Welcome to Dino Drac’s Daily Halloween Thing! The 2023 edition! Check back every day from now through 10/31 for a haunted hodgepodge of spooky reviews, memories and more.

Tuesday, October 31st:

Happy Halloween, everyone! Yeah, on a Tuesday! I know that isn’t optimal, but I hope you’re still managing to squeeze some last spooky drops out of the season.

I realized earlier that Halloween the Cat hasn’t appeared on the site all season, so it’s only fitting that he gets to close out this year’s tiny-sized Halloween Countdown.

(His new thing is begging for me to bring him outside to sit for a few minutes. He has no interest in wandering around, and with his condition, I wouldn’t be able to let him, anyway. He just wants to observe the world, and swipe a few treats on the way back.)

I hope you’ve enjoyed this year’s Countdown, however small it was. It was an interesting experience, as I barely even mentioned these updates on social media. It was really just for you old schoolers, and in many ways it was nice to remove the usual pressure to make everything “link-worthy.”

Gotta thank everyone who’s been commenting along the way, too, whether on this page, or in the Spooky Foods Graveyard, or on After Dark. I can’t even remember the last time I checked my traffic, so comments are really the only “metric” I have to know that people are reading at all!

I do plan to run a similar diary feature for the holiday season, though I haven’t decided exactly how that will look, or what the frequency will be. But yes, expect something! In the meantime, you probably know my socials, but if not, look for me on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter/X, and Bluesky.

I’m going to throw on Halloween III and try to resist these leftover packages of Sour Patch Kids. Happy Halloween to us all, and may the Harry & David catalogs land in our mailboxes tomorrow afternoon. Love ya. Read More…

Welcome to the Spooky Foods Graveyard! Enjoy this look at *40* seasonal snacks from yesteryear, and try not to wake the dead while you browse.

#40: McDonald’s Pumpkin Pie!
(Introduced in 1984)

I’ve been sitting on this one for weeks, because it seemed like the perfect food to end this feature with. Introduced in 1984, it’s the McDonald’s Pumpkin Pie!

Now, I know that McD’s still sells variations of pumpkin pies during the Halloween season, but they’re not like this. See, this is from back when McDonald’s still fried the pies, giving them a pastry shell that resembled a thrice-fried egg roll from a really shady Chinese takeout place. (It’s a compliment.)

McDonald’s switched to baked pies in 1992, and while healthier, it’s hard to argue that they’re tastier than yesteryear’s, which were like desserts from a no-fucks-given country fair.

Pumpkin wasn’t the only “limited time” pie that McDonald’s offered back then. Dig deep and you’ll find evidence of everything from pineapple to blueberry pies. Ronald hit every fruit, but only one could possibly headline our stay in the Spooky Foods Graveyard, and you’re looking at it. Read More…

The latest Purple Stuff Podcast is a special one, full of Halloween spirit, ’80s nostalgia and, uh, Donald Duck. Get set for Disney’s DTV Monster Hits!

Disney’s DTV Monster Hits was a prime time television special that aired on Friday, October 30th, 1987. “DTV” was a play on “MTV,” obviously, and the special consisted of clips from Disney’s spookiest shorts and movies, set against various pop songs.

The hour-long special is near and dear to Jay and I, so we were thrilled to make it the subject of our latest show. With a special assist to Walt’s Vault, we were able to dive into the COMPLETE 1987 broadcast, with the original commercials and everything!

Join us as we tackle some of Disney’s freakiest works, plus old school commercials covering everything from McDonald’s to dead sitcoms.

Click here to listen to this month’s show!

…which you can also find on Apple, Spotify and everywhere else you listen to podcasts.

If you don’t have time to watch the entire broadcast, I put together this mix of commercials that aired during the special. (Again, thanks to Walt’s Vault for letting us raid the goods!)

But wait, there’s more! If you subscribe to the Purple Stuff Podcast over on Patreon, we just dropped an extra bonus show, covering two more commercials that aired during DTV Monster Hits. (This is in addition to October’s “real” bonus show, which is yet to come!) Thanks for all of your support over there! Read More…