Vomit Comet

And now another installment of our fun little Halloween Countdown from over on X-E. Today we look at those cool spider rings. What would Hallowe’en be without Spider Rings? A Crappy Hallowe’en, that’s what! Enjoy!

—Our collective fascination with those damned plastic “spider rings” is something I find difficult to explain, but for the sake of avoiding a single-sentence countdown entry, I’m going to give it a shot. I think the big point of interest with these things lies in the fact that they’re a Halloween constant — not just a staple. For as long as I can remember, and that’s pretty long, these rings have looked perfectly the same, and have always arrived at a price of five cents each. There are no surprises with spider rings: you know what you’re getting, and unless there’s a rapid shift in the universal balance, the schematics will remain the same until the day you die. In truth, they’re nothing special and they never were, but sometimes, simplicity is divine. Spider rings are simple, and they’re certainly divine. And they make your fingers look like they’re crawwwwlin’ with bugs!

Aside from their usual base of operations — party stores — I’ve seen the things countless times at Jersey shore video arcades. Amidst the 700,000-point video game systems and equally unattainable but less interesting Hummel statues, the spider rings remained a quick five-point bounty for any kid who just didn’t understand the nuances of “Pop-A-Ball” or video poker. Nevertheless, the toys are tuned for Halloween, and if you’ve went through this past month without tacking one of these beasts over your ring finger, you’re missing out on the bestest best way to capture the holiday spirit.

The rings most typically arrive in the classic Halloween colors, though much more frequently in black. The orange ones are neat and seasonal, but come on…orange spiders? Course, they’re sized more for kiddy fingers than adults, but the band is easily chewed apart to allow entry for chubbier digits. Better yet, chew off the band part entirely, and you’ve got some pretty decent fake spiders to prank your friends with. When placed on the floor, a quick glance paints them as the real thing, and if there’s anything more fun than tricking someone into thinking they’ve got a big spider crawling on ’em, I’ve never experienced it.

Though sold by the piece for a nickel, you can buy these little guys by the gross for dirt cheap — there’s little chance that you’ll find a use for 144 plastic spider rings, but trying to sounds like it’d be a fun project. “#37: Eyebrow scratcher… #123: Something to throw at TV during unwanted reruns of Frasier…” They’re not the grandest of the gamut of Halloween toys, but they’re one of the classics.

That’s right. Spider rings are a classic.

Here’s Another neat little Hallowe’en Treat for y’all.

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The cereal aisles have been positively assaulted by the Halloween spirit, with virtually every brand except for those fibrous ones meant to help old people shit getting the spooky treatment. While Count Chocula and pals lead the pack, some of the more iconic bad boys of the breakfast table are donning fake fangs in a massive effort to cash in on the horror fest — not even your fabled Froot Loops are safe.

Yep, it’s Kellogg’s Freaky Froot Loops, the sweetened multigrain cereal that lets you follow Toucan Sam’s nose straight to Hell. The bird’s even dolled himself up with a vampire cowl, while keeping his trademark smile just to let the kiddies know that, despite the outfit, he hasn’t transformed into a hideous murdering monster. You know, from what I’ve heard, that’s pretty debatable. The box marks the cereal as being a “limited edition” offering, in case there’s a few collectible dealers out there who see a potential future selling off old boxes of Halloween Froot Loops. I don’t, but it’s still nice to know that I’m buying food that will simply cease to exist come November of this year. Though, if Freaky Froot Loops returns in 2004, the edition really wouldn’t have been all that “limited.” I’m not saying that Toucan Sam is a liar, but there’s room for doubt.

Wow, that’s the first time I’ve doubted a toucan like…ever. Halloween is so full of surprises.

To make the cereal more seasonal, some of those more SHOCKING and NEON colors have been excluded — there’s no blue or red loops in Freaky Froot Loops, and while that’s reason to cry, the bird compensates with the addition of fa-reeeeky marshmallows! Yep, you get marshmallow bones, ghosts, and masks! The bones look more like broken off pieces of other marshmallows, the ghosts look like sperm, and they call the masks “masks” so they won’t have to scare children by naming what’s obviously meant to be “skull” marshmallows. All of ’em arrive in a base color of white with orange swirls abounding, and you can almost hear Dracula golf clapping off in the distance with horrific approval.

In any case, it still tastes as fantastic as ever, and the Froot Loops haven’t lost their trademark of smelling exactly like those moist towelettes Chinese restaurants hand you when you’re finished fondling all of those dead pig bones. Say what you will about these companies doing all this Halloween stuff just to spark sales, but it’s still nice to see. In a world where holiday television specials are increasingly tossed aside from their usual prime time spots, and where my very own neighborhood seems to have lost its trick-or-treater count over the years by 90%, it’s great to see someone, even Toucan Sam, get into the spirit of things. He’s no Boo Berry, but hey, he’s predominately blue just the same.

The back of the box features all sorts of Halloween-themed game, ranging from Toucan Sam’s “Creepy Crossword” to Toucan Sam’s “Freaky Riddles,” and even Toucan Sam’s “Wispy Word Hunt.” The side panel has a recipe for “Crunchy Caramel Apples” using Apple Jacks as a primary ingredient, which is interesting since I bought Froot Loops, not Apple Jacks. Couldn’t they name me one special food to make with the cereal in hand? I dunno, “Toucan Sam’s Criminal Crispies” or something? Oh well, beggars can’t be choosers, and if there’s anything I am, it’s a beggar. A beggar with Froot Loops cereal dust all over his crotch. I think I found my Halloween costume.
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More later, Kids.

Well X-Entertainment has got a Hallowe’en countdown on that I’ve decided to bring her because it is funny funny stuff. They are short little blurbs on different Hallowe’en novelty items that are sure to get a chuckle. Funny stuff. Here’s the first one for ya, more to come.

Don’t forget you can go to X-E yourself because there is all kinds of great stuff over there, but be sure to come back here or I will hunt you down like the dog your are! The X-E link is over on the right isde of the page.

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Hand Shaped Treat Kits
It’s September 19th, 2003. Hurricane Isabel is making her presence known, and for all I know, this may be my last night alive. In these potentially final hours, I could find no better climax moment than filling plastic gloves up with popcorn. The “Hand Shaped Treat Kit,” one of this year’s hottest Halloween offerings, takes a page from those classic “popcorn balls” and spooks the formula up to the ultimate Scary Holiday Standard. Best of all, they’re fun party favors!!!

Each kit includes twelve hand-shaped treat bags with the kind of twist ties usually reserved for those really big Hefty bags — the ones so incredibly large that we must wonder if Hefty macabrely caters to the small yet profitable market of those who need to transport their hacked up victims as inconspicuously as possible. Sorry that I’m going on and on about these ties, but really, the hand-bags aren’t all that interesting. They’re just plain dye gloves with screenprinted green hands covered in assorted bat & ghost novelty rings on ’em. I guess I could talk about the exceedingly pointy orange fingernails for a while, but who’d pick that over a paragraph about twist ties?

Before you can fill the hands with popcorn, you’ve got to — surprise — make popcorn. If you’ve got raw, noncommercialized kernels on hand, it’s preferable to use those. The mass-produced & souped-up varieties like the one shown above lack the old world charm of the nude versions, and if there’s one thing you want to avoid while making god damned popcorn hands, it’s robbing yourself the chance to feel 0ld sk00l.

Okay, now we’re up to the fun part. The step that every would-be “treat hand” maker dreams about. It’s time to fill those gloves. Crack your knuckles and prepare for an experience…

Here’s the cool thing about making Halloween-themed treat hands — in all likelihood, at the moment you put the popcorn inside the gloves, you’re the only person in the whole entire world who’s doing that. You’ve achieved a level of uniquity on par with the duckbilled platypus and the guy who hosted those old Micro Machines commercials. If you’re watching a rerun of All In The Family, there’s probably several thousand other people doing the exact same thing at any given time. Same goes for taking Tylenol, pissing on the side of the road, and yes — even if you’re choking out your grandmother with the very yarn she was crafting you a new winter scarf with, there’s a good chance someone else is doing the same thing out there somewhere. Treat hands? No way. Unless you synchronize the activity with some friends in an effort to break universal law, you’re that particular minute’s only Treat Hand maker in history, sweet forever etched history. Be proud. Celebrate with a popcorn snack.

If you hate popcorn and the idea of sticking popcorn into hands, you could always use the gloves to achieve a perfectly borderline pensive/goofy fucking shithead aura. Few kits to arrive this Halloween season will pack such an impressive dichotomy. Even fewer will let you shove popcorn into plastic gloves. Treat hands are a true original.

Upon completion, that’s what the treat hands look like. Overstuffed popcorn paws. The package claims that you could fill these bitches with something other than popcorn, but I can’t picture the flimsy bags surviving sharp pretzels or potato chips. Considering them as “party favors,” you gotta figure that nobody’s gonna give out the 7,000 Reese’s Pieces it’d take to fill a single glove, either. These are for popcorn only, so don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. I’m serious — don’t let anyone do it. Don’t ruin your Halloween with false truths. Don’t swap the pop.