246: Halloween Starts Now

This is PJ Souls, and you are totally listening to Movie Meltdown. Movie Meltdown. Good evening. The following feature has been rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America. It is intended for mature audiences and parental discretion is advised.

Our nuclear reactor pumping out one million. Kilowatts of power. to provide more cooling. In the containment chamber. In the regular world, Halloween is when children dress up in costumes and beg for candy. In girl world, Halloween is the one night a year when a girl can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it.

Boys and girls of every age Wouldn't you like to see something strange? Come, listen, you will see This our. Town of Halloween This is Halloween, this is Halloween Won't you stay with the dead all night? This is Halloween, everybody may see Don't. Cheat, don't believe, it's gonna die right This our town of Halloween This town of.

Halloween What's up and welcome to Movie Meltdown. I am Brian. I am Ben. I'm Greg. I'm Beau.

I am Dave. I am Sterling. I'm Marlena. And I'm Dave. We've gotten into the situation now where we have, and recently I was doing it Spice Girl style.

I was doing Dave C and Dave L. You can continue that way, or I do sometimes have known you as David. Would you rather be under these circumstances? You can call me whatever you want. I'm going to be Dave.

All right, Skippy. Anyway. Sporty Dave. Sporty Dave. That means you're the loud one.

Oh, she's also on a live production of Jesus Christ Superstar, as Mary Magdalene I just saw lately. Live with that, people. Sporty? Yeah, Sporty is Mary Magdalene in whatever version of this. Yeah, it's frightening is what it is.

Posh Dave. Do you want to be Posh Dave? I'll be Posh Dave. Posh Dave, we've had on many times. You'll probably remember, if nothing else, from last year's Halloween episode.

So, you know, we've had Dave. The other Sporty Dave here. He's got like Striped socks on. More recently, you've heard with our little flashback episodes, and we're all both just sort of falling behind Patrick in every episode we're in. That bastard couldn't be here, so too bad for him.

Stupid anniversary. Getting married. That's not the way geeks roll, I'm sorry. Patrick's pushing his damn luck. Sterling, you've let us come hang out here in this wonderful establishment, which we'll get back to.

But you two have been on the show. Everybody's kind of been here. That's why I thought it would be just a refresher course on the rundown here. And we'll round it out with Ben, who is from your other favorite podcast. Everyone's second favorite podcast.

Is that how we're going to build it? Everyone's second favorite. You listen to The Memory Palace, too? Yeah. Anyway.

That thing where you keep running the annoying ad for Tower of Technobabble. Ben is on that show. Yeah. I get in the first punch. Yes.

I don't... You're in a new spot. I miss the bagel shop. Where are we? We're in a basement, man.

A scary basement covered by... Hey, dude. Hey, dude. Watch it. He lives in this scary basement.

Yeah. I live here and I work hard on it. All right? So you. I mean this in a nice way, but you're like the Quasimodo of the year.

I'm totally fine with being the Quasimodo. He ain't Quasi. He's full-on Modo. Full-on Modo, yeah. I'm not a pseudo-Modo.

I'm not a Quasimodo. I am not a Jamiroquai or anything else like that. I am a full-on Modo. Yeah, we should paint a picture. We're sitting on a stage in a basement theater, and there's a puppet theater right behind me, and I'm waiting for some snake in a hand to come and get me.

I'm working on the puppets don't you worry that's coming in the near future. Wait i see you tech ah the illusion is shattered well no actually ben it's your fault because there is no proof that this is not puppets talking into microphones right now for anyone who's listening to this. I'm not going to turn around and look at puppets behind. Me you do have a woolly voice yes do i yes oh thank you i've said this. Before you have the The sexiest voice in podcasting.

You know that. I might have to take over the Dr. Fever. I was about to say he's right up there with Dr. Fever.

You got a rival. Hold on. The fever wars begin. He does have a fever. Well, I don't know.

Yours is a bit more pointy. Yes, that's what they've always said about my voice. A bit pointy. We're talking about his voice? He's Fahrenheit.

I'm Celsius is what you're saying. Yes? You can be Kelvin, Greg. Okay. Intense as the light of the sun.

We're taking you all the way down to absolute zero tonight, ladies and gentlemen. Johnny Fever. While molecular movement might stop, it's not going to stop your heart. And if this is the type of quality program that you like, please call now or pledge people. Also, I'm a PBS voice as well.

It's actually appropriate that you're wearing blue and I'm wearing red. Do you know how many babies have been birthed thanks to the PBS voice? I don't know. I'm just asking. A little bit creepier than usual.

We're getting a little bit close to the NPR voice as we continue to talk. So you're telling me that, like, William F. Buckley is a turn-on for some people. Try to control yourself. I think that's definitely true for some people.

People that get it on a very home companion. Oh, God, no. All right, well, it is October. We're moving into Halloween. I think at least a few of the old school, you guys know it's coming.

It's the Ghost Bowl. Oh, yay. If I knew you were bringing candy, I wouldn't have eaten that last churro on the board. I don't care if anybody wants it or not, I'm bringing this candy. Good man.

It can't be Halloween without candy corn. Oh, I've got to do marshmallows. This is, by the way, my first. Well, that's why I. Picked non-wrapper candy, because you've proven yourselves to not be responsible enough to handle it.

I've heard people eating gum on the show before. Yeah, they suck, too. That was probably always me. I don't know. Why don't they make candy popcorn?

You know, like they make candy that looks like corn, but they mean to make candy that looks like popped popcorn. Wow. There's your Halloween. There's your crunchy candy. My first experience at the Ghost Bowl.

No, guys, we're going to have to last supper this one and just pass it on down. I thought Ghost Bowl would be a competition of some sort. There you go. It's a ghost bowl. It's like when little cute ghosts come out.

It's adorable. They wrestle around together. I'd watch that. And kind of keep. It in the show.

You should do that. Aren't we going to see the basement? All right. Speaking of this creepy basement that we're in. Guys, it's well lit.

No, when I walked in, I said, this is the kind of place you're murdered. Dave and I got lost, and after we'd been wondering for like five minutes in the basement of Westworld here, John made the comment. I was like, you know, Fred's probably around here in a Jesus costume. He's coming out on us. That's part of the theme of the movie.

I can hear some minor keys on a piano. It's not as nice as this one. Thank you. A nice thing about the alley. Thank you.

No, don't get me wrong. This is very nice. When I think of basements, I usually think of, you know, Cold, dark, and damp. But this is velvety, you know? It's a velvety basement.

This is very fancy, I think. Yes, come on down to the velvety alley theater. It's velvety, yeah. There's no ping pong table full of laundry, though. That is a little different.

All right. And it's your son living here, mind you? He's home from college. He comes out with a wife beater and boxer shorts on. I mean, he's been home from college for seven years, but I mean.

Ah, there's a spider down here. I got him. Hang on. I got him. Okay.

Thank you. This live podcast excitement man we're. Coming to you live on the alley theater here in wonderful dreary louisville kentucky and um i i think this right here is is a good place to take a break because they probably turned. Off at this point anyway so i think that's our nice little intro there. When we come back, we will be discussing Halloween since we've crossed over into October here.

And we're going to have a nostalgic little session where we discuss Halloween costumes. Hey, the spooks come out tonight, it's time to trick or treat. You better answer your door or find your pumpkin smashing the street. I've got my costume and candy ale ready for a Halloween. I can't believe what I'm seeing.

They got no costumes on. They got no makeup on their face. They're just looking like brothers in the flashlights and pillowcase. And they say, check on the tree. Smell my feet.

No costume, no candy No costume, no candy No costume, no candy for. Me Count Chocula and Frankenberry coming your way. How about a monster for breakfast today? Frankenberry has strawberry-flavored marshmallows. And Count Chocula has chocolatey marshmallows.

Part of this good nutritious breakfast. How much can the human mind stand? Do you dare fit your sanity against our marathon of fright? Shock follows shock. Your breath comes in gasps.

Hearts fold. Then, the mind explodes. For the unlucky ones. A straitjacket and a free trip to the booby hatch. To the strong, a free Fright Club membership card.

See the grisly, macabre marathon of fright. And learn your fate. Will it be life or living death? Tweet Audio, your source for high-performance, noise-reducing earbuds. Available in three styles and seven colors.

Durable and designed to sound great for both music and those chatty podcasts, like the one you're listening to now. Tweaked Audio earbuds come with a one-year warranty, and now there's a special deal for Movie Meltdown listeners. Just go to tweakedaudio.com, and when you check out, enter the discount code MELTDOWN. Then you'll get 33% off and free shipping. Tweaked Audio.

Sounds better. Dave, I do not get superheroes. Oh my god, I don't get you. What don't you get? Towerbot here.

Well, the meatbags were going to say that if you're a geek and like podcasts, then you could try Tower of Technobabble at www.toweroftechnobabble.com. Then this started. Well, it's up to you. I'm gonna get my taser and put a stop to this. Towerbot out.

Okay, monkeys. It's nap. Time. Hello, creeps. It's me, the Crypt Keeper.

And you're listening to Movie Meltdown, the greatest movie geek show on Earth. It's part of your problem, you know, you haven't seen enough movies. All of life's riddles are answered. In the movies. And now, on with the show.

There are so many things you could be on a Halloween night. Yeah, you could be a zombie or you could be a Frankenstein. If you're a cheap little sheep, you could be a ghost or a mummy. But when you come to my door, as you are, let me guess, you're a dummy. Hey, sick.

Old tree, smell my feet. Give me something sweet. No costume, no candy. No costume, no candy. No costume, no candy for me.

Someone should push those M & Ms. Further away from me, please. No, no, no, further away from me. Oh, could you move them a little closer to me, though? Damn it, Beau.

Did you know today's National Coffee Day? Really? What are we drinking today, Brian? I'm enjoying my fine, non-sponsored coffee. So never mind what we're drinking.

We're drinking Oregon breakfast. We're drinking whatever Sterling made. Sterling crystals. That's where we're going. No comment.

He makes meth, is what I'm saying. Well, theater doesn't pay. Is coffee supposed to be blue? But that's why you need meth to be so effective. Meth supports my theater habit.

That makes sense, actually. See, that's the whole thing. It's on my bucket list. I tell my students that all the time. It's like, you all are advantaged.

You all got into drugs when you were young. I never had the opportunity. So on my bucket list, I need to get that crippling drug addiction and then overcome it. It's just There's some new ones out there. Just start right at the top there.

Well, you know, as you're getting older. I'll teach you around if I'm teaching chemistry while I'm on Molly. Were you the one that posted the thing on Facebook about shamboiling? Shampoo boiling? Yeah, I found that.

You should start doing that. You totally should. Yeah. Let's broadcast that as well. Shamboiling.

Just follow him around, officer. More stylish. It'll be fine. All right, we are back, and it is time for The Grind. And this time in particular, a very spooky and nostalgic episode.

In this segment, we discuss a specific topic or a question related to movies. And as often as possible, we'd like it to come from you. But you guys are usually slackers, so we pick one ourselves. And this week's Grind topic comes from Dave. Not you, Dave.

The other Dave. Posh Dave. Let's keep that straight. And he thought as we cross over into October here, that all of us here are pretty much hardcore Halloween fans. And aside from our horror, the fact that we watch horror movies half the time on this show anyway.

But Halloween in general, I think we're pretty hardcore fans of. So I thought it would be a good time to discuss that. Halloween costumes and, um, Dave, you've been a lifelong fan of Halloween and have inadvertently become sort of a, a, uh, somewhat authority, at least knowledgeable on this subject. So I don't know. For you, what was the starting point?

Do you have like a, a specific time in your life that like it set in and Halloween and costumes began to creep into your consciousness? Very early, you know, um, I think the first costume I can remember wearing was probably around two or three, and it was an out-of-the-box Collegeville or Ben Cooper skeleton. The best. Yeah, those were cool. What do you mean by Ben Cooper?

It was a brand. Oh, Ben Cooper still is a brand. I didn't know if that was some famous skeleton. You know, like Ben Sherman, Ben Cooper. It's actually Ben Cooper's skeleton.

Okay. And Ben Cooper got contracts. I think they did the Star Wars costumes and everything years later. I think most of the ones I had were probably. When I go back and look at them, because I had that skeleton.

The back form plastic mask. Either flame retardant or flame retarded cloth costume, which they always got confusing on the box. What does this exactly mean? Flame absorbent. Okay.

Think that's probably what happened a couple of times. Then they had to change the chemicals. And these were all common for people my age. I don't know if the rest of you ever got any of those prefab-type costumes. I had a lot.

Just out of curiosity. How old are you? Okay, I'm old. We'll bleep that out for you. My earliest costume I can remember was a Darth Vader costume from TGNY, but I hated it because it said Darth Vader on it.

They all kind of did. I'll tell you who they were. I don't remember him ever wearing a t-shirt in a movie that had his name on it. I don't even wear a t-shirt with my name on it. It's in that scene where he's in the meditation chamber.

You don't see him. He's putting on his mask. He's also putting on the armor over his t-shirt that says, I'm Darth Vader, motherfucker. That's the star chamber, by the way. In the Darth Vader meditation chamber, the bit of the wall that comes down that we can't see, I always wondered if he had girly posters.

That's how I decorate my room when I meditate. He was a little queen of it all, actually. But anyway, I hated that it said Darth Vader on it, so I don't know how that was. See. So I got my crayons and my piece of paper, and I made a control panel out of crayons, and I taped it on there, and I went around and felt a little bit less.

See, I think those are there for a reason. I think probably the first couple of years they put those costumes together, they didn't do that. They probably made it look like the actual outfit or something. And then they started, like, watching kids go to the door. And I swear, you know, every time the door opened, they're like, well, what are you supposed to be?

So after a while, they went, you know, just fucking put their name. Right on the chest. I don't want to have to answer this question. They wanted to label it just to, like, curb any human interaction between people answering the door and children. Just throw the candy and we're ready to go.

We want to make this process as efficient as possible. That just makes me, because I wanted to go as a feared person. The thing, I didn't want to go as a flash card. No self-respecting Dark Lord of the Sith. You're Ben Sherman, Ben Hooper.

Ben Hooper. It didn't say skeleton on the front. No, no. He was actually playing a clarinet. I don't know where that enters into.

Really? That's creepy. And I keep looking for that costume. I know. I look on eBay all the time.

He's like a skeleton playing a clarinet. I didn't know if it was like a... Made out of like a thigh bone. No, no, no. I think they kept doing that same mask because I think the one I had, because I had that skeleton, I think, and it was the same mask and they just.

Kept changing the outfit. They would change the costume. Yeah. So I think by the time I got it, it was just... It had a rib cage on it.

It did not say skeleton, thank you, but it was just a generic skeleton-looking piece. That's really cool, because I thought that skeletons were, like, percussion only. I don't know. They are pretty good at it, though. Xylophone, for real.

You know, guys, now that we've mentioned the whole, like, flash tag thing, you know, on the costume, it's going to come back ironically, and you're going to start seeing costumes with, like, parentheses, skeleton. Does that mean, like, every girl's costume can say slut real big on it? That would be fantastic. Slutty fill in the blank. Well, how do we know the most, like, meta thing ever would have, like, one of those costumes with the mask, and the mask is just a person with, like, a mustache and the glasses, and it just says hipster.

It's a hipster costume that is hipster to wear. It's like, it'll create this. Weird black hole, and Earth will be crushed into this point of singularity when the first person dons that costume. But the rest of us will breathe air free of irony for at least 24 hours around it. And we all think it's funny now, and like, Two months from now or two years from now, we're going to see them hanging up in the front of wide Louisville or something.

It's going to be. Like, God damn it. I saw them only at vintage stores. My best friend Ben and I, who's like, well, he's like the biggest hipster in the world anyway. But we're really into the show called Heroes of Cosplay.

I'm a bit different, but. And I was like, I want to dress up as a steampunk person dressed as a hipster. Layers upon layers. I was like, but I don't think anyone would get it. Most good costumes, nobody gets.

No, no, no. Just as long as you're sexy, they'll get it. It's a funny steampunk hipster. No, no, no. The sad thing is someone will get it.

They'll call you on it, and then they'll be like, yeah, my cousin did something like that last year. It was pretty cool. About three years ago. Oh, God. Yaya Han will tear you a new one.

Okay. I had the same company, but I remember it not being any cloth. It was that plastic. Yeah, they make it out of like a vinyl plastic. And it was Fonzie.

That was the first. One. And the mask just looks like a dude, you know, with the little circular eyes cut out of the eye holes. And it just said, you know, I can still picture it. It was like white.

And almost like he had his T-shirt on and it just said Fonzie. It might have said A on there too. Did you pick it out or did your parents pick it out for you? I think my parents picked it out for me. I think my parents picked it out for me.

But I got a lot of candy that year. I remember the bag was too big and I was like, you know, there's that layer of sweat underneath that mask that you just can't really breathe in it. You can't see in it. No, I never considered that. You should take into account your target area.

And if it's all like seniors and old people, you should wear something that would make them that would really... They're like, oh, my God. You're dressed as Roy Rogers here. It's Glenn Miller. Look, come here.

Give him a little Glenn Miller. I know about crotches when I see one. I would just adopt you. It probably helped that you got up to the porch and the light wasn't on and you just kind of bumped. It and it popped right on.

You were like, oh, shit, I'm giving that kid like two Snickers. Actually, that would be like some really weird... I'm going to have to work that into a movie now. Make it to where like some... person knowingly like you've got this elderly woman who's just her husband has died and some neighbor hates her so he dresses the kid on halloween to look like her dead husband used to when they first got married just to like i don't know. Okay this is horrible memories this is eerily similar to what happens in amadeus like the guy will show up the guy will show up wearing the last costume that her husband wore before he died you know and asking her to write a requiem mast And she'd be like, but I'm just a school piano teacher.

And the story continues from there. Hey, maybe this year you should go as Steampunk Fonzie. He's got a piston activated arm you. Can make your uh your uh inflatable blimp you know just doing that you know. And then we we ran into henry winkler so did you get to meet him when.

We were there that because fred did i mean oh no it was it was the night before i didn't yeah he came right up to fred and fred thoroughly convinced he thought he was billy bob. Thornton because he came up to him like he was somebody he was like oh hi how you doing and i'm like he's like hey you're fonzie that's cool but like he was very impressed to meet fred. I mean we all are but thinks that billy bob thornton doesn't look anything like himself and and is an asshole you're like yeah Well, you know. That guy pretended like he didn't know me. But I've seen all of his movies.

What gives? We've hung out together many times. I don't understand what this dude's problem is. He's changed. He's got some strange, yeah, he can't tell the difference.

He's got some other rare disease to where he goes to China. He thinks every Chinese person is Timothy Dalton. I loved you in The Rocketeer. I don't know what he's talking about. Remember the sexy rocketeer on Heroes of Cosplay?

The sexy rocketeer. Sexy steampunk rocketeers. I'm sorry, I'm just imagining a girl in a bikini wearing one of those helmets and she just can't see her weight. That's exactly what it was. Bumps her head on everything.

That's to your advantage because then she bumps into you several times throughout the day. And she got up on stage and to get the crowd behind her, she kept flashing her ring. steampunk ass at them. They loved it. Of course they loved it. Was it actually firing steam out of it?

That would be a steampunk ass if you ask me. I mean, where else has the steam got to go, Dan? You're taking a wrong turn. I know. I think it's fine.

So bring it back. Dr. Fever Blue, could you please bring us back? I mean, bringing us back. I think back to my first costume.

Growing up, My family wasn't poor, but we didn't have any money. Oh, he's so ironic. Thank you. I was born a poor black child. And so my first costume was actually one that my great-grandmother had sewn, and I was a little devil.

Nice. My mom still has that costume, so I just had the horns and the tail and the cape. I don't know. Actually why, as the devil, he had a cape. I think the devil should have a cape.

If I were the devil, I would want a cape. I've seen a couple of those old devil costumes with capes. I like the idea that either the devil is kind of flamboyant. Or he's... Well, he's kind of a superhero.

Yeah, or he's a superhero. He shows up, he's got his cape and his pitchfork because... You know, you need to combine the flamboyancy with the Farmer Dan thing. You've seen him on Powerpuff Girls, right? That is exactly the devil in my mind.

It's the most frightening thing I've ever seen. I've not seen it. Oh, my God. But I had a similar costume. My first, like. pre-bought costume was a spider-man and same deal just the logo right.

See oh it was a logo it didn't say the amazing spider-man spider-man which you know that's the thing is i remember seeing those. Costumes everywhere and being baffled when i was a kid because i was like guys like the cartoon is right there. It's not like this design is complicated. Like why are you like, like there are some, I remember some of those old costumes that would just have like, the emblem would be kind of wrong, or it would be in the wrong place, or the color scheme would be off, and you're like... I had that, by the way.

You're like, how did you manage to make a Batman costume with so much orange? Two words, sweatshop. All the female. Masks look like female blow-up dolls. All of them.

It was a different party. Yeah, with the hole in the mouth, and they're just like.... Well, actually, now that you've mentioned that between both of you, I just had a weird flashback there of like, I remember a year that I had a Spider-Man costume. And it came in stages of, like, uncool, and then it got fixed. I'm glad you went there, because one of the last topics before you interrupted was, like, sex dolls.

That was a different year. That brought up a topic. That was a different year. But when I was younger— It sticks to everything. We'll get to last year later.

But when I was younger, I got one, and it was a Spider-Man, and it was kind of a knockoff version, because even, like, the suit itself was. Kind of a knockoff. But it did. They were trying. They were trying.

It had a spider on it, so that was okay, I guess. It was yellow and probably had six legs, but it at least had a spider, so they were on the right track. But the mask, I remember, and the reason this was totally wrong... My grandmother got it for me. And obviously grandmothers.

Don't have a clue. So it was just, oh, there's that Spider-Man he likes. So, like, it had, like, whatever this superhero was that was supposed to be Spider-Man, he had, like, a half mask. Like, he had a cowl kind of thing. I remember this mask.

Yeah, what the hell? It was, like, green and yellow, and he had a spider web on his forehead. I think so. What the hell was that? Because they gave it to me, and I went, that's not Spider-Man.

You know what it was? What the hell? Every time Halloween comes around, Spider-Man wants to dress up as something. So he goes off on a variation of his own theme. I knock off Spider-Man.

Because he still has to work. He still has to work at night protecting the city as Spider-Man, but it's Halloween, so he wants to juice it up. A little bit. So then when he jumps in to save somebody, they go, oh, it's Spider-Man? They question it.

And then he does some of his patented quips, his trick or treat, before he hits the... More than likely. By the way, there was, that reminds me, by the way, a brief sidebar stories on Spider-Man where he actually started dressing up as other superheroes. Like he invented like four other superheroes for himself to be. And it was just like a series of episodes of like him just like pretending to be different guys and running around.

Were they variations on the insect theme or were they just completely different? One was a guy with a French accent named Ricochet. And he was supposed to be a villain. Of some sort. Yeah, no, no, that's like the kind of thing.

It's like he basically sat around in his apartment and he's like, okay, I'm kind of bored with this whole Spider-Man thing. What's the dumbest couple? I need a new look. Makeover. We need Queer Eye for the spider guy.

Well, just so you guys aren't worried, luckily, my parents realized how wrong it was. And then after, like, Grandma took her pictures and went home, we went and got the– so I at least ended up with the right mask. Like, they went and bought, like, a solo mask. So, like, I'm like, I can live with the weird costume as long as I've got the right orange spiderweb head. That's good parenting right there.

Yeah, yeah. They earned their keep that year. I was okay with it. I let them live one more year. I remember when I was a kid, it was really uncool to have like a homemade costume.

And even I remember one year, I mean, I feel like by the time I was a child, like those plastic mask and plastic smock costumes i'd gone out of style but they hadn't because i remember having a poly pocket one when i was like six but you know like my grandma offered to make me a costume and i was like no no no no no i want that plastic piece of shit that. Smells like yeah it smells like other people. It's not full of grandma's love in middle school i kind of realized that i like the idea of making the costumes myself better Um, and no one got them just like half the time. Even now when I do stuff each year, nobody gets it. But I remember seventh grade, my first costume that like, I was really proud that I made is I, um, my mom took me around to thrift stores and like, let me pick out all the stuff.

And I was Claude Rains, this invisible man, like skinny to where like he's wrapped in the bandages and he has the goggles. And no, it's like all these teachers, you the. Mommy, I would have to explain. I'm like, no, I'm the invisible man. And they're like, Well, you're not invisible.

It's at the beginning of the, like, I'm sitting here trying to explain the movie. It's like, dude, I'm trying to explain the whole James Whale movie to, like, my teachers. You're like, man, I'm wearing a smoking jacket. When did you meet a mummy that wore a smoking jacket? He's a fancy mummy.

Like, what the hell? Speaking of, I just ran out of bandages. I've gotten, you know, a plastic nose off of, um... Like the Groucho. Well, just off of one of those weird, like, nose glasses thing.

I've just taken that fake nose and. as close as I could find to the goggles and all that stuff to assemble it to where it kind of looks like he does at the beginning when he comes in out of the snow. I'm glad you went that route because I was afraid you were. Going to go to Ed Begley Jr. I'm the invisible man! Have you ever seen a shirt?

That one is not. No kids need to be doing that. I mean, I would have just gone full-on ghost dad, personally. Listen, speaking of homemade costumes, maybe you guys can help me understand something. I've never understood the hobo That's a time-honored classic.

She is a fan of hobos. Okay, maybe you can explain it to me because, you know, aren't you basically letting your kids dress up as murderous vagrants? You can't prove that he murdered that guy. That's why he's still roaming free. Like many classic costumes in America, it is, of course, at its root, offensive.

Because effectively you're dressing up as a poor person, you know, like as a funny poor person. A displaced American. I think what I'm trying to figure out is when exactly was the age of the classic hobos? Like when did homeless and vagrants actually look that, you know, charming? The 30s.

Like the sort of Sullivan's Travels era. Yeah, like back in the days when everyone was broke. And so it wasn't unusual to see like, A guy like me would come by and be like, hey, I used to sell shoes, and now I'm homeless. Anyways, you guys got some work. Because the really neat thing about hobos is compared to modern-day homeless people, hobos kind of dressed nice.

Kind of charming. Like, they kind of had more, I don't know. Character. They had suit jackets with elbow patches on them. Again, smell pictures.

So are kids 50 years from now going to dress as homeless guys wearing, like, old tracksuits? They already do. Slayer t-shirts. I was going to say. Don't they just hipsters then?

Yeah, I was going to say. I was talking to my best friend on the phone today, and she was going to the grocery store with her mom. And she goes, hey, there's a handsome guy on. The bench over there. Her mom goes, that's a homeless person.

He goes, no, it's not, mom. It's just a hipster. A common argument amongst today's youth. Last year they stopped letting dress up on Halloween happen at school. I think probably.

Because I killed that the year before because I went a little beyond where I should have. but there was there were a couple out i can tell that in a second but um like some of the kids were like really getting the point to where they were like pushing on because the whole main thing was um you know they were trying to figure out ways to make restrictions on it because you know all the teenage girls they want to come in dressed slutty but it's like oh i put on a tiara and i'm a princess or i put on angel wings and i'm an angel it's like No. Yeah, but you have lingerie. None of those shorts, honey. Honey, no angel wears cut-offs like that. Because he was wandering around, just his outfit, all it was, and I'll even see if you can guess it, he had a suitcase filled with stuffed animals, and he was dressed in a nice suit, and he'd smeared Vaseline all over his upper and lower lip.

Oh, God. Yeah. He's like, well, I'm a pedophile. Wow. When a weird-ass freshman in high school comes in dressed as a pedophile.

Well, that shows creative thinking, I think. You should give him a half a grade for that. And also, possibly, problem solving. Okay, okay, question then. He would just be like.

I've got some Rolos. It's normal to feel sleepy when you eat them. Wow. Okay, I have a very serious question. How come a kid comes in dressed like that and everyone's like, oh, worry, this could be signs of a bad thing coming in the future.

But another kid comes in dressed as... I'm Satan, or I'm an axe murderer, or I'm a vagrant hobo, and how come people aren't worried that this is an indicator of their future path? Why is it the pedophile? I didn't say that they were worried. I found it really bizarre.

Of course. It's extremely creative. You're inferring that the administration paid enough attention to. All that stuff. Also, it's the Vaseline smeared around the mouth.

That was the thing that just cracked me up. That's going to... I mean, because honestly, I see a lot of devils. Not a lot of them have Vaseline smeared all over their mouth. Like the kid, and also the whole, like, I've got Rolos, they make you a bit sleepy, or...

Oh, I've got a popsicle in my pocket. It's a bit melty. I think you're just going to the wrong Halloween party. But when I made that comment, I was like, so what's the deal with that? And he's like.

Well, watch, like, To Catch a Predator. Look at their upper lips. Again, he watched something. Just like me in my Darth Vader suit noticing it doesn't have buttons on the chest. It needs buttons.

I don't have a five o'clock shadow in that haunted look in my eye. He should have, like, bottles full of Zima. because they always show up with alcohol on chris hansen well well now it'd be like mike's heart lemonade hey you want some lemonade okay. Well okay so so halloween was banned at your school because of this is this. Right i don't know if it was necessarily banned they just said they were going to stop doing it because i found like they were the administration was referring to it as the caitlin rule up in the office during like the principal meetings To where it was actually after the first year of them doing Halloween, they made it a rule to where you couldn't have any face obscuring prosthetic makeup.

Because somebody. Because somebody ruined that for everybody. Okay, this brings up another question that I have. Because I did get the email about the topic tonight. And I was.

Thinking about it. And I don't honestly think I know what Halloween is supposed to be celebrating. It's all over the map. Free candy? I mean, if I think about it, I would think it's celebrating boobs more than anything.

In today's world, yes. And there's nothing wrong with that. But the interesting thing is, I think in ye olden times, it was sort of celebrating the dead and evil and all that. So how come it's okay to have that in school, but not Christmas? That's like worshipping something, and this is worshipping something.

I thought it was interesting that they finally banned the Halloween celebrating in your school. Oh, they have like a Christmas program, too. Oh, they do? Okay. I thought Christmas was... not allowed in public schools.

It's more about tone, I think, than it is about outright banning. It's not cool to be like, Merry Christmas, you Jews out there. That's what the banner says in the hallway. If you have a banner hanging in the hallway that says that, then they're probably going to be like, and obviously they don't want to spend the money to have a banner that says, Happy Hanukkah. Merry Christmas.

And for all you people that celebrate Kwanzaa, you probably don't go here. But that is the crux of what I'm wondering because a lot of people say that Christmas now isn't really, when you celebrate it, it's not really, it doesn't have a lot of the religious connotations anymore. Now it's all Santa Claus. And toys and all that. Thanks, Charlie Brown.

And so in the same way, Halloween used to be, something a bit more edgy and evil and when you think about it halloween is just another commercialized holiday the same way that christmas is so what i'm the one we like so what i'm wondering is why don't atheists get all upset about celebrating halloween the way they do about christmas. Um initially halloween had to do with like um essentially like i think it was the druids like essentially it's wicker man from my understanding is that it kind of started out in um the um In Ireland, and it was like doing sacrifices and stuff. Not sacrifices, like offering, you know. Small animals. The harvest time.

Like before winter, because they were afraid if they were going to make it. Halloween. And it somehow snowballed into having to do with, you know, evil spirits and all that stuff. But I think that's core. But that was the core.

It had a religious connotation. So why don't atheists get all like, oh, Halloween, don't bother me with that. You know, the way they are with Christmas. Because boobs and candy. Okay, I can see that.

And everyone who says that they're practicing a real Celtic religion is, well, probably stretching it just a little bit. I'm waking, shut up. So what do you guys think Halloween is all about then? Really, because it's not about... druids and burning people, and it's not about evil and Satan. I didn't mean to say burning people.

It was kind of the Cain and Abel thing. They offered small animals and fruit. What does it mean to us in our heart? What is the real meaning of Halloween? Basically, I'm wanting the lights to go out, a spotlight to come on someone, and I want them to read me a Bible verse that'll explain it.

Lights, please. Well, I think it was absorbed, though. I think one of the popes at some point, like most religions, at some point they incorporated some kind of Christian overtone to a pre-existing ritual, and it kind of slowly became what it is now. But like I said, in its original form, it was like offering something to somebody before going into winter and hoping that you were going to make it and you were going to have enough food and all that kind of stuff. As it's celebrated now, I mean, mostly Halloween is sort of an American invention.

As it's celebrated for the past 50, 60 years. So it's been absorbed. You can pick up a book. You can pick up Ray Bradbury's The Halloween Tree. Yeah.

Or watch the animated book. Great book. And that will give you a history of all the different beliefs and celebrations that kind of feed into the modern Halloween. So you've got Day of the Dead in Mexico, which is like the next day. November 1st.

Which is all about. accepting death as part of your life, and the kids eat the candy skulls. It's so beautiful. I can't imagine, like, going to the cemeteries and having, like, picnics. At night and stuff. Yeah, it's this huge party celebrating life and death.

You've got the Irish elements in Old England. You've got going even further back. So they kind of just wrapped it all up because October is just sort of the dying off of nature, and. That's kind of how it started out. Which, again, is great.

It even brings up the hobo thing. Okay, but again, with all that history and all that, why do atheists have a problem with Christmas and not Halloween? Because it's not Christian. And also because Christmas is probably one of the more heavily propagandized holidays. I mean, I'm saying this on behalf of my Christian friends as well.

It's like where Christians don't draw a line at candle mass. They're not like, They're not like, oh, hey, dude, this is St. Sebastian's Day. All right, we don't deal with people profaning it. No, but Christmas has become an especially big deal, which is also interesting because just as we can trace Halloween back to Ray Bradbury, we can actually trace modern Christmas in a lot of ways back to Charles Dickens.

Before Christmas Carol, especially in a lot of Protestant countries, Christmas was not that big of a deal. In fact, that's why our own George Washington, that's why the crossing of Delaware was such a big deal. The British soldiers who were from the continent were like, well, Christmas is a pretty big deal. But Americans who were way more Protestant than the British were at that point were like, Christmas? It's another one of those days that the people in Rome celebrate.

It's like Flag Day. We don't pay attention. Exactly. So it didn't matter to them. Halloween, on the other hand, speaking as a Christian holiday, you know, I mean, it's really a three-day celebration in the old Celtic tradition.

And in the Christian religious tradition, it breaks down to All Hallows' Eve, you know. and All Saints Day on November 1st, and then All Souls Day on November 2nd. All Saints being when you pray for all the saints, All Souls being when you pray for everybody else. And basically what we're looking at, the continuity in that celebration, is the ancient Celts, like the way they celebrated it was, it was a time of saying goodbye, it was a time of letting go, it was a time when you could, you know, Dia de los Muertos, you could summon up the spirits of your ancestors, and it was believed that the barrier between worlds was very thin, so you could... have access to both the positive and the negative spirits in the other world.

That's one of the reasons why they say costume wearing and mask wearing became big. It's actually also the origin of our tradition of the jack-o'-lantern. What that used to be was actually a head. You see, throughout the year you would have fought battles in the summer, and then you would have brought back your enemy's heads. as a headhunter, and you would have soaked it in some fluid, and then you would have hung it on your lintel, and that would scare away evil spirits. That would keep them from coming in your door, because you were a bad mofo.

Brian, you run the most informative podcast. On the planet. This is really neat. He's doing this without notes. We're pretty high-tech on this.

Well, you know, that's really interesting, and I just feel like atheists are lazy, you know, because there's so much religion tied up with halloween and they'll they just like. Yeah we'll let that slide the truth is all of it's i think it's all pretty confused um you know i mean it's like it's like saying why why do atheists oppose this and not oppose this uh to my mind you know it's like it's like making the argument about like well why is christmas such a big deal to so many of my my christian friends you know it's arguably not actually historically as important a celebration as i would say easter i think easter is a much bigger. Deal but you don't get a day off for easter Or for Halloween, actually.

But look at what you're saying there. It's like, well, we've created a holiday around Christmas where you even get time off. We Americanized it. Actually, I don't know any atheists who really protest Christmas outright. I mean, they don't buy into the religious aspect of it, but I don't know anyone who doesn't.

I'm basing that on how every year You always read a story about how there is a group trying to stop Christmas celebrations. Oh, obviously. Schools, because they don't want any kind of a religious. Thing in schools. Well, you've got the inverse that does go on for Halloween, where you do have a lot of fundamentalist Christian churches who want to stop Halloween.

Oh, yeah. Celebrating the devil. See, I would be like, bring. On Halloween, because then that'll let Christmas come back in. Then we can celebrate everything.

It's just human nature. Honestly, I gotta say, I think it's a shame that, you know, every era before ours, like, you know, humans kind of had a tendency, and this is true, I think, kind of across the board with human cultures, that we created cycles of celebrations. Every couple of months, at least, you could expect some kind of major feast where everyone would get trashed and have a good time, and then you'd go back to work the next week. We've kind of fallen off of that. We have a few major holidays, mostly towards the end of the year.

And then we have long stretches with really nothing in it. And I think that's kind of a shame. I think there's something in our brains that says, you know, about every two months, you know, we need some kind of big blowout. We need some sort of thing to say, like, woohoo, like we're having another party. And then, like, something to look forward to for a decent stretch.

Of time after. In my lifetime, I almost saw Halloween die out. Yeah. I'm a little older than most guys. Mm-hmm.

Starting in the late 60s, early 70s, all the mythology about the poison candy and the razors and the apples. And there are no cases of that prior to it being... mythologized. Did that ever actually happen? No. They have never really found any legitimate criminal facts.

It's kind of like saying that Dungeons and Dragons has led to demon worship. Has anyone gone through the candy bowl on the table in front of this? I'm keeping an ear for sleep. I have a theory that my parents went through. My candy.

To check for razors and pills because they wanted to take the good stuff and give me the rest. Oh, yeah. You only say that because that's what you're doing to George every single time. I can remember around 1970, 71. I mean, literally, we're talking about just calling off trick-or-treating.

Yeah. And so, you know, in my young adulthood in the 80s, it was like, well, we're just going to have Halloween parties again. We're going to try to bring this back and have. A good time. And then gradually it became kind of an industry again where Halloween became a really big adult holiday.

I wonder if during that time when people were afraid to go trick-or-treating with their kids because of all the razor blades and the candy scare and the trick-or-treating getting canceled, I wonder if that's when it was like, well, the kids can't go out, but us kids can. But us grown-ups, we can still have a party, and because it's grown-ups, we can be a little bit more risque and sexy, and that's when the sexy crept. Into the hall. For us, for a lot of it, it was like, well, we had such a good time as little kids, we wanted to kind of bring it back. By that time, we were adults, so things changed.

I think it's just something that you're talking about, the sluttiness of costumes and whatnot. I think it's just kind of natural when you're talking about costumes in general. There are rare opportunities for basically like, you know, most guys dress up like serial killers or some kind of murderer, like, which is sort of this weird perversion of like, I'm powerful and I'm awesome. Excuse me. I'm trying, I'm getting too psychological here, but, and then, you know, meanwhile, most, most girls, it seems like most of their costumes seem to be mostly to either, uh, be sexual or to, I mean, and you could argue that this might be because there's some sort of repressed sexuality, or you could just argue that, well, it's because they've been, tricked by the patriarchal society into trying to please their boyfriends all the time.

Which I find legit, too. It's like, I need to dress up hot for my boy. But at the same time, too, speaking from the high school level, you don't really see the serial killer thing as much as you do rappers. Damn it. Rappers and gangsters.

When I was a kid, there were two things I wanted to be. Skeletor and Jason. Neither of which is a rapper. No, I have a theory, especially about high school kids and rap or even heavy metal is especially with rap. Um, kids at that age are extremely insecure and rappers are the exact opposite.

It's all about charisma. And to me, my definition of hip hop, not rap, but hip hop is because you can see it with the tagging culture, the dancing culture, um, the art artistry and the music is that you use your name. Anytime a rap song uses your name instantly becomes hip hop because it's about me, my persona and everything. And I think that's why kids dress up as rappers. It's because I can be this guy who is proud of himself and no matter what he does, I can kind.

Of appreciate that. I mean, like I, I don't listen to rap that much, but I had sort of a similar feeling about punk rock when I was a teenager, and still today. I appreciate the attitude, and I appreciate the confidence that goes along with being like, hey, this is me, this is who I am, and fuck you if you don't care. It's true of punk, it's true of heavy metal, plus the key element is it's going to piss off your parents. Well, Posh, Dave.

You're married to a soccer player. You were saying that you... Sorry. You were saying that you. You almost saw Halloween die.

Did you notice one year suddenly it was all sexy, or was it more of like a gradual climb, or was it something like, man, where did this come from? Man, I like it. I would say the whole sexy thing didn't take off really until sometime in the 90s. Yeah, that's when it was really kind of good. Yeah.

I think that's part of why people came. It became, like I said, you started to see chain Halloween stores pop up. Yeah. You started to see Halloween Express. You started to see spirit stores and things like that.

And it showed that, you know, parents and adults just wanted to go out and have a good. Time and have a party. It kind of robs Halloween of its earlier meanings. But, you know, it at least popularized a holiday I like. Right.

But, you know, at the same time. But it was really fairly recent. Yeah. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. You know.

Christmas, I discovered this friend of mine who moved to Japan. He's like, Christmas has actually been very heavily imported into Asia, and they've really gotten into it apparently over there because— KFC. That's true. That's part of it. But because basically there, apparently your big celebration where you're hanging out with your family is actually New Year's.

That's when you're going to, like, sit down and have quiet time with your family and talk about, like, how the last year has gone and have, you know, meal with grandma and everything like that. And that's more Japan than China, too, where you've got that Western influence. Yeah. Well, yeah. And in Japan, they apparently, like, Christmas has become this huge thing because it's, like, it's this Western holiday that's a great excuse to get boozed up, you know.

Yeah. Go out and party. Like, like for them, it just doesn't have the religious. Yeah. Yeah.

Pending machine and get some used panties. Uh, wonderful, wonderful country. Have you guys, have you guys heard that actually in, uh, Japan, it is tradition to have your Christmas dinner at KFC. Yeah. And KFC markets.

The hell out of that. Wow. Yeah, that was, yeah, that was the reason why it's awesome. It's a very interesting reason why, uh, Apparently, guys like businessmen who would be there working over the holiday season, businessmen from the West, from U.S. or Britain, Christmas would come around, or Thanksgiving, and they would want to celebrate with... With other guys who are from out of town.

Of the non-Asian persuasion. But they can never find the traditional turkey dinner because turkey isn't eaten in Japan because the bird is so big. And Japanese tend to live in smaller houses and their ovens are always small too. So even if they had turkeys, they'd Nobody really had an oven big enough to fit it. What an extravagance.

So whenever these Westerners would get together and celebrate Christmas, they would try to find a turkey dinner. The closest thing they could find was chicken. And the closest thing they could find that would actually sell it on that night was KFC. And so some very astute KFC managers in Tokyo began to notice that a lot of these guys would come and they would talk about how, yeah, we're going to celebrate Christmas with this. And they got this great idea.

So now it's marketed every year. It's like this giant TV campaign, the kernel for Christmas or something like that. Yeah, but over there, there's no mashed potatoes or gravy. Well, they're doing that. But you can order wine with your bucket meal.

Oh, nice. And they do have sweet potatoes. So, you know, you get your wine, your sweet potatoes, and your fried chicken. It's so exciting. Santa Claus will start to look like the Colonel.

That's awesome. He has the Colonel. He kind of does anyway. Santa wishes he was as cool as the Colonel. Well, I think that's tied to, I think just that, like the commercializing of it is what you're saying.

I think that is also why Halloween kind of skated by as long as it did. And we're saying it didn't get, you know, there weren't as many people up in arms about, you know, celebrating Halloween when they were unhappy. With the commercialization of Christmas. And I think that's what it was because, They've been complaining about that for most of this century. Easily since the 50s, they've been complaining about how commercial Christmas was becoming and how big a deal that was and how it.

Was all tied up in the money. Keep it out of school. Where Halloween, you just go buy a bag of candy. Nobody spent a lot of money. Until the 90s, nobody spent a lot of money on Halloween.

It's only in these. Last 20 years or so that you see... the Halloween stores pop up, but you also see the whole culture that's built around it. Yeah, what's something like a little rural, you know, small-town neighborhood thing to suddenly it's like this national embrace? You would think that it would be a holiday that you got the day off. Almost.

And it's not. I think also possibly part of what's been fueling this explosion in Halloween, you know, you mentioned it's kind of a rural thing and sort of a neighborhood at celebrations like everyone knew everybody that was you know handing out candy and i almost feel like the tradition halloween used to be that you wear that crappy costume that your grandma made for you and you look like a dork and you wander around and and the people that you know give you candy and ask you who darth vader is and you're like yeah whatever and go home. I would pull off my buttons. But over the years, it seems to me that horror has become a bigger... It's a big business.

Yeah, it's become a huge industry in America. It's that same time period. The 80s hit a horror boom, and it's never really stopped. It's gotten bigger every year. Right, and not only has it hit a horror boom, but also the acceptance of a level of horror has increased more and more.

It used to be that people were up in arms about depictions of sexuality in gothic hammer horror flicks back in the 70s. And then by the 80s, like, you got Jason and Freddy, like, cleaving people in twain on the screen. And then in the 90s, you have the kids being like, this is totally fine for me to watch. Don't you censor me, Mom. And then by now, you have, you know, chain stores and the enormous haunted house business and all this, you know, this economy of fear, you know, that's all over the country.

And I guess I... I see it all connected. I see Halloween connected to the slasher movies and the nostalgia of the slasher movies, and I see. That connected to. I almost.

Kind of wonder how much that's linked to just VHS becoming so accessible. Because I'd imagine VHS was a tremendous boon just to the horror industry in general, because you had a lot of straight-to-VHS horror films, and all these horror films, it's like suddenly it might have You could almost wonder how much was Halloween influenced by VHS in a ridiculously indirect way. Accessibility is a big key. And cable television, too. There's a lot of horror that I saw.

And don't forget about the cult aspects of it. For instance, if you ever... It was fascinating to me. I was in a Barnes & Noble the other day, and there's... five or six copies of the best of H.P. Lovecraft floating around.

People are seemingly publishing horror anthologies and everything like that at a much greater rate as well. I think a lot of it is tied to the movies, though. I think you do see that big bulk of 80s slashers that came along, and that's almost the turning point. From that point on, horror becomes. it just infiltrates itself into the pop culture, and you never see it back off. And then you also get, by the time you get to the 90s and into the 2000s, it becomes that industry.

It kind of became. The fact that we're at, you know, every month I'm at a horror convention now. You know, it's like you couldn't do that in the 60s. I wonder if that's also why the sexuality has gone up, because in the 80s you couldn't have a horror film without boobies. That's part of it.

I think that also infiltrated into the pop culture at that point. It's like there was a shift from the classic monster to this new 80s monster instead of the mummy and the vampire and the Frankenstein. It was Jason. It was Freddy. It was the.

Horror icon to the horror director. In the 80s. In that era, yeah. We were still running off classic monsters when it came to costume fodder when I was a kid. This is like in the 70s.

So we still had Wolfman, Mummy, Frankenstein, vampires. And then with the 80s, you came along with sort of the modern icons of the killers. Was there ever. Which, that, I mean, that's also influenced just by, like, the Giallo films. It's like, you know, basically the Giallos were almost the Italians' answer to Hitchcock.

And then just when that sort of bounced back to the U.S., it's like, you know, essentially all those Giallo films, it's like watching a Hitchcock film, but they've upped it on, like, the sex and the violence. And then so when the Americans started seeing these imports, you know, coming from, like, Fulci or Argento or Bava and them, it's just they mostly saw... the sex and violence aspect, and I think that really influenced. It just took that. See, because, I mean, everybody kind of hails Carpenter as, you know, having, like, the first slasher film, but, I mean, you could look at Torso, which proceeded about a few years, and, like, that's... It's essentially the same basic thing.

It took that long to filter back because it probably was really hard to convince your mom you wanted to dress up like Norman Bates. I thought, Mom, can I borrow one of your dresses? I have a kind of a broader theory about this phenomena. I've been thinking about it a lot because I've, you know, over the last... Five years I've really gotten into pulp literature from the 30s and 40s.

And I've become kind of convinced that there's this phenomenon that we're seeing throughout– I almost want to call it the genrefication of a lot of fantastic American– or I should just say fantastic literary and film genres. It's like basically what we're seeing is, I think– In the 30s, if you read weird tales, astounding tales of science fiction and fantasy, actually you see it in episodes of The Twilight Zone. The Twilight Zone is horror, it is science fiction, it is fantasy, it is all these things. And they were all kind of viewed as one and the same sort of fantastic tale. Likewise, if you read H.P.

Lovecraft back in the day, you also read Robert E. Howard, you also read Abraham Merritt. In other words, it was this whole sort of congealing of what we now view as distinct genres. And then as that has expanded, it's like now we have this idea of this horror thing that is totally separate from this fantasy thing. Or maybe there's some cool crossover potential or something.

But they're very compartmentalized. Yeah, there's a much stronger sense of a compartment. And then there's that compartment celebrating itself as a compartment. Like we're celebrating horror here. We're not going to talk about science fiction.

We're not going to talk about fantasy. We're just going to talk about guys with knives killing busty cheerleaders. Because that's what's scary, apparently. And yet that's okay, but the little pedophile again, that gets people there. You got your costume all set.

Up this year. Oh, it's true, because pulp is really the father of modern popular culture. Everything started in the pulps. The pulps evolved into the comics, and the comics evolved into what we all celebrate constantly now. It took a long time, but it all unfolded in the movies and television.

It all roots back to Pulp Fiction. Starts with Poe, too. I mean, you look at how much everything sort of spiraled off of what he was doing. Well, and you look at his stories. Again, it's another example.

Like, are they fantasy? Are they horror? It crosses over. The instructions. There's science fiction in it.

But that's the language that we're using. We're saying it crosses over. But he was like the first sort of author of the fantastic in America to get cred. Yeah. You know, he was considered literature.

Yeah. And so based on that, other people felt brave enough to come forward and start writing some other things. So, yeah. This is slightly off topic. What's this urban legend or story or whatever?

There's a guy who comes to Edgar Allan Poe's grave. Is it every Halloween or on his birthday? There's some mysterious guy who comes. And leaves the flowers. That went on for decades and decades.

What was that all about? Maybe something. Well, I think it. Was probably a succession of people who did it. But they would come to the graveyard on his birthday or anniversary of his death, and they'd always leave like a rose or something.

But there was always one guy. They said there was one guy. There were never two guys with the same idea who came with him to the fight. I thought I was doing it this year. I don't think you can even get.

To Edgar Allan Poe's grave anymore. Oh, yeah? I don't think so. Well, I think that was the whole thing behind it. Oh, it was sneaking there.

Have you ever been to Lovecraft's grave? No. No, I haven't, in Providence. Lovecraft's grave in Providence is astounding. It's like this huge, you know, it's just a nice little plot, the Lovecraft family, and his simple tombstone says, I am Providence.

But there's this big old tree, and every heavy metal fan in the world has come and inscribed all the elder symbols in this tree. You go to that cemetery now, and they're like. They know where you're going. They just look at your black t-shirt. And the tree is just covered with this stuff.

And it's like, it's kind of cool, but it's a bunch of Iron Maiden fans mostly who have gone in and carved up the trees. Yeah, it kind of reminds me of, I grew up actually just down the street from Robert Johnson's grave in the Delta. Which one? Because there's like three of them. The real one.

The real one? No, no. There are seriously like three graves. I know. I know.

No, I grew up next to the one where they've authenticated it, apparently. Really? Yeah. Well, it's outside of a Baptist church in Greenwood, Mississippi, and basically they met an old woman. who was like, oh, no, no, they buried Robert Johnson here. And they were like, how do you know that?

It's like, well, because I remember when I was a kid bringing lemonade out to the men who were burying a dead blues man and they did DNA testing. But there were hundreds of blues men. Dying all over the place. Well, it turns out the blues was rather endemic in a completely segregated and oppressed society. But regardless, though, that grave is kind of interesting because you find people, they will leave the half-empty whiskey bottles and the little...

The little unrolled cigarettes with tobacco there is like a voodoo offering and tons of guitar picks and things like that. So. The other two sites, they actually had markers. Have they taken those out? No, no, no.

They're still there. They're still good for business. No one's going to say, oh, no, Robert Johnson didn't come here. You should totally tell people Robert Johnson is buried here. But in fairness, there are so many mysteries about that guy's life.

We don't really know how he died. Maybe he was stabbed. Maybe he was poisoned. Maybe the devil took him. Does everyone know who we're talking about, by the way?

I don't know. I like that one. There was a really good script years ago that Scorsese was going to actually do as a film called Love in Vain. It actually got published as a paperback. It's called Crossroads.

It's the true story of what went down. You know what happens when Hollywood gets hold of a story. That's right. As long as you get your eye on a kid. Love in vain.

Love in vain. Yeah, but no. Creepy. Yeah, I love the icon tombstones. Okay, kids, we are on a roll here.

I love when we get into these interesting conversations and we kind of get on a roll and, and I like where it's going. So I want to keep it going. So while we're hanging out in the old graveyard, part of. The discussion, uh, we'll. Wrap up this episode, but we're not done yet.

We'll actually be back next week with more Halloween talk and just how it's all become tied to the classic movie monsters. We all know. So we'll leave you here in the graveyard. You can leave a rose on Edgar Allen Poe's grave or sit a bottle of whiskey on one of Robert Johnson's graves. And, uh, Maybe you should.

Go hang out near the Lovecraft tree, you know. You'll notice I was recently over there, and you'll see a big movie meltdown rules carved into the tree. So, I mean, you know, feel free to hang out there. But while you're here, we're going to leave you with an appropriate song entitled Graveyard Rock from Tarantula Ghoul. And Her Gravediggers.

Otherwise, we will return next week. Same geek time, same geek feed. Stay creepy. Tired of living, want to die? Well, here's a real good reason why.

Graveyard Rock. Graveyard Rock. It all begins about 12 o'clock when the graves all open and we start to rock. Graveyard Rock. It's who?

Graveyard Rock. It's a graveyard. Graveyard Rock. Everybody digs a graveyard rock. Every night is just like Halloween.

Let's rock and roll this graveyard scene. Graveyard rock. It's groove. Graveyard rock. It's a graveyard.

Graveyard rock. Everybody takes a graveyard rock. ¶ Never had such fun since the day I died ¶ When they. Pumped me full of formaldehyde ¶ Graveyard rock ¶ Graveyard rock ¶ It's a. Graveyard ¶ Graveyard rock ¶ Everybody digs a graveyard rock. ¶ Not a soul is chasing everybody's there Rock, rock, rockin' in the cool light, yeah Graveyard Rock Graveyard Rock Graveyard. Rock Everybody take the graveyard rock.

Let's rock. The party's over, boys. So close those coffin lids. I ate a churro off my floorboard. That's how much I have a problem with sugar.

That's really sad. That's what that is. On the way here, I was eating a taco, and I almost dropped my taco. And I almost hit a truck. Oh, no.

Because I'm in priorities. Right. You don't want lettuce on your upholstery. No. Well, I don't care about my upholstery, but I don't want my taco in the floor.

You can eat a churro off the floor, but you can't eat a taco off the floor. Hey, speak for yourself. No. I hope you haven't taken my stories too seriously. Talk hard!

Woo-hoo-hoo!