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!
#20: Ceramic Haunted House! (1980s) 🏚️
You have to be careful with vintage Halloween ceramics. In a bubble, so many of them are wonderful, and best of all, affordable! It’s hardly a hot market compared to other sorts of creepy collectibles, so you might be inclined to buy a whole bunch without giving the matter much thought.
A mistake, as I’ve learned! The thing about Halloween ceramics is that they only rarely look good together, and often enough, will actively detract from one another, with their different scales and vibes.
You can mitigate that with proper spacing, but I still think it’s worth being extra choosy with these. Those cheap price tags are bewitching, but you’ll be happier if you stick with the ceramics that are inarguable knockouts. (Less Grab That Dough, more Indy picking a cup.)
I contend that this illuminated haunted house, made by House of Lloyd in the mid ‘80s, is one such knockout. It’s on the pricier side for a ceramic piece (around $30 seems to be the average), but it really is beautiful. Around nine inches tall, with great colors and details, and somehow simultaneously evocative of an abandoned church and a gift shop on Main Street USA.
Doesn’t it make you wanna drink strange tea while sitting on a stone couch?
#19: Oreo Halloween Treats! (1994) 🍪
This is a sealed package of Oreo Halloween Treats from over thirty years ago. Not really something you can plan on finding, but find them I did, and now I am all-powerful.
Back then, Halloween Oreos – the ones with the orange creme – weren’t sold in Nabisco’s traditionally-sized bags. If you wanted them, these little two-packs were the only way.
I think giving packs of toxic orange Oreos to trick-or-treaters pretty much guaranteed that your house wouldn’t get toilet-papered, right? It was like the mafia’s old protection racket, only instead of bricks and broken windows, here we dealt with eggs and shaving cream.
One thing I noticed off the bat: Compared to today’s Oreos, these have WAY more filling. Like, to the extent where I just had to run into the other room and make sure they were two-packs, not four-packs.
Nabisco sold Halloween Oreos this way for several years in the ‘90s. One Halloween, when I was a high school freshman, I had nothing to do and nowhere to go. Too old for trick-or-treating, and too Charlie Brownish for a party invite. I was sad, and probably listening to Nirvana.
We had these Oreo Halloween Treats in the house, and I survived the night by watching spooky stuff on my bedroom television, while absolutely gorging on these extra-thick cookies. Eventually, I got so full and felt so disgusting that I wouldn’t have wanted to go out, even if I had someplace to be. In a sick, twisted way, Oreos saved that Halloween!
#18: Kmart Halloween Bag! (1990s) 🇰
In truth, Kmart’s reign as Halloween royalty ended long before the chain did. Every year before its demise, its Halloween sections grew smaller and smaller – two aisles one year, one aisle the next, and barely an endcap by the final stretch.
It was a sad decline for what had once been THE place for Halloween junk. Especially in the ‘80s and early ‘90s, it’s not hyperbole to say that Halloween wouldn’t have been Halloween without Kmart. The largest stock of costumes, candies and decorations, spread across multiple aisles in what effectively became a store-within-a-store.
In a sense, the season didn’t really begin until that big family trip to Kmart. In one fell swoop – and with one full shopping cart – you’d gather enough materials to fuel your home, diet and entire life with pure distilled Halloween. The Christmas switch came from attics and tree lots. With Halloween, you needed beige tile and a Blue Light Special.
In closing, were I ever charged to remake American Beauty, I’d replace the original plastic bag with this plastic bag.
#17: Revco Halloween Ad! (1989) 💊
The Revco pharmacy chain was a titan in its heyday, but collapsed in the late ‘90s after, I don’t know, massively overstocking honey-flavored Luden’s or something.
Before that, it spent its Halloween seasons the way all self-respecting pharmacies did – by giving equal weight to lifesaving medication and fake cotton spiderwebs.
This Sunday newspaper circular is from October of 1989. Halloween was on a Tuesday that year, which I’d actually rate as the worst day of the week for Halloween to fall on.
Friday, Saturday and Sunday are obviously positive days. A Monday Halloween sucks, but since it bookends a weekend, you can just pretend Sunday is Halloween and Monday is the afterglow. Thursday isn’t ideal, but with only Friday left to survive, you can afford to be tired and grouchy and erratically glucosed.
That leaves Tuesday and Wednesday, which are both objectively terrible options. It’s tough to say which is worse, but I’m sticking with Tuesday. A Tuesday Halloween means you still have three full days of responsibilities, and by the following weekend, all traces of the season will be replaced by cornucopias and poinsettias.
Yeah, Tuesday is the worst.
You know what’s not the worst, though? That ALF costume on the cover!
#16: Rennoc’s Electric Vampire! (1989) 🧛♂️
This is Rennoc’s 18-inch electric VAMPIRE – often just called “Dracula” by collectors, whether that’s canonical or not. He carries a light-up skull, moves his head and arms around, and wears pants that would put him right at home in a mid-’80s pro-wrestling locker room.
Rennoc was a more budget-friendly competitor to Telco. They did animated figures for all sorts of holidays, including Halloween. Most of their figures were battery-operated, used cheaper parts, and were not built to survive the decades. This ghoul was a clear exception!
Durable, dapper and plug-powered, I’m happy to report that even after 35 years, Dracula’s movement is quiet and fluid. That’s a rarity with Rennocs, which have often either lost their motion entirely, or struggle to move at half-speed while making noises like a 1980s copy machine.
Ready to buy one? Good, because they’re cheap! 30-40 bucks oughta do it. I consider this one of the best “starter figures” for anyone who wants a few of these old animated monsters without breaking the bank. He’s affordable, he won’t take up too much space, and his eyebrows look like cirrus clouds.
The trick is making sure you’re buying the right Dracula. See, Rennoc released like fifteen different animated vampire figures, and they all kinda look the same. If you’re careless, you’ll end up with a barely-functional battery-operated version.
Here’s how to know for sure: On this specific version of the Rennoc animated vampire figure, the black base is shaped like a rounded rectangle. If the base is circular, keep moving!
Wanna see him in action? Check out this video I posted earlier today!
