The Purple Stuff Podcast: Episode 13!
Welllp, it’s here. HALLOWEEN. May your day be filled with candy and costumes and the last vestiges of that pumpkin spice candle you bought last August.
Thanks so much for being a part of Dino Drac’s 2015 Halloween Countdown! Just one more piece of business left for the season…
Yes, it’s the special Halloween edition of The Purple Stuff Podcast! This week, me and Jay from The Sexy Armpit celebrate by determining the official ABCs of Halloween. (Meaning, we take turns assigning Halloween stuff to each letter of the alphabet. All 26 of them! Yes this show is longer than usual!)
Give us a listen by clicking on the big ass play button down below. You can also access/download the MP3 directly by clicking here. The Purple Stuff Podcast is on Podbean and iTunes and Stitcher, too!
(Click the play button to listen!)
The big question: Will we be continuing the show after Halloween? You’ll have to listen to find out, but since I’m gonna encourage people who like the show to write us a review on iTunes, you can probably guess! Read More…
Madd Matt reviews the Bigfoot Playset.
With mere hours to go before Halloween, Madd Matt managed to eke out one last video…
This time, he’s reviewing Animal Planet’s Bigfoot Playset. You’ve seen it before, yes?
I’m a huge sucker for the entire Animal Planet collection. Some of the toys lean heavily on a sense of realism, but the best of them toss truth out the window to provide playsets where little men battle against house-sized cobras.
The line’s lack of “collectible flair” means that most adult fans pay zero attention to Animal Planet. HUGE mistake, guys! Read More…
Vicious Videocassette Boxes, Volume V!
What, you thought I’d let a whole Halloween Countdown slip by without a new edition of Vicious Videocassette Boxes? NOPE.
Down below: Another five horror videos from my personal collection, which I’ll admit are mostly used for decorative purposes these days. So what? They’re cheaper than paintings, and it’s more fun to decorate shelves than walls.
All five should help you remember a time when trips to video stores felt like trips to theme parks, filled with things you couldn’t wait to ride… and things you would’ve ridden if you weren’t such a fraidy cat.
Tales from the Darkside: The Movie (1990)
This one performed well enough at the box office, but I’ll never understand how it hasn’t garnered a bigger following in the years since.
If the film came out today with not a single thing changed, it’d be a HUGE deal. The web has allied millions of horror fans who were previously doomed as strangers, and I have little doubt that a movie this beautifully bizarre would spend a solid month as a Twitter talking point.
If you’ve never seen the movie but were a fan of the TV series, the film was — tonally speaking — much different from the show. Actually, it felt much more in league with Tales from the Crypt. (Less cerebral, but loud, gory and in-your-face.)
Presented as an anthology, it’s really four short movies, featuring everything from killer cats to brutal gargoyles. Loaded with cult favorite actors (name another movie with William Hickey, Buster Poindexter and Blondie), the film’s highs spiked way harder than its lows, and I just can’t recommend it enough. If you’re looking for something to round out your Halloween movie marathon, please consider this one! Read More…
More Vintage Halloween Treat Sacks!
Last year’s tribute to vintage Halloween treat sacks seemed to go over well, so let’s do that again.
Collected below are another five ancient trick-or-treat bags. All were originally given away as promotional freebies, meant to increase our loyalty to burgers, beer and batteries. Pillowcases were more effective, but these sacks sure looked a lot cooler:
McDonald’s Halloween Safety Bag! (1978)
This bag is older than I am, and it comes with a delicious bit of trivia: The “McBoo” character may have become world famous through McDonald’s Halloween Pails promotion, but he actually debuted many years earlier!
Originally conceived as a simple “sheet ghost,” McBoo appeared on a number of McDonald’s items, including a 1970s version of their Halloween treat certificates. He’d only later be “re-imagined” as an orange bucket. Funnily enough, once the pails went kaput in the ‘90s, McBoo returned to sheet ghost form as part of a different McDonald’s promotion!
All things being equal, I think ol’ McBoo has a rich enough history to be considered as a legit McDonald’s mascot. He’s not on the level of a Ronald or a Grimace, but somewhere in McDonaldland, McBoo is haunting something. Read More…