The Mausoleum of Madness!
Welcome to Dino Drac’s Mausoleum of Madness! Here you’ll find daily drops of creepy collectibles from my personal collection, all never previously seen on the site. Everything from eerie ephemera to terrifying toys. There are some major gems waiting to be featured here! Feature now complete for the season!
#44: Hi-C / Slimer Store Display! (1988)
I’ve saved the best for last. This is a Hi-C / Real Ghostbusters store display, and while your mind might jump to Ecto Cooler, this standee actually predates that drink! (Hi-C and The Real Ghostbusters, which were both under the Coke/Columbia umbrella, had been doing team-ups as early as 1987.)
Featuring Slimer, it stands 3.5 feet tall, and it’s in the running for the most gorgeous thing I own. And no, it wasn’t cheap. I pretty much never invest this much into any single item, but I had to have this thing. Look at it!
It’s sturdier than many similar standees, and it had to be, because this was intended to stay on display for a full calendar year. See, the displays were shipped with a volley of “holiday hats” for Slimer to wear, covering everything from Thanksgiving to the Super Bowl to Independence Day. Mine came with all of the hats, so if you follow me on my socials, this won’t be the last time you see Giant Cardboard Slimer.
The details are phenomenal, and considering its age, the standee is in fantastic condition. As a well-documented klutz, I’m now living in permanent fear of the straw on Slimer’s juice box.
#43: Pizza Hut Monsters Box! (1992)
Back in 1992, Pizza Hut embraced the dark side with a pretty gigantic Universal Monsters promotion, offering everything from souped-up collector’s cups to neat hologram cards. The classic monsters enjoyed a retail renaissance throughout the ‘90s, and this was one of the fun side effects.
The best part of the promo, though, were the swank boxes Pizza Hut designed for their personal pan pizzas. Available with every kid’s meal, the boxes featured the whole creepy crew, right down to that extra-dramatic off-model Dracula. (That particular Drac was used on everything back then, to skirt any licensing issues with the Lugosi estate.)
#42: Toys “R” Us Circular! (1989)
Arriving with the Sunday paper in October of ‘89, this TRU circular betrays its age with a Batman costume, a Real Ghostbusters makeup kit, and that long-obsolete Starburst logo. It’s a treasure!
This was near the end of Toys “R” Us’s run as a true Halloween supercenter. When I was a kid, they’d have costumes from the floor to the ceiling, with every accessory and decoration you could want. They steered clear of the truly ghastly masks, but by and large, it was a one-stop shop.
Back then, dedicated Halloween stores were still rare to see, and driving to a “real” costume shop probably wasn’t high on your parents’ wishlist. It really came down to Toys “R” Us, Kmart, or your local pharmacy. So why not pick the one that also had fifteen aisles of action figures and video games?
#41: Pepsi Monster Bash Bottle! (1992)
Here’s a rare artifact from the famous Pepsi / Frito-Lay Monster Bash campaign, which helped synonymize Pepsi and Doritos with the Halloween season throughout most of the ‘90s.
You surely remember the 12-pack Pepsi boxes that were adorned with the likenesses of the Universal Monsters, but here’s a much rarer Monster Bash reference on a two-liter bottle.
That partying Frankenstein art was used frequently back then, but usually only on promo items that weren’t meant for the general public. This was a rare exception!
It’s tough to see in the photo, but I gotta give a special shoutout to that bottle’s black plastic bottom. Those were phased out of the soda aisle not long after 1992, signaling a rapid increase in spilt drinks and general mayhem. I miss ‘em.
#40: Vampire’s Secret Ice Pops! (1992)
Guys, it’s finally happened. After searching for over 15 years, I finally found a Vampire’s Secret Ice Pops box. (Empty, of course.)
I never thought the day would come. The thing about collecting old food packaging is that your white whales usually stay that way. In other arenas, like, say, toy collecting, “white whale” can be synonymous with “too expensive.” With the dumb shit I collect, price is very often a moot point. You’re never gonna have the chance, at any cost.
While these bars were sold under various titles in the ‘80s and perhaps even in the ‘70s, it wasn’t until the early 1990s that Good Humor officially branded them. Vampire’s Secret Ice Pops consisted of black cherry shells, with “bloody” cherry centers. (Similar bars are still sold in the UK, though from what I can tell, the flavors are different.)
The box is just glorious. I love how the supposed “vampire” looks as much like a Frankensteined Elvis. And that logo! It’s like something a local haunt might crudely paint on a plywood sheet before leaning it against a garbage pail.
#39: Disney’s Halloween Treat! (1982)
In terms of online nostalgia points for Disney/Halloween stuff, nothing beats Disney’s Halloween Treat, a television special that first aired in 1982. I’m confident about that, as whenever I bring up any other spooky Disney thing, I’m immediately flooded with comments about Disney’s Halloween Treat. Sometimes it feels aggressive!
In truth, I have far stronger memories of the VHS release than any television broadcast. That cover was so fetching! Sadly, I rarely rented it, since my weirdly-formed kid brain believed that you weren’t “allowed” to rent Halloween things unless it was October. I pictured the store clerk admonishing me before pointing to a sign.
The special’s elusivity adds to its mystique. Disney’s Halloween Treat no longer airs, doesn’t stream, and beyond a Betamax tape and this clamshelled videocassette, it hasn’t had any other releases. It’s easy enough to find online, though, and well worth the search!
#38: Halloween Oreo O’s Cereal! (2000)
Back in 2000, Post came up with a pretty great gimmick for their Halloween cereals. Specially marked boxes of Honeycomb, Waffle Crisp and Oreo O’s made a “ghoulish ghost sound” when you opened them!
The simple mechanism was similar to what we see in musical greeting cards. The “ghoulish ghost sound” turned out to be a variation on the same high-pitched sonic screech that so many other Halloween novelties made. (I’d love to know how that particular noise became the spooky standard. Who decides these things?)
This was a brilliant promo. Could any kid resist a cereal box that promised to literally scream when they opened it? To my knowledge, this was the first and last time a cereal box did such a thing. (Probably because including a wired device in a box of cereal pushes the risk-reward ratio into litigious territory.)
#37: Hostess Monster Cakes Box! (1995)
While I’m thrilled that Hostess still delivers the Halloween goods, I miss how creative they used to get with the packaging. Whereas today’s boxes of spooky treats are built to fall in line with Hostess’s everyday branding, there was a point when they used Halloween as an excuse to go completely berserk.
This particular box, from 1995, might be my all-time favorite. Hostess Monster Cakes, mascotted by a veritable Who’s Who of Halloween horrors. Rarely have I seen something that so perfectly captures the aesthetic of Halloween in the mid ‘90s, when no amount of touches were “too many touches,” and when every font looked like it was drawn at gunpoint.
#36: I Vant To Bite Your Finger! (1979)
On today’s internet, a random passerby might conclude that images of this board game are AI creations. Nope, it really happened, and it really was named I Vant To Bite Your Finger.
This was the game where a big plastic Dracula would almost-literally bite your finger, and even draw “blood” thanks to a pair of tiny red markers. It’s all in good fun when you see how it actually works, but I imagine that some kids were terrified by the idea of a toy that could eat you.
The prices on I Vant To Bite Your Finger are pretty high nowadays, probably because it works better as decoration for adult collectors than it ever did as a game for kids. Imagine that box in a glass cabinet with some tucked-away LED strips adding a red glow. Perfection!
