I have no soul. I'm beyond the pale. I'm one of the living dead!

Well, another Halloween has come and gone and once again I'm compelled to chronicle the ups and downs of this year's spooky season. I like doing these, even if just for myself, as it gives future me a window into the Halloweens of yesteryear.

On paper it was a banner year! I had quite the checklist and I was able to hit pretty well everything on it, but I will admit a severe case of burnout around mid-October. It wasn't necessarily that I was Halloweened out or anything like that, but my "real life" got intensely busy around late-September and early- to mid-October and it made it a little tough to savour the season.

I also made the decision in early September to start my Stranger Things rewatch in anticipation for the final season dropping in November, which ended up dominating my TV time. I think it mostly works as a Halloween-y show (season 2 even takes place at Halloween), but as a result I didn't get as many movies or video games in as I usually do. I'm not sad about it, but I do feel like my Letterboxd took a hit as a result.

With that out of the way, let's get to the good stuff!

Wednesday's Meal of Misfortune at Wendy's

This was a great way to kick off the Halloween season! Of course, this was meant to coincide with Netflix dropping the second season of the hit show, Wednesday, but the synergy with that show's release in the late days of summer gave us Autumn people something to look forward to very early on.

It didn't hurt that the food was pretty great! I mean the nuggets were just regular Wendy's fare, but the sauces looked and tasted pretty great, too. And the Frosty also looked amazing. We're not done with Wendy's, though! We'll circle back later.

Burger King Scooby Doo Kids Meal

Burger King, not to be outdone at Halloween, also kicked things off pretty early with a banger kids meal featuring the Scooby gang in their Halloween costumes! 

I find BK does this sort of thing; they take dormant franchises and give them very random promotions. Last year they famously did an Addams's Family meal (which featured what I think was their best Halloween sandwich, the Wednesday Whopper), but earlier this year they also did a Naruto meal out of the blue. With no new Scooby movie or show released this year this promo may seem misplaced, but Scooby-Doo and Halloween go hand-in-hand, so I thought it was very cool.

My kids who love the occasional BK run actually couldn't be arsed to go there this season, so I only got to see one of the toys, but I got this cool Daphne dressed as a purple cat! 

Obligatory Cereal Post

I'd be remiss not to bring up this year's cereal fare, such as it was. I must say, it was pretty lackluster, but that is becoming the norm. The one big highlight was that we finally got a new Count Chucula box here in Canada! We've been rocking the same box with the cut-out mask on the back for something like 12 years, but this year we were on par with the US and got the Jim Henson-inspired box art. I've already written all about this, so I won't say any more, but it was definitely a highlight.

Outside of that, we did get Demogorgon Crunch, which was pretty cool! It tasted just like French Toast Crunch with some marbits thrown in, but it was colourful and the box was amazing.

I was hoping we'd get the new Enid cereal from Wednesday, but alas no dice. It's weird, because we've actually had Wednesday cereal here in Canada ever since it was released last year. I got the impression it was only available seasonally in the US, but it never left store shelves here, it's that big of a hit. I figured the Enid cereal would be a no-brainer, but what do I know! I'm sure we'll get it next season.

Coffee Straight from the Pumpkin Patch

Of course there were many delicious pumpkin-flavoured coffees to be had this year. This all goes without saying, but I do bring it up, because there were some new offerings.

McDonald's dropped a pumpkin spice cold brew, which was pretty good I must say. It didn't have me thirsting for more, but it was something to fun to grab one afternoon.

Tim Horton's brought their pumpkin spice cold brew back this year, which was very happy about. It might seem weird, but last year - at least here in Canada - they didn't have it available. I think they had some promo going on at the time and let that replace their usual Autumn releases. My one gripe is that this year they had a pumpkin-infused cold foam on top, which sounds like a no-brainer, but I found to be a bit much. IMO, it actually taste better without the foam. I think when they first introduced their pumpkin spice cold brew it actually had a chocolate cold foam, which was deadly, but alas not this year.

As per usual, the Starbucks pumpkin frap was amazing. #BasicBitch

And since I'm talking coffee, this a good enough place to gush some more about these stacking Peanuts Halloween coffee mugs I scored at Home Sense this year. Again, I already mentioned these in an earlier post, but I'm just obsessed. They weren't the Charlie Brown Halloween themed cups I wanted, but they were the Charlie Brown Halloween themed cups I needed.

Halloween Bubbly

Again, not a lot to write about in the way of spooky soda this year, but it's tradition.

In Canada, we were treated to what I assume will be one last year of Mountain Dew VooDEW. As we've seen Mountain Dew phase out VooDEW in lieu of an actual candy collab with Trolli this year, I kind've doubt we'll continue to see VooDEW even though it's only been dropped up North twice. This is also judging by the fact that you can still find tons of the stuff at every corner store around here. I don't think it sold quite to expectation. As a guy who has been buying imported VooDEW for years, it certainly didn't knock my socks off. It was the 2023 US version, which tastes like Sour Patch Kids.

Outside of that, Fanta put a big push on again this year. I personally miss WTFanta!? but I can't complain about a fruit punch flavoured pop based on Child's Play! It was much better than last year's Beetlejuice apple-flavoured offering. They also did a bunch of other horror-themed labels, like Michael Myers and Freddy Fazbear.

I'll throw this in here, even though it's not technically soda pop, but Alani Nu had some bangers this year, in the form of Witch's Brew and Pumpkin Cream energy drinks. While I liked the Witch's Brew right away, it took me a while to appreciate the Pumpkin Cream variety. I eventually realized that they tasted surprisingly like a Tiger Pop sucker, which somehow mentally made them more palatable? I dunno, I'm weird.

Alas, as of writing this I have yet to find a Trolli Mountain Dew at my import store. It's not uncommon for me to find them months later, during the Christmas season, so when I do I'll make sure to post it on my socials.

KitKat Halloween

This was a fun one that only hit Canada this year: KitKat Scary Friends!

We've actually been getting the KitKat vampire here the last few years, which I believe dropped in the US this season. The Scary Friends are slightly smaller, but feature a vampire, Frankenstein's monster, a witch, a mummy, and an adorable bat.

As much as I enjoyed these, especially as an early seasonal drop, I noticed that Nestle quietly retired their full size Halloween bars this year. I don't think they were at thing outside of Canada, but each year Nestle would sell their usual bars, but with cool Halloween packaging complete with cute names, like Coffin Crisp instead of Coffee Crisp, Scaries instead of Smarties, and ScAero... you get the idea.

Hopefully they'll be back in time to come, but for now KitKat Scary Friends was a nice swap.

Oh, and since this won't fit anywhere else, we also got more Reese Halloween Shapes this year. We've only ever had Reese Pumpkins before, so it was fun to get amorphous blobs that somewhat resemble bats and ghosts, as well.

BK's Halloween Extravaganza

As if a Scooby-Doo Halloween kids meal wasn't enough, Burger King said to the other fast food burger joints "hold my beer" and went hog wild this season. Not only did they do a bright orange Jack-o-lantern Whopper and mummy-themed mozza sticks, but they had chicken nuggets that were shaped like vampire fangs that you could dip in blood-coloured sauce. Honestly, this didn't blow open the season the way I thought it would. I feel like this should've been the most talked about item of 2025.

I got to enjoy the Whopper, which was just another sandwich, but the nuclear orange bun was pretty clutch. Unfortunately, we didn't get the vampire nuggets here in Canada, which was a major bummer, but I'm hopeful we'll see this menu again next year.

Bucket-geddon

I'm not done talking about Burger King, though! This year pretty much every company decided to drop a Halloween bucket, and BK was no exception. All of their Halloween-themed stuff this year had this cool retro "let's all go to the lobby" look to it, which is what adorned their bucket. I thought it was pretty cool and really stood out amongst all the others.

I actually decided to abstain from buckets this season, both because I'm kinda bucketed out and also because I think if I brought any more them into my house my wife might throw me out.

Some highlights this year included Home Depot (yes, Home Depot), Dunkin' Donuts Munchkins, and - one of my favourites - Tim Hortons. The Timmies one was especially difficult to ignore as this year it was covered in black and purple cats. Also, they must've expected a bigger turnout, because my Timmies had plenty of buckets to go around well into late-October.

Of course the king of the Halloween bucket, the Boo Bucket from McDonald's, was back this year. They had some new, but very familiar, buckets that looked almost exactly the same as those from prior years, but included new black cat and red zombie variants, which I must say were enticing.

Funny side story time: while I was mostly successful at staving off my bucket addiction this season, one morning while I was checking the mail I noticed that someone had thrown garbage all over my lawn. I was understandably annoyed at first, but then I realized that it was actually a black cat Boo Bucket! So, like any lost kitten, I cleaned it up and gave it a home.

Out There Walmart Edition

For me personally, this honestly might've been the highlight of the whole damn season. I love the WNUF Halloween Special and it's quickly become one of my must-watch Halloween movies every year. A few years back Chris LaMartina, the director of WNUF, dropped a sequel, the Out There Halloween Mega Tape. Of course, I wanted to watch it immediately, but with shipping and duties combined with the American exchange rate, it was just too expensive to have shipped to Canada.

A few weeks into the Halloween season I started hearing word of a WNUF/Out There Blu-ray 2-pack hitting Walmart shelves from Terror-Vision so I reached out to Brad Henderson (acquisitions for Terror-Vision) to see if it was dropping in Canada. I was surprised when he said that a very small number of discs would be hitting Canadian Walmarts, and so the hunt was on.

I honestly figured there was no chance I'd see it in Halifax and that most of the sets would go to Ontario, but I figured dropping into some of the local Walmarts around me as I was running other errands wouldn't hurt. After a few weeks of checking here and there, I figured there was no chance I was getting it. One day while I was doing a Spirit run I popped into a Walmart Supercentre and was shocked to find they no longer carried any movies whatsoever! I had pretty well lost hope, but I checked out my nearest Walmart one last time and was shocked to find a single copy of the Blu-ray set! I practically danced out of the store.

So I finally got to watch the movie, which I loved - it will take a few more viewings to know how I rank it against the original, but this one heavily features aliens and UFO specials from the 90s, which is my bread and butter, so I can see it becoming a serious favourite.

Frosty Fright's at Wendy's

And finally, the last item on my list is actually the last Halloween-themed promo I got to partake of this year: Frosty Frights!

These dropped in the US last year, but didn't grace Canada. I was pretty bummed at the time, but when I heard they were coming back this year I thought Wendy's would for sure bring them to the North.

While I saw them all over my socials from US friends, I kept coming up with bupkis at my local Wendy's, so I'd given up hope. Then the week of Halloween itself, Wendy's Canada came out of nowhere with one last trick or treat and dropped Frosty Frights!

As a guy who had - as I previously mentioned - case of Halloweenitis, this was just what I needed! And even cooler was that I actually scored a rare neon variant!

Another Halloween in the Books

And that's it for Halloween 2025! I'm sure I missed a ton of stuff, but honestly it was hard to keep up this year. If you're a brand whore and promo addict like myself then you had your work cut out for you.

I didn't actually get to do a lot of the seasonal trips and events that I usually enjoy this year, like hay rides, corn mazes, apple picking, etc. It was a bad year for crops in Nova Scotia, as we suffered a terrible drought this summer. Also things just got crazy around here with the kids getting back into school and their many different activities and sports that a lot slipped through my fingers.

So, I was glad to have all these different junk food promos to keep me busy on my lunch breaks or the occasional trip to Spirit Halloween for a seasonal infusion.

How was your Halloween? Did it meet your expectations? As usual, I'd love to hear your thoughts! You can drop a comment on this post or on my Bluesky and Insta.

Happy Halloween!

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Sleep well, Mr. Harker.

You'll recall that two weeks ago I gave you the latest low-down on Turner Classic Movies horror programming for 2025. As promised, I'm back with the remainder of their Halloween schedule for the rest of the month!

Compose yourself, please.

I had the audacity to complain that the horror scheduling was slight for the first two weeks of October, but as usual TCM has made me look completely foolish as the last two weeks of October are absolutely jammed with spooky movies.

In all of its gaudy glory, here is what you can find on TCM from October 17th onward! First we'll take a look at the 17th to the 27th.

There are some very interesting blocks in here. There's a double feature of Tod Browning movies, Mark of the Vampire and The Devil Doll on October 17th and then a French horror double feature, which includes The Hypnotic Eye and Eyes Without a Face on the 18th. The 18th rounds out with yet another must-see double feature of Universal's Frankenstein followed by Hammer's remake The Curse of Frankenstein.

Early in the morning on the 19th (set your PVR!) there's screenings of Val Lewton's The Curse of the Cat People and Isle of the Dead, followed by the documentary Val Lewton: The Man in the Shadows. The night of the 19th rounds out with a Hitchcock combo of Vertigo and The Birds.

I lamented the lack of Hammer in the schedule in the last post, but they are represented quite well this month. Starting at 6 AM ET on the 20th is a Hammer block that runs for 12+ hours, beginning with the 1959 remake of The Mummy and culminating with 1961's Scream of Fear. All of these movies are standouts, but if you want to see what I think is the most batshit crazy of the Hammer filmography, check out The Devil's Bride at 2:45 PM ET. I'm not sure why they listed it under that title, but it's also know as The Devil Rides Out, a Christopher Lee versus Satan flick that doesn't disappoint.

On the 21st there's a great Karloff/Lugosi block kicking off with The Black Cat (the best to feature the two actors, IMO) at 8:00 PM ET and closing off with The Invisible Ray at 12:30 AM ET on the 22nd.

That's not all for the 22nd, where we're treated to a giant monster block beginning at 7:30 AM ET with a Toho triple feature, including Ebirah, Horror of the Deep, The War of the Gargantuas, and Destroy All Monsters! and culminating later in the afternoon with Gojira at 4:45 PM ET.

The next few days feature a spread of horror thrillers, mostly from the 60s. Standouts include, Rosemary's Baby, Dead Ringer, and Psycho. I'd be remiss not to bring up Scanners and Carnival of Souls are in there, as well.

We're in the endgame now...

Kicking off  the morning of October 28th is a Lon Chaney block, comprised of his two most famous performances, The Hunchback of Notre Dame and The Phantom of the Opera. Sandwiched in between the two silent films is a documentary about the man himself, Lon Chaney: A Thousand Faces.

For the rest of the 28th and 30th (I guess they decided to take the 29th off?) there's a smattering of films that don't really appear to have any theme, like Mark of the Vampire, The Swarm, Two on a Guillotine, etc. 

There's a Dracula/Frankenstein Hammer double feature on the 30th starting at 1 PM ET, which is followed by an RKO Jacques Tourneur block featuring The Leopard Man, I Walked with a Zombie, Cat People, and Curse of the Demon. Inexplicably, Nightmare is sandwiched in the middle of it.

And that brings us to the big day itself, Halloween!

Things start off in the earliest of hours with a small pre-code horror block that includes Mystery of the Wax Museum and Frederic March in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (the creepiest version, if you ask me). This is followed by a Vincent Price double feature, House of Wax and The Bat.

Throughout the afternoon and into the evening it's the Universal monsters who have the spotlight, starting with The Invisible Man at 1 PM ET and running right up until primetime with Bride of Frankenstein.

I think it's kinda weird, but right in the primetime slot on Halloween, TCM is playing two neo-noir thrillers, In Cold Blood and Who Killed Teddy Bear. I think it's a buzzkill, honestly. If they closed off their horror films for the year with Bride of Frankenstein, I think I could understand, but right after Who Killed Teddy Bear they continue with some more horror heavy-hitters.

For the late night crowd (Halloween is on a Friday this year, after all) there's a cult classic block, starting with Night of the Living Dead at 12:30 AM ET and ending with Vampyr at 7 AM ET.

And there you have it! That's Turner Classic's Halloween/horror programming for the rest of the month. I think it's a nice mix this year. As expected, Hammer and Universal are majorly represented, but I think there are lots of interesting films thrown into the mix, as well. I for one am looking forward to the Toho kaiju movies, that Jacque Tourneur block, and I think falling asleep to Night of the Living Dead on Halloween night might just be the perfect way to round out the season.

Let me know if you'll be catching any of TCM's horror flicks this year! Do you still have cable or a PVR? Or do you think broadcast TV is totally dead and I should just shut up? I'm interested to hear your thoughts.

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Darling, the only ghoul in the house is you!

If for no other reason than keeping the custom alive, I figured a good way to kick off October 1st is with my annual breakdown of the spooky happenings on Turner Classic Movies!

I know most folks don't read these posts and couldn't care less, but I still like to hold onto the belief that there's something special about traditional, broadcast TV and I think it's pretty cool that during the month of October, TCM breaks out the bats and cobwebs.

As of writing this, I can only see the schedule up to October 13th. I should be able to see a little further into the month, but TCM.com has been down a lot lately and I currently can't bring up the site. Anyway, here's what we have to look forward to so far. Get ready for my expert spreadsheet skills!

I hate to say it, but there isn't that much to report about in the first half of the month. It opens tomorrow night with a "of the Damned" marathon, which is pretty cool. After that there's a random smattering, which does include Poltergeist.

On the 4th and 5th, there are some horror science fiction flicks including The Brain That Wouldn't Die. Soylent Green might be a stretch, but I'm counting it on account of "kinda cannibalism". There's a nice little Hitchcock double-feature to round out the 5th, too, featuring Rear Window and Spellbound.

It's a bit of a dog's breakfast after that, but there are some heavy-hitters like The Haunting, Cat People, and House on Haunted Hill. The 13th also notably has Haxan, which although it's a silent film from the 20s hold's up and is creepy AF.

The lack of Universal and Hammer flicks is a little surprising, but hopefully TCM is just holding their fire for later in the month.

That's all there is to report so far! Hopefully I'll remember to post another update before October 13th with the rest of the month's offerings, so you can tune in or set up your PVR... you know, supposing you still have a cable package!

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Have you come to sing pumpkin carols?

I was going to write a very long-winded, multi-post skeet on Bluesky the other day when I realized, what the hell am I doing? I have this whole blog I never use! So here it is.

I've been finding it difficult to hold that autumn spirit the last few weeks. On the rare occasion that I have enjoyed it, I've had to drag it out of me kicking and screaming. I usually take a day to myself every fall as a sort of Halloween pilgrimage, so I thought that might just be the ticket.

As usual, I kicked things off with a million calorie pumpkin spice Frappuccino from Starbucks. I get exactly two drinks from Starbucks every year. One of these and a peppermint mocha around Christmas, so I allowed myself the luxury.

With my seasonal drink in hand, I decided to try one last time to get a box of Count Chocula. I don't want to bore you with the same schtick as usual, but over the last few years we're lucky to even get Count Chocula here in Atlantic Canada. Occasionally you'll see Franken Berry, last year we actually got Carmella Creeper, and I'm told that once upon a time Boo Berry graced this land, but alas I've never found it myself. We did get our own version of Monster Mash a few years back with Boo Berry in it, but that didn't really scratch the itch.

And the real truth I like to keep buried deep down inside myself is that I really don't like fruit-flavoured cereals, so I'd probably only actually eat Count Chocula anyway, but it's the principle of the thing! I want that Boo Berry!

Anyway, the thing to write home about in 2025 is that General Mills finally changed the damn Count Chocula box. Although my American friends have enjoyed many varied packaging and varieties of Monster Cereals over the years, we've had the exact same box with the cut-out mask since 2014.

After going on failed mission after failed mission to find any sort of Halloween cereal over the last couple of weeks, I finally spied a box of Chocula at the very back of a local grocery store and I was elated to see the Jim Henson box art!

I've been on a diet lately (disregard that giant boat-load of sugar I showed you above) so I likely won't actually eat any of the Count Chocula, but my kids love it and I love the chase.

Keeping that momentum, I figured it was nigh time I hit Halloween mecca... Spirit Halloween! Here's the obligatory pic of the store, jammed in between CAA and The Shoe Company, in the dead husk of an old Roots store. Just like nature intended.

As is usual, Spirit Halloween is a serious infusion of the holiday spirit and I really enjoyed my time walking around the store, but I must say I wasn't nuts about this year's location. The last few years they've been in a space like two doors down from this, which is much more roomy. It was so big, it actually allowed for their little "haunt within the store" setups.

There wasn't any of that in this location. They did their best to setup some of the jump scare animatronics in the middle of the shop, which was a nice touch, but it felt a bit cramped. Rumour is that we're getting a Dollar Tree where Spirit has been located the last few years, which would explain it having to move down the road.

I took about a billion pictures in the store, mostly of kids costumes to aid my children in figuring out what they want to be for Halloween this year, so I'll spare you those.

The highlights were this light up skull Pumpkin Peeper, which I had to buy on the spot - I can't wait to get that bad boy into a jack-o-lantern - and this E.T. mask that scared the ever-lovin' shit out of me as I was browsing their sea of masks. His glossy, blue, dead stare chills me even now.

After that, I figured it was time to hit up HomeSense. If you're not familiar with that store, it's because in the US it's called HomeGoods. I've been stopping by every now and then since August, when everybody and their dog started posting pictures of those sweet Charlie Brown Halloween mugs (image  credit to Trash Witch on Bluesky, who I believe was the first person I saw to get the mug), that features the gang at Violet's Halloween party.

For many years, I purchased myself a new Halloween mug on my pilgrimage, but in the last few I've stopped because I just had too many damn coffee cups, but I decided I'd come out of retirement for this bad boy.

But alas, after several trips it became clear to me that we wouldn't be getting that mug in my area. Now that's not to say there was any lack of Peanuts-themed Halloween stuff there. If anything, the store was overflowing with it.

As I was about to leave empty-handed yet again, I saw this out of the corner of my eye.

La pièce de résistance! Feast your eyes on this incredible set of stacked cups, depicting the opening sequence of It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown! This picture doesn't do them justice, they look amazing and I was so excited to find them.

We are having my wife's family over for Thanksgiving this year, so I'm trying to hold off on breaking them out until then, but once I do I hope you'll be ready for my entire Bluesky and Instagram feeds to become a dedication to these four mugs and these four mugs alone.

Riding on that high I decided it was time to pack it in and grab some lunch. I took a meandering way home, while I listened to old episodes of the Purple Stuff Podcast (also an important part of the yearly pilgrimage) and I found myself near a Burger King.

I had seen several posts online of folks with those Scooby-Doo kids meal toys and I figured I'd pop in and check if they had them, so I could take my kids at a later date. Sure enough they did!

Even though I'd obliterated my daily calorie count with that gargantuan frap at breakfast, I decided I couldn't leave without getting a kid's meal, so I snagged one and I scored a Daphne. She looks very cozy with the rest of the toys that adorn the old desk TV.

And there you have it! A very successful Halloween pilgrimage, which was just what I needed to get into the Halloween spirit. I still have lots of other family activities to do in the coming weeks that will just amplify my mood, but I feel like this solo adventure is always a good kick-off.

How about you? Do you have any sort of Halloween/autumn traditions you partake in every year that are just for you? Feel free to reach out on my socials and let me know!

I hope you're having a great season so far and here's to many more spooky adventures to come!

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A false and commercial festival, devoutly to be ignored.

I've mentioned this in the last few months, but I've been trying to get back into media archival.

A few years back I scored a backup VCR for free (my current main unit, actually) and the guy threw in a bunch of tapes he had kicking around with it.

One of those tapes was a Maxell 6-Hour T-120 that I immediately wanted to peruse. I quickly discovered it contained a TV recording of A Christmas Carol, featuring George C. Scott as Ebenezer Scrooge. It aired December 1997 on CBC.

Is it possible to get high on old Christmastime TV bumpers?

I desperately wanted to mine the tape for any and all Christmas commercials that it might contain, but like many of my personal projects it was pushed to the background for a few years.

I finished a big assignment at work recently, which freed up some of my time, so I decided it was nigh time to digitize that tape!

A quick note on the George C. Scott version of A Christmas Carol - it's a decent movie, but a little darker than some of the other versions you might come across. You can find it on a lot of streamers and it often airs on TV this time of year. It's worth a viewing if you wanted to switch it up from your usual favourite.

Now, with that out of the way, let's talk about some of the classic commercials that aired alongside the film, back in '97! Honestly, there were so many good commercials on this tape, so I'm likely to return to this well later in the season. For now, let's stick with five (but really six or seven).

THAT Kellogg's Cornflakes Commercial

Oh, you know the one. This juggernaut of an ad started airing in 1990 and I'm fairly certain it ran, although edited slightly here and there, until the early 2000s. It's honestly right up there with the Hershey Kisses ad, which I'm fairly certain is still airing to this day.

The warm, earthy tones, dulcet music, soft-spoken actors, and perfectly lit scenery depict the ideal Christmas. Also, their kid-logic tracks: after a night filled with cookies and trying to squeeze down chimneys, wouldn't Santa like a brief reprieve and enjoy some healthy cereal? Makes sense to me.

I know this commercial has been encoded and uploaded about a million times on the web, but hey - what's one more?

Connect 4 and Guess Who

Alright, it's already time to cheat and break my own rules!

Not only am I including two commercials here, but neither are actually Christmas ads. So why are they on the list?

As I watched this tape, one of the things I had the hardest time grasping was it's recording date; December of 1997. The late-90s had a very distinct feel on TV. Everything had to be edgy and slightly obtuse to catch our attentions. Most of the commercials on this tape felt so early-90s.

And it's because the majority of them, much like the aforementioned Kellogg's ad, aired for like a decade. These days ad campaigns or mostly just related to focused ads on social media and YouTube and they completely disappear from social consciousness in a matter of minutes. Back in the 90s, 30-second ads on TV were the prime way to get a potential customer's attention and the companies that produced these ads went for broke.

In the case of these two commercials for Guess Who and Connect 4, there is no question in my mind that if you were a frequent TV watcher from 1990 to 2000 you have them emblazoned in your brain.

Throughout the duration of this tape, they played on almost every ad-break, back-to-back. It must've been a big year for Milton Bradley or interest in these games was lacking and they decided to throw big money at the problem. I can't speak for everyone, but I can say that it worked on me, because I wanted and owned both of these games as a kid (I was especially a fan of Guess Who) and I received them both as Christmas gifts, so I'm adding them to this list. If you don't like it... well I guess I'm sorry then? (Please keep reading my blog)

Disney Home Video

How's that for wholesome?

This is a commercial that distinctly feels like something from the early-90s, but I know for an absolute fact that it's from 1997, because not only is Disney hocking their other classic movies on videocassette, but they took this opportunity to push their latest Christmas flick, Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas.

Most folks my age ruminate about the lack of quality in the Disney direct-to-video market, but you just know these tapes sold like freakin' hotcakes.

It's not mentioned in this ad, but the pallor of Disney's false scarcity tactics clung to all of these video releases, so you had to get them before they went "back into the vault"! Not only did it likely sell a lot of movies during the holidays, but to this day resellers seem to think their old Disney tapes are worth your firstborn and probably a few limbs for good measure.

Sobey's Christmas

This is a commercial that will hit much stronger if you're a local Atlantic Canadian.

Sobey's is a grocery store chain that during the 90s would've only existed in a few provinces, like Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and PEI. I don't even think they were in Newfoundland, but I could be wrong. These days, I think they have stores across Canada.

In the early 90s they had a smash hit commercial called "Songs of Christmas" that featured all sorts of holiday wholesomeness to the tune of a children's choir singing what amounted to a very long Sobey's jingle. That ad played on local TV for years and years and I'd dare say if you spoke to anyone from this area they could sing you at least a few bars if not the whole song.

In the late 90s, Sobey's decided to try and catch that lightning in the bottle again with this ad, which I believe ran for a few years, but didn't have near the same impact.

Still, I do love this commercial and have fond memories of it. I'm not sure exactly when it started airing, but it had to be mid- to late-90s. I think they even used some of the imagery and music from this commercial in the rest of their "regular" advertisements that ran during Christmas.

It sounds nuts, but some of these big production holiday commercials sort of felt like TV specials in a way. I'd actually look forward to seeing them on the tube every year and they were an important part of the holiday!

Local Season's Greetings

If you watched any low budget local TV (does such a thing exist any more?) you would've seen ads like this from many local businesses, sending season's greetings to any current or potential customers watching at home. I can recall when there'd be one minute (or more) solid blocks with Christmas-y backgrounds adorned with the fanciest of fonts sending warm wishes from many local businesses.

If you were a small TV station that needed public money and advertisement to keep afloat, I'm sure this was easy money during the holidays. I actually used to love these when I was a kid. It was this weirdly small, solemn moment that felt so calm and Christmas-y, even if you were in the middle of watching a TV airing of Alien or something.

The Coca-Cola greeting at the end is a particularly lavish affair, that even includes a few seconds of Coke's massive commercial with the Christmas lights on their 18-wheeler delivery trucks. La-tee-dah.

Christmas Day on CBC

I thought this was fun, so I decided to throw it in.

Every Christmas my family would go to an extended family get-together on Christmas Day. We'd gorge ourselves on delicious food, open presents, all that good stuff. Come the evening of Christmas Day, it was wide open. I'd usually play with my new toys and video games and my parents would have friends over for drinks and visiting.

I can't say I watched much TV on Christmas Day, because I was busy, but another reason was that it always seemed like blackhole. Nowadays it's become a tradition to air movie marathons and tons of Christmas specials, but back when I was a kid there was lots of religious programming, and old black-and-white movies I didn't yet have the appreciation for.

Case in point is the programming block for CBC on December 25th, 1997, which included back-to-back-to-back Christmas classics from the 40s, capped off a musical special from Canadian royalty, Tom Jackson.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with any of this, but when I was a kid there is about a -1000% chance I would've watched one second of this on Christmas Day.

And there you have it! Just a few of the wonderful Christmas commercials I mined from this tape. I'll hopefully make another post soon with some more of the cool stuff I found on here, but if not I hope you enjoy these clips and the warm fuzzies they bring!

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It was the Boogeyman.

I've forcibly put myself into a post-Halloween cooldown period, but after a few days I feel like it's time to take a moment and chronicle all the greatness that was Halloween 2024!

I don't think I could possibly write meaningful words about everything that dropped this season, but I want to highlight some of my favourite spooky snacks, events, movies... whatever!

Sodie Pop!

There were some fun pops to hunt for this season. I want to say that Fanta took home the gold. Not because the Haunted Apple tasted the best - it's terrible - but between a bright green Beetlejuice soda and the latest film's branding on their other products, it seemed like this was the biggest chase.

Personally, I missed WTFanta, but I guess with VooDEW being the crowned king of mystery sodas, Fanta decided to sit that one out.

Speaking of VooDEW, Mountain Dew finally brought their popular secret soda to Canada... sort of. Instead of releasing the current flavour that dropped in the US, they gave us last year's American offering. It's not that it's altogether awful, but for a guy that imports these every year, it would've been nice to be on par with our American friends. I still haven't come across a can of the US version, but I'm hopeful I will in the coming weeks.

Things look bleak for VooDEW right now - the hubbub is that this was the last year for it and that Mountain Dew will start offering brand crossover sodas next year, but at least VooDEW officially graced Canada at least once.

My favourite of the seasonal offerings that were new (at least to me) this year was 7-Up Zero Sugar Cranberry. I love cranberry ginger ale and lemon-lime pop, so this was a slam dunk for me. I still prefer Cranberry Canada Dry, but it was nice to switch it up. Also, I do love me a zero sugar!

Bucket List!

This was a big year for buckets! These were the only two I saw available in Canada this year, but I know Dunkin' Donuts did a Munchkins (their version of Timbits) bucket that was very popular.

My favourite was the Timbits bucket. Not only did it come in a spider or ghost variant, but this year it was glow-in-the-dark! I'm not sure when I'll ever desperately need to find my Timbits in the pitch black, but... who am I kidding, we all know I'm sitting in a dark room gorging on fat pills.

The Boo Buckets have been back the last three years and I still appreciate them. This year McDonald's decided to go for something different with all-new designs and honestly, they're pretty great. I'm not going to lie, though. I kinda hope they switch things up next year and bring back Halloween McNugget Buddies and blow the Internet wide open.

Monster Mash!

I knew it was going to be a big year for Halloween when I found Monster Mash fruit snacks on August freakin' 1st. For reference, the Monster Cereal brand has been circling the drain in Canada the last few years. I've been lucky to even find Count Chocula some years.

For 2024, General Mills went all out in the US, with the Monster Cereal characters getting pet marshmallows. Here in Canada we at least got the fruit snacks from last year and finally a new cereal: Carmella Creeper!

It's a bummer we're still getting the same lame boxes with the masks on the back - I'd much prefer the retro-styled ones in the US - but beggars can't be choosers and all that.

Out of the three cereals available, Chocula still remains my favourite. I want to love Franken Berry, but I just find it too sweet, which was mostly how I felt about Carmella. I'm so glad it's there, but it's just not for me.

As for Wedneday, again, I'm elated the cereal found it's way to the Great White North, but I just didn't like it. You'd think cookies and cream would be a solid gold hit, but I wasn't nuts about it.

I'm hoping these all sold well enough, though, and maybe next year we'll finally see another Monster Cereal here in Canada. I'll take Boo Berry at the very least.

Spooky Eats!

There were food promos for Halloween literally left-and-right this year. Honestly, I don't think I could keep up if I lived in the US, that had themed menus at several restaurant chains and cute little Frosty figures at Wendy's.

For me nothing beat the Addams Family Burger King menu. We had Gomez's Churro fries, Morticia's Kooky Shake, and the glorious Wednesday Whopper available in Canadian BKs. I only tried the Whopper, but honestly - that was enough. Look at that beaut!

This was really completely out of the blue as there wasn't a new movie in the Addams Family animated series this promo was tied to, but whatever - anything Addams Family is as hot as Hansel right now.

This seems to be a Canadian exclusive, but for the second year running McDonald's has released a Halloween-themed McFlurry! Last year we had the Trick n' Treat McFlurry, which was black and orange Smarties. This year they kept the same colour scheme with Reese Chipits and Fudge! They dropped the Trick n' Treat name, but they did continue with the spooky packaging, so I'd call it a win.

There were all sorts of other random finds this year, but another I'll mention is International Delight Pumpkin Spice Cold Foam. Tim Hortons, for some reason, opted not to have a Pumpkin Spice Cold Brew this year, so I had to take things into my own hands. I don't think I'd buy it again, but the cold foam and a bottle of Stok scratched the itch.

One big complaint I have is the lack of Reese Werewolf Tracks. Reese (or Reese's, whatever) has been pretty solid in releasing their Halloween-themed treats here every year, including the Frankencups. Heck, I usually find them first thing in August! This year, though, nada. They didn't even have Reese Pumpkins! Of course as soon as we hit late-October I could plenty of those Reese Trees, though. SMH.

Friday, September 13th!

This was the second year-in-a-row that we were treated to a Friday the 13th during the Halloween months. Last year it was in October proper, but September works just as well for me.

I've reached the point where I rarely watch a Friday the 13th when it isn't the actual day (or, what, holiday?). I've just watched them so many times at this point. As a result, it makes the day and the rewatches extra special.

The next Friday the 13th is actually in December of this year! But then we won't see one in the fall for several years, so I'm glad I savoured it and watched the Paramount "Zombie Jason Trilogy". So good.

Making a Scare at the Box Office!

What a year for horror films in general, though! There were so many box office triumphs. These little indie darlings were making big money at movies.

Highlights include the mystery thriller Longlegs, which is making a run at the Academy Awards, Terrifier 3, which is now the highest-grossing indie film of all time, and The Substance which stars Demi freakin' Moore in her comeback era.

I really like Longlegs, except for the ending, and although I'm still not sure about Art the Clown and the Terrifier series, I'm so glad to see horror doing big numbers. You know things are going the right way when a horror icon gets to ring the bell on Wall Street!

TV Tingles!

Let's not forget the (not-so) small screen! With all the UFO talk in the news lately and the resurgence of shows like Unsolved Mysteries, there's been no lack of spooky sci-fi and paranormal shows. In my opinion, these sorts of shows a perfect this time of year.

This season we had a new volume of Unsolved Mysteries, which certainly had plenty of true crime, but actually had episodes on Roswell and cattle mutilations! It felt a bit more like the Stack-era.

Not to be outdone, Disney dropped OUT THERE: Crimes of the Paranomal, which has almost the exact same look-and-feel of the new Unsolved Mysteries series on Netflix, but leans hard into the supernatural.

Speaking of sci-fi and supernatural, probably my favourite horror movie of the year was V/H/S Beyond, which was dropped on Shudder right smack-dab in the spooky season. It's mostly all alien and UFO science fiction themed, which is certainly my wheelhouse. It's honestly my fave in the series. By my estimation this is a series that is actually getting better with age and I hope we get lots of V/H/S for many years to come!

Oh, and one last thing. I picked up the 4K release of A Nightmare on Elm Street, which dropped in October and damn that movie has never looked so good. I don't usually go in for 4K, honestly, but this one certainly sold me on the idea.

Here's to the season!

I can't express to you just how incredible Mother Nature was to us in Nova Scotia this year. Yes, it was uncomfortably hot at the start of September, but honestly the temperatures eventually became quite "normal" for us by the time October rolled around.

We are known for our beautiful autumns here, but in the last few years we've been smashed by multiple hurricanes. As a result, we end up losing most of our leaves far too early and, with that, our fall colours. This year, however, was very mild on that front, which I know is a blessing. For those of you who had to handle extreme weather this year, I feel for you. I don't mean for this to seem like a slight.

Not only did we have beautiful weather, but we were treated with some incredible celestial events. We had several back-to-back supermoons, including the Harvest and Blue moons. I wish I had my telescope prepared, so I could've gotten some proper pictures.

I also got to see the Northern Lights for the first time in my life! I've heard that in some northern and less light-polluted areas of NS that you can see them on occasion, but we had an and incredible showing that was very visible even in the urban areas and it was breathtaking!

I had made a promise to myself last year and this year that I'd try and do more cool outdoor events during the season. While I didn't get to do a haunt that I really wanted to (hard to do with young kids) we did have some incredible days, which included a picnic, hayrides, apple and pumpkin picking, and a jack-o'-lantern carving contest.

That's a (mummy) wrap!

As is typically the case, I did so much, but still had a lot left on the table in terms of things I wanted to do this year. I can't complain, though. This was definitely a Halloween for the books!

As I'm writing this, I know there's a lot of bad stuff going on in the world, but I think it's good to reflect on the things you love and care about: your family and friends, maybe your health, or hell - just a purple burger and a scary movie. Try and find whatever makes you happy and shake the shit out of it.

I hope you had a great fall and Halloween season and I wish you further enjoyment in the coming months!

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