  Practically every song on this record was a hit, including Don't Stand So Close To Me, Driven To Tears, Canary In A Coal Mine, and Man In A Suitcase.

My favorite one of all, and probably my favorite song that the band ever put out, is the third song on the album.  When I listened to this song in my 20's and 30's, it reminded me of Roland describing Mid-World in The Dark Tower by saying that "the world has moved on".  When the pandemic began, and the effects of global climate change became harder to ignore in the years after the pandemic, it started to remind me of our world because all we can really do is make the best of what's still around.

When The World Is Running Down, You Make The Best Of What's Still Around

The Police (1980)

Turn on my VCR

Same one I've had for years

James Brown on the Tami show

Same tape I've had for years

I sit in my old car

Same one I've had for years

Old battery's running down

It ran for years and years

Turn on the radio

The static hurts my ears

Tell me, where would I go?

I ain't been out in years

Turn on the stereo

It's played for years and years

An Otis Redding song

It's all I own

When the world is running down

You make the best of what's still around

When the world is running down

You make the best of what's still around

Plug in my MCI

To exercise my brain

Make records on my own

Can't go out in the rain

Pick up the telephone

I've listened here for years

No one to talk to me

I've listened here for years

When the world is running down

You make the best of what's still around

When the world is running down

You make the best of what's still around

When I feel lonely here

Don't waste my time with tears

I run Deep Throat again

It ran for years and years

Don't like the food I eat

The cans are running out

Same food for years and years

I hate the food I eat

When the world is running down

You make the best of what's still around

When the world is running down

You make the best of what's still around

Frightful Fun

Halloween Body Stickers
Mello Smello (90's)
These were scanned and shared by Dinosaur Dracula earlier this year.

Where The Sun Light Don't Shine

I'm not really sure where this Halloween witch came from.  It's possible that we picked it up form a flea market, but I don't remember buying it.  It's more likely that my grandmother made it when I was a kid, but I don't remember seeing it.  Maybe she manifested in our attic all by herself.  Who knows.

Wherever she came from, she's a pretty groovy decoration and we try to find a place to put her this time of the year.  It's made pretty well, with fabric for the hat and the dress and doll hair on her head.  She's also surprisingly heavy.

The witch's body is a bottle of Sun Light dish soap that's filled with sand.  The copywrite on the bottle is from 1992.  Whether this was made by my grandmother or by a flea market vendor, this little witch has been haunting people's homes at Halloween for 33 years.