As we drift deeper into the autumn season, we can’t help but notice some changing colours in the landscape. Oh sure, the leaves on the maples and alders have taken on a golden hue just before they fade to brown, only to fall helplessly to the earth.
There is another colour that catches our eye. It is orange, but not the tone that seems omnipresent on construction signs and traffic cones lining our roads. No, this orange is the colour of the magnificent pumpkin. Yes, everywhere we turn we see pumpkins. This can mean only one thing: Halloween.
Yes, Halloween. Ghosts and goblins. Witches and fairies. Spiders and cobwebs. Monsters and superheroes. Haunted houses and front lawns dressed up as spooky graveyards. Costume parties and trick or treating.
Yes, trick or treating. The gateway to endless future dental expenses. But when you’re a kid, that doesn’t really matter. Each hand-carved Jack-o-lantern lighting up the end of every driveway continues to lure the mini Spidermen and petite prima ballerinas towards that motherlode of all things sweet and sticky.
Back in the day, it was me out there on the neighbourhood streets. While holding on firmly to my older sister’s hand, we tricked and treated our way from house to house on our quest for the chocolate and candy booty that awaited us. Every doorstep held out the promise of infinite sugar rushes, but it was usually too dark to see exactly what was being deposited in our paper shopping bags. Of course, Halloween eve was sure to be marked by the inevitable major downpour, which soaked our shopping bags, thereby making them tear at the bottom and leak our confectionary treasures onto the dark pathways and sidewalks all the way back to our home.
What we celebrate as Halloween is actually the eve of the real holiday, All Saints Day, which falls on the first day of November. Interestingly enough, this feast day observes the lives of all the many saints for whom no special feast day has been set aside during the rest of the year. It’s a kind of a saints “all you can pray to” buffet. Everybody wins a consolation prize!
There remains a certain nostalgia for all the old costumes of yesteryear. Who can forget those fabulous monster outfits? The mummy, the Wolfman, Frankenstein’s spare parts man, Dracula and the Creature from the Black Lagoon were all so terrifying and could often be fabricated with the help of a few torn bedsheets and some red food colouring.
Then, of course, there were the superheroes. Superman and Batman headed the list, but not far behind came Spiderman, Aquaman, Wonder Woman and the Green Hornet. Even arch villains like Lex Luther, Brainiac and Catwoman had their devoted costumed minions.
I often felt that the likes of Superman received too much glory for their acts of heroism in defending Metropolis and Gotham City. Perhaps we should be paying Halloween tribute to some of the lesser superheroes who might be doing what they can to save civilization. Pocket Lint Man, for instance collects dust that would otherwise cover your clothes. Crochet Woman does everything Spiderman can do but it just takes her a bit longer. Then there’s Magneto Man, who helps keep your favourite photos stuck on your refrigerator.
It should come as no surprise that today’s most trending Halloween costumes are still inspired by pop culture. According to a majority of surveys, the number one dress-up for 2024 is Shrunken Head Bob from the movie Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. Not having seen the film myself, I can only imagine that the look will be Scary Scary in a humorous sort of way and make the Beetlejuice franchise a whole lot of Money Money.
The #2 costume for this pumpkin season is Raygun, the alias for Rachel Gunn, the competitive Australian breakdancer/academic who scored zero at the 2024 Olympics and did not get past the first round. Although she became the victim of online bullying, she will forever remain the patron saint for losers the world over. Close behind, in most popular costume #3 place, is CatNap, the scary villain from the Poppy Playtime horror video game. From the little I learned by googling Poppy Playtime, and the less I understood, I may never want to go near my cat’s litter box again.
Additional outfits that round up the list for most popular this Halloween include Barbie, Harry Potter, pop singer Sabrina Carpenter, Lady Deadpool, Wolverine, Godzilla and the Chipotle burrito. Of course, you can add to this list most of the hero and villain characters that have evolved from the stinking rich franchises such as Frozen, Inside Out, Dune and Despicable Me.
When I finally reached adulthood, I took great pride in designing costumes for myself that I then wore at various Halloween parties and Beaver Point Hall boogies. Some of the more memorable ones were a Hare Krishna realtor, a two-headed man, an eight-foot-tall slimy banana slug, the Bowen Queen ferry (complete with loud warning foghorn) and Darth Piggy.
My favourite was when I went as Fulford-Ganges Road. As with most of my concoctions, this one was constructed mainly from foam. I wore a cloud-covered Mount Maxwell as a headpiece and had the road loop up and around my shoulder and descend back around and down to the floor. One end was the village of Ganges and the other was the Fulford Harbour ferry terminal. Neither end had any open parking spots. My torso made up the bulk of the island and I added some endearing features such as sheep standing in the middle of the road and overturned Volvos lying in the roadside ditch. Ganges Harbour had a smelly reptilian monster wading through the outfall that originated from the sewage treatment plant across the road. Ahhh, those were the days.
Nobody asked me, but there’s no law that forbids adults, even ancient ones like me, from pulling those old costume duds out of the dress-up box or tickle trunk. As far as I know, there is no “best before” or expiry date for taking another turn at trick or treating. Why can’t I be Batman or Superman for one more night? Or maybe I should be a bit more realistic and lower my sights a couple of notches. Magneto Man wouldn’t be so bad. Now, if I could just unstick this fridge from my body.