Watch Over 30 Minutes Of Retro Halloween Commercials
Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. It might BE my favorite, the only other one that's close is Christmas. I guess I'm basically the physical version of the movie The Nightmare Before Christmas.
But my love of Christmas is a more recent thing. Sure I loved it as a kid, but since I've moved away from home (and the snow) I've felt more nostalgia tug for Christmas. But also as I get older, I've rationalized that it's not Christmas itself that I love, it's Christmas Eve...with all of its promise and wonder. No matter how good an actual Christmas day is, it won't live up to your best ideas on Christmas Eve.
ANYWAY...this article is about Halloween, and here I am treating it like the back isles at a Target, just forcing Christmas into it as early and as often as possible.
My love for Halloween isn't new. I loved it as a kid. All aspects of it too...not just the candy, but the costumes, the pranks, the scary movies...literally all parts of it. But you kind of had to where I grew up.
I come from a VERY small town in Northern Michigan. Look at the palm of your right hand, look at the tip of your ring finger, that's where I grew up. Just off the shores of Lake Michigan. The city had less than 3,000 people in it, so there wasn't a whole lot of real estate to cover when trick-or-treating. We were also in an area where the climate isn't very supportive of outdoor activities like trick-or-treating. I don't recall a Halloween where I didn't have to wear a snowsuit or winter coat under (or over) my Halloween costume. So if you were going to do Halloween there, you really had to love it.
Which I did.
Everything about it, including the build-up. For weeks ahead of Halloween, we'd decorate classrooms, plan elaborate costumes we'd never make, buy special Halloween cookies or whatever, and participate in whatever fall festivals and Halloween parties led up to the 31st.
I even loved the capitalism and mass marketing. Who didn't love the special Halloween toys at McDonald's (the McNugget toys were the best by a mile) and their trick-or-treating pails? Or all of the candy, breakfast cereal, and chip commercials...I loved it all.
Now thanks to the internet, I can relive all of that epic marketing as an adult. Youtube is FULL of the old Halloween commercials I remember as a kid. Check out this mix of more than 30 minutes of old school Halloween ads.