Welcome back to Disney Stuff. Keep your emails and your responses coming.
As the leaves in my yard begin to pile up and it gets harder to wear shorts here in New York, that must mean one thing: America’s second biggest holiday is coming. I’m speaking of Halloween, of course. From a retail point of view, Halloween has become a billion dollar industry, second only to Christmas in producing retail sales.
When I was a kid, there was always a carved pumpkin on my front steps and maybe some cardboard decorations on the door and windows. Today, my front yard transforms into quite an elaborate, spooky scene, and I stay on the tame side compared to some in my neighborhood. Halloween has entered the world of lights, animatronic figures, and giant blow-up decorations in a major way. Pumpkins, hanging skeletons, tombstones, bats, and spiders all make their way into and onto people’s homes come the first week of October, especially over the last 5-10 years.
When I began some research for this article, I tried searching the usual cyber haunts and my collectible books for some vintage Disney Halloween stuff. There’s a scarce amount out there. Halloween of years ago didn’t have the same commercial market that exists today. I found lots of Disney costumes from the 1960s and 1970s. Readers of a certain age should remember those plastic masks with the rubber band, coupled with odd hospital gown-like smocks that tied in the back. I still remember the plasticy smell of my Donald Duck, Woody Woodpecker and Planet of The Apes costumes I wore throughout my youth. These are in abundance on the collector market, and are really one of the few Disney Halloween collectibles easily found out there. This goes back to the fact that the Halloween merchandise boom is a more recent phenomenon. It’s one that I totally buy into, by the way. My kids will have memories of decorating the house for Halloween the way I have memories of decorating my house for Christmas. It seems like the stack of boxes in the attic with Halloween decorations is encroaching on the stack of Christmas boxes.
Disney and scary don’t seem like an obvious match, but look again and you’ll find a constant fascination with all things creepy in Disney films, television, and the parks throughout their history. It could definitely be said that Uncle Walt had a dark side. As you can imagine, The Walt Disney Company has certainly entered the lucrative Halloween market and they’ve really put out some cool “Disney Spooky Stuff” over the years.
What Disney fan’s house would be complete without a Mickey pumpkin?
Hardly a Hidden Mickey. Photo By Rosina Liquori.
How about a Pooh pumpkin instead?
There is such a thing as a creepy Pooh Bear. Photo By Rosina Liquori.
This candleholder featuring a subtle Dracula Mickey looks great with a flickering candle inside.
A cute, harmless vampire. Photo By Rosina Liquori.
Not that I would ever burn them, but these Nightmare Before Christmas candles were a great find at The Disney Store a few years back:
Nighmare Before Christmas Candles: why do they make candles that you would never want to burn? Photo By Rosina Liquori.
I especially love the box they came in:
The coffin box is a decoration on its own. Photo By Rosina Liquori.
Jack’s mouth also makes up our newest candy dish:
Jack will just make the candy even more tempting in this ceramic candy jar state, won’t he? Photo By Rosina Liquori.
My daughter likes to keep these in her closet in their boxes until October when they become decorations.
My wife and I in our costumes; or, Jack and Sally figurines. Photo By Rosina Liquori.
While we’re on Jack Skellington, this pumpkin is still available on DisneyShopping.com.
The Pumpkin King. Photo By Rosina Liquori.
To me, the greatest Halloween decorations the company has come out with was their full figure light-up Haunted Mansion Hitchhiking Ghosts. These were available from Disney over the last couple of years and are really special. They are made of resin and are really accurate representations of the ghostly trio. Similar, but larger, than the Disney Big Figs which are a big hit lately, each of the three ghosts from the classic attraction were available with glowing blue LED lights built into the base aiming up at the figure.
Beware of hitchhiking ghosts! Photo By Rosina Liquori.
I regrettably bought only one: Phineas. I scored him on sale with an email only shopping code, which brought his $99 price tag down to 40 bucks! Unfortunately, the other two were sold out. I could kick myself for not buying them earlier. It would be great to have the whole set on the front lawn. Ebay prices for these figures are in the $200-$400 range.
They also had several tombstones inscribed with the famous Haunted Mansion epitaphs and light up Hitchhiking Ghosts. I bought Phineas and Ezra. Ezra fell victim to the combination of a strong gust of wind and my brick walkway, so Phineas alone happily haunts my trick–or-treaters. Similar non-lighted versions of these are for sale this season.
The “surviving” tombstone. Beware of strong gusts of wind! Photo By Rosina Liquori.
There’s plenty more Disney Spooky Stuff out there. I’d love to hear from you readers out there and see if you are all spookifying your homes with just the right touch of Disney this season as well. One of these years I hope to make it to Florida for Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party for some good memories and some authentic Disney Spooky Stuff. For now, I’ll have to stay satisfied with what I have. I know I’ll continue the never ending quest to fill the yard with cool spooky stuff, scaring the trick-or-treaters and creating new family traditions along the way.
I’ll save myself and my wife some embarrassment and not publish the pictures of us in our actual Jack and Sally costumes from our kids Halloween parties over the last 2 years and just close out by wishing you all a very creepy Halloween season and I’ll see you next time with some more great Disney Stuff.
