My new witch Selma did a great job!
One time she whipped open the door and barked "What!?!" at the punkasses, which left them speechless.
The magic words "Trick or Treat" totally left their brains.
After some "Uhhh....Mmmm..." action, witch Josie said "Well??? Are you going to say Trick or Treat, or don't you know what you're doing?"
We laughed our asses off!
Only one or 2 kids got TacoBell sauce instead of a handful of candy this year, which is an improvement.
Hey--if your costume blows or you don't say the 3 simple words, you get tricked instead of treated.
I didn't write the rules, I just enforce them.
When they come near our house, scary noises coming from a speaker behind the headstone attract them rather nicely unless they are with one of those parents who's small mind is locked into only ringing doorbells if the porchlight is on. I mean, don't they think the spinning light on the mailbox (not to mention flames) mean we might be playing Halloween? Yet numerous morons walk right past our house every year.
When kids run up our driveway, the blast of a 500 watt shoplight through my garage window always freezes their asses in place.
That's when we sometimes hear such gems as "Is that real fire?" or "I better not touch that or I'll get burned".
Well...duh.
Then they see a biker zombie pushing his skeleton victim into the flames of hell. Strobe on zombie and a red bulb + amber strobe + smoke machine in the black box of doom under the skeleton.
This is my new scene for this year, and it looked pretty cool in action.
If they are brave enough to make it onto our porch, the simple yet effective trick of hiding sheets of big bubble wrap under a rug gives the little weiners a final scare.
For the future: More automation so I can actually see the kids instead of spending all my time pushing buttons to activate everything. And if I could be in a scary costume wandering around our yard, there's no limit to the mayhem.
I'm designing a mechanical Jack'O'Lantern that's chewing on Elmo.
From bands past I have some experience building and using dry ice fog effects on the cheap, so there's some more ideas floating around.
But as long as one new thing gets added each year, I'm happy.
The leftover candy is good, too.
2 comments:
Oh that sounds so cool. I love the idea of passing out Taco Bell sauce to the losers. I take it Halloween is your holiday!
Hee hee hee. Taco sauce. I love it!
Man, you've got a great set up. We had some good displays in our neighborhood this year, but nothing like what you've got rigged up.
As for the porch light thing: good or bad, that has become a clear signal for parents out with their kids that that house (porch light out) is not participating in the fun. I also assume this is a convenient signal for people who want to stay home that night but not be bothered by little goblins ringing their doorbell looking for goodies.
Since that signal is now so widely accepted, I'm not surprised that some people might have skipped your house, no matter how cool the scenery was. They may have simply assumed that you were into Halloween but that you might have been out with your own kiddos getting treats, so you left your porch light off to let them know you were not available to give out candy.
In any case, I'm still stoked about the taco sauce thing. Great idea! Next time I hand out candy, I'm going to do the same thing for lame costumes, especially for the teenagers who can't be bothered to do much more than put on a black shirt that says "Happy Halloween." If the costume's really lame, then they get the mild sauce.
No spice for you! You come back: one year!
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