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!
#25: Fruity Yummy Mummy! (1989) 🤕
This is an unused Fruity Yummy Mummy cereal flat, from 1989. If you didn’t know, a “cereal flat” is a never-assembled box that was rescued from the factory before Conal Cochran could put it through final processing.
Flats are treasured by collectors, but hated by clumsy oafs who have no idea where to put them. I’m Column A and Column B on that, so depending on the hour, I’m either worshipping this thing or threatening to set it on fire.
By the way, isn’t it time they gave Fruity Yummy Mummy another swing? It’s been over a decade since his last revival! I post about the Monster Cereals roughly 50 times a year, and roughly 50 times a year, strangers yell at me about them not bringing Fruity Yummy Mummy back. Like I have anything to do with it.
My take: Frute Brute already had his extra 15 minutes, when General Mills teamed with KAWS a few years ago. They’ve already put Carmella Creeper back in the crypt, and as divisive as she was with fans, I think that had more to do with caramel apple being a crummy cereal flavor than anything else. (It should’ve been lime!)
Clearly, it’s Fruity Yummy Mummy’s turn. It’s too late for 2026, but I’m putting you on blast for 2027, General Mills. I want my rainbow-bandaged gravel-voiced ghoul back on store shelves, and I am giving you twelve months to make that happen — or else.
#24: Peoples Drug Circular! (1988) 🗞️
Man, I miss how the Sunday newspapers used to be during the Halloween season. Just endless circulars and coupon pages filled with costumes, candies, pumpkins and decorations!
I used to grab all of those and the comic strips, and then scurry off to my bedroom, newspaper pages in one hand, buttered English Muffin in the other. Just spread out on my floor, munching away while reading The Far Side and trying to find coupons for Boo Berry cereal. What bliss!
This 1988 advertisement for the Peoples Drug pharmacy chain reminds me of those days. On the cover is the most berserk assortment of mask-and-smock costumes you could ever hope to see, mixing everyone from Spider-Man to Snow White to goddamned WILLOW.
(Wow, even Willow had one of these costumes? Good for him!)
#23: Pumpkin People Kit! (1988) 🎃
Released by the Beadery, this was part of a larger series of Halloween-themed craft kits, using simple beads and pipe cleaners to create teensy adorable monsters.
The Beadery released similar kits for Christmas, which made sense, since Santa had a stranglehold on that particular technology in the ‘80s. In grade school, my mother was part of the PTA, and it was a December tradition for all of the ladies to slave away on ornaments made from beads and pipe cleaners to sell at the school’s Christmas fair.
Hell, I still have several of those ornaments, and they go on my tree every year.
It was rarer to see those efforts employed during the spooky season, so props to the Beadery for getting down with the devil. Come to think of it, they made a nearly identical kit FOR devils! Witches, spiders, vampires and black cats, too. All the big ones!
#22: Vulture Blow Mold! (1996) 🦤
While produced by Union Products, this twelve-inch VULTURE blow mold was designed by Don Featherstone – the same guy who crafted that wicked haunted house I showed you earlier in the Mausoleum, and the same guy who invented pink lawn flamingos decades prior. (Shacks and neognaths were apparently Don’s specialties.)
Featherstone’s blow molds are by far my favorites. While Don did design several animal-themed blow molds that weren’t necessarily tied to any specific holiday, this vulture was absolutely pitched as a Halloween thing, appearing in Union’s old catalogs right alongside the plastic ghosts and goblins.
Released in 1996, it’s as rare as a Dodo nowadays, and costs considerably more than a plastic vulture should. But I just love him! Given the volume of Halloween blow molds representing tombstones and decaying ghouls, an illuminated vulture doesn’t feel out of place hanging out nearby. Just a lil guy waiting for a spooky snack.
#21: String O’ Spook-O-Lites! (1960s) 😈
Behold, one of my most cherished Halloween pickups ever! This is a still-packaged example of Peerless’s famous String O’ Spook-O-Lites, a set of three miniature blow molds with old school blinking bulbs, attached to a cord that is in no way up to 2026 safety standards!
These sets came in any mix of three devils, skulls and pumpkins. One strand might’ve had three pumpkins, another two devils and a skull, or – as is the case here – one devil and two pumpkins. There wasn’t much rhyme or reason to how Peerless distributed them, but these days, the devils are by far the most valuable. Even one of those babies, loose with no cord, can fetch as much as $100 in the heat of the season.
Finding a strand of three isn’t terribly hard if you’re willing to pony up, but finding one in the original cardboard packaging is damn near impossible. I got very lucky with mine. If it’s any indication, I later saw a still-packaged set with three devils – basically the Peerless jackpot – sell for just shy of a thousand dollars.
These Strings O’ Spook-O-Lites must’ve been pretty popular in their day, given how many still pop up on the collectors’ market. In a sense, they’re cooler now than they ever were in the ‘60s, because we plainly do NOT get stuff like this anymore. I’m not sure why palm-sized blow molds haven’t been attempted more frequently, because the diminutive scale really suits ‘em!
Aside from this packaged set, I have several other strands with various mixes of the devils, skulls and pumpkins all around my living room. On those, I replaced the original bulbs and wires with heatless modern versions that I can run 24/7 without fear of burning the place down. Absolutely among my all-time favorite Halloween decorations, and in my opinion, totally worth the splurge.
