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!
#35: Count Chocula Sample Box! (1992)
A few years ago, some friends and I were lamenting the fact that General Mills never released the Monster Cereals in those single-serve one-ounce boxes. You know, the Kellogg’s “Fun Pak” style. Well, as it turned out, they kinda did!
From 1992, this sample-sized box of Count Chocula was originally packaged with a same-sized box of Kix. I’m not sure how they were distributed, but they were never sold in stores. This was, to my knowledge, the only time in history that Count Chocula was ever packaged this way, and I don’t believe that his Monster Cereal cohorts were ever given the same treatment.
It’s such a cute little box, and I still think it’s a great idea. Say General Mills released a cellophane-wrapped set of all of the Monster Cereals in these tiny boxes next year. You’re telling me you wouldn’t be all over that?
#34: Good Humor’s Ghoulie Bars! (1996)
This was one of Good Humor’s best and weirdest creations. Briefly available in 1996, “Ghoulie” popsicles consisted of bubblegum-flavored water ice shaped like an undead creature of the night!
Each bar came with a bloodshot gumball eye, and then a big hole where a second eye would normally be. That hole was a feature, not a bug. It added so much to the presentation, and really sold the idea of this being some kind of decaying zombie.
Strange as it looks in this old promo sticker, the actual popsicles were even more demented. The gumball eye was in reality disproportionately large, and only barely clung to the bar.
Also, Good Humor’s popsicles were notoriously misshapen when compared to their promo shots, so as gnarly as that creep looks on the sticker, he was twice as messy in person!
#33: Gremlins Stick-R-Treats! (1984)
In the ‘80s and ‘90s, Hallmark released a bazillion sets of Stick-R-Treats – individually-wrapped sticker sheets that were meant to be handed out to trick-or-treaters instead of candy.
I love the concept, and it was in good hands. People forget how integral Hallmark was to the Halloween season back then, before every Tom, Dick and Target realized what a moneymaker it could be. Hallmark was the root of so many Halloween trends, from “This is My Costume” tees to wind-up skulls with chattering teeth.
As for Stick-R-Treats, they came in oodles of styles, from glow-in-the-dark monsters to happy teddy bears, and even licensed properties like these Gremlins packs. Imagine getting a couple of Gizmo stickers while out trick-or-treating. Would you really have preferred another Tootsie Roll over those?
#32 – Chiller for the NES! (1990)
I’ve been after one of these babies for years, and finally found it at a price I could live with. This is a complete-in-box copy of Chiller, a completely unlicensed Nintendo game from 1990, based on the same-named and extremely gory arcade shooter from 1986.
While the intensity of the graphics was diminished in the transition, the gameplay is just as offensive. Like, so much so that I’d preach caution before checking out the footage. In Chiller, you spend much of the game obliterating nude victims in a torture chamber, using either a controller or – more appropriately – the Zapper.
Needless to say, porting such a ghastly game to the Nintendo Entertainment System proved controversial. As the story goes, most stores refused to carry it, so Chiller was mostly procured by people willing to roll the dice on sketchy mail-order ads in video game magazines.
As someone who remembers the arcade version from long ago trips down the Jersey shore, the Nintendo port was an oddity I couldn’t resist. Love the Iron Maiden-inspired logo, and the artwork that looks straight out of The Video Dead.
#31 – Gras Gruselkoph! (1984)
“Gras Gruselkoph” was Germany’s name for Count Creepyhead, the Play-Doh playset that let kids do all sorts of obscene things with a robed skeleton.
While I already owned Count Creepyhead, I’d always wanted this German version. The playset is identical to what we got in the States, but my God, that box! It’s so sinister! When I ran it on Facebook a week or so ago, someone assumed it was AI. Nope. They just went that hard in Germany.
If you’ve never seen Creepyhead/Gruselkoph in action, he was really something. You could use plastic molds to give him classic monster faces, or if you preferred, you could simply squish Play-Doh straight through every orifice in his skull. What fun!
#30 – Farley’s Cemetery Sours! (1998)
Gotta hand it to Farley. Back in the ‘90s, they were willing to try just about anything, no matter how small the potential. “Cemetery Sours” was a spooky spin on the classic Valentine’s Day candy hearts, right down to the cheeky sayings on each piece of candy.
Course, whereas candy hearts featured affirmations of love, the sayings on these candies – which were shaped like tombstones – were mostly about death and despair. The dichotomy of putting a phrase like “HELP ME” over a piece of candy colored like your southern aunt’s celadon blouse just tickles me.
#29: Lite-Up Monster Heads! (1986)
I have immense nostalgia for Lite-Up Lightsticks. Specifically that brand, which for years seemed to have a monopoly on the glow stick market. In the ‘80s, they were rare and magical treats that only turned up during the Halloween season, to help trick-or-treaters stand out on dark streets.
Lite-Up Monster Heads capitalized on the sticks’ utilitarian popularity by adding something closer to a straight-up toy. Included with each glow stick was a soft rubber monster head, which could be “charged” by the stick to glow in the dark for, oh, half a minute or so.
For a longer effect, you could simply leave the stick wedged inside the head, and carry the whole thing around like some sort of demure, gory staff.
There were various heads available, featuring different classic monsters. This particular example depicts a mummy. I would’ve preferred the Dracula version, but when it comes to packaged Lite-Up Monster Heads from the mid ‘80s, you gotta roll with whatever you can find.
