The Mausoleum of Madness, Part III!
Welcome to Dinosaur Dracula’s MAUSOLEUM OF MADNESS, PART III! This is a multipage feature. Page links are are at the bottom, or you can visit the starting page over here. Enjoy your visit to the Mausoleum!
#30: Pumpkin Trio Blow Mold! (1995) 🎃
Another day, another blow mold! This is the famous “Pumpkin Trio” from the 1990s, produced by Union Products, but designed by Don Featherstone. It’s wild how virtually ALL of the coolest Halloween blow molds of the ‘90s were designed by one guy.
The Pumpkin Trio is much beloved, but it’s also freakin’ huge. Almost three feet wide, and pretty tall to boot. I’m indoors-only when it comes to blow molds, and I’ve really struggled to find a spot for this one.
Dare I… leave it outside? I’m not really worried about sun damage or whatever, but I live in one of those annoying cities where serious crime is low, yet the potential for shady teens to steal unattended blow molds is sky high.
Still, it’d be nice to put something out there to identify me as a Halloween guy. My neighbors think I’m weird, but I’ve done nothing to help them understand what kind of weird. Maybe some of them will see a three-foot gaggle of plastic pumpkins on my lawn, and finally get it.
#29: Jo-Ann Fabrics Circular! (1992) 🧵
Pour one out for Jo-Ann Fabrics, which closed all of its doors just last year. You were the Kmart of Michaels, you smelled like an old library, and everyone who ever visited you looked like they were on a mission. I miss you a little!
It’s easy to get excited about the stunning pop culture costumes seen in this 1992 Sunday circular, covering everything from Batman Returns to The Addams Family to Toxic Crusaders, but there was a catch. They were just selling the patterns for those costumes. You had to sew them yourself!
As a kid, costume patterns ticked me off. I remember seeing one that would’ve let me become Gizmo from Gremlins, with a beautiful head-to-toe costume, but I knew what my mother’s limits were. She was good for a three-color afghan, but she sure as shit couldn’t sew a reasonable Gizmo costume.
I love the quirky layout of this ad, which does nothing to betray the fact that it belonged to a well-oiled chain of stores with a long history of making money. The cheap clipart, the wasted space, the abundance of pricey black ink – all pockmarks if you’re taking an advertising course in college, but simply glorious if you’re a nostalgia blogger scanning at 600 DPI forty years later.
#28: Telco Tuxedo Skeleton! (1987) 💀
My Telco collection has grown by leaps and bounds this season, and it’s now to the point where it’s easier to name the Motionettes I don’t have than the ones I do.
While I wouldn’t call this my best find of the year, he’s certainly high on the list! This is a first-edition “Tuxedo Skeleton,” released in 1987. Telco made like five or six different versions of this guy, ranging from Tux Skels with glowing heads to Tux Skels holding plastic cobras. They’re all hideously expensive, but I’m pretty sure this is the priciest of the bunch.
It mostly boils down to that light-up skull cane. Most of Telco’s Motionettes came with some sort of accessory, but that funky cane was the only one exclusive to a single figure. Between the coolness of the cane and the absurd rarity of the figure, I’d say he’s comfortably worth $1500+ to the right collector.
I didn’t pay nearly that much, of course. Found him on Marketplace for a reasonable price, which I then went and halfway ruined by asking the seller to have UPS pack and ship it themselves. Sometimes that works in my favor, but this time, woof! You’d think the UPS would have standard rates across the board, but I feel like their employees just eyeball this shit and make up prices on the fly.
Notwithstanding that hiccup, I still got a great deal, and despite how hardcore I’ve become about Telcos, this was never a figure I expected to have. That’s one of the beautiful things about this weird little hobby. Miracles can and do happen, so long as you’re willing to spend countless sleepless nights searching for them!
#27: McDonald’s Monster Mac! (1993) 🍔
Oh boy, this one is a doozy, and I’ve been waiting forever to tell you about it!
Shown here is an extremely rare sign for McDonald’s little-known MONSTER MAC, a four-patty behemoth that the chain test-marketed back in 1993. Only available in a few regions – mostly on the west coast – it was absolutely meant to tie in with the Halloween season. (Aside from the obvious wink with that font, they even made a whole spooky TV commercial for it!)
While giant burgers like this eventually became common, it was big news in 1993. Press coverage of the Monster Mac generally came with a tinge of revulsion, because at that time, the mere idea of what was essentially a double Big Mac was unheard of.
I was first alerted to the possibility that this burger existed years ago, during a conversation with my pal Kaci, also known as the Homicidal Homemaker. A west coast native, she was positive she remembered McDonald’s having a giant Halloween burger. Well, Kaci, if you’re reading – your memory was spot-on!
This is one of the rarest McDonald’s translites in my collection. If you didn’t know, “translites” were the backlit plastic signs McD’s used in the restaurants before switching to digital screens. Since the Monster Mac was only available in a few areas, McDonald’s didn’t make many of these signs, and even fewer have survived until today. What a find!
#26: Belco Haunted House! (1979) 👻
I firmly believe that Belco’s Electrified Haunted House is one the few vintage Halloween decorations that EVERYONE should own. It’s awesome, it’s life-changing, and to some extent, it’s been living under the radar while larger/fancier decorations soak up all the attention.
This is an eight-inch haunted house, plastic and hollowed-out, with a standard corded light inside. The whole front is covered in the most gorgeously cheesy Halloween stickers imaginable. The back of the house is stickerless, which lets the light shine though all of the open windows.
As I demonstrated on Instagram a while back, the lighting effects are very cool, and you can rotate through bulbs of various colors to set different moods.
You can usually find Belco’s Haunted House in the area of $75, but if you want one in the original packaging like mine, good luck! That’ll cost way more, and you might have to wait years for one to turn up. (I was determined, because I have something of a kink for ancient cardboard that says “electrified” on it. It just does things to me.)
There have been plenty of arguments online about when this thing was actually in stores. Some say it’s from the ‘60s; others claim they purchased one in the late ‘90s. While it’s possible that everyone is right, that particular style of packaging is quite ancient, so I’d lean more towards the earlier date.
I did find indisputable proof that stores had it in 1979, so for now, that’s the year I’m going with. Which happens to be the year I was born. I very much enjoy the idea that I might share a birthday with Belco’s Electrified Haunted House!
