Chick or Treat?

We've all gotten them one Halloween or another. You're going through your trick-or-treat bag, sorting the candy and gum, and there it is: The Jack T. Chick tract.

The first time you got one, maybe you thought it was a cool, Halloween-themed mini-comic book. Then you read it and realize you've been had. The "Halloween comic book" is actually anti-Halloween propaganda, dropped in your unsuspecting sack by some party pooper trying to cast a buzzkill on your special night.

"Jack T. Chick" is the mysterious figurehead of Chick Publications. I'm not sure if he's a real person, an alias, or some kind of front man ala Remington Steele. (Read his "biography" at the official Chick website here). I do know that Chick Publications carries literally dozens of different tracts with all kinds of themes and titles, but they all have one common message: you're going to Hell !

Several tracts have a Halloween theme, and these are often the ones that end up in your trick or treat bag.

THE TRICK (pictured above)
Despite the cartoony costumed ghost, devil and witch on the cover, this tract is serious business. A Satanic cult decides they can increase their annual human sacrifice count if they plant poison, syringes, razor blades and broken glass in Halloween candy.

Cut to Halloween night: Our three trick-or-treaters pictured on the cover head out, and being good kids who obey their mother, only visit the houses of neighbors they know. But in a diabolical twist, family friend and neighbor Miss Brenda is one of the Satanists! All the children end up at the hospital having eaten tainted candy. Only two live to tell the tale.



HAPPY HALLOWEEN
Three boys are visiting a neighborhood Halloween haunted house, and a pretty cool one at that. This one features a trap-door that drops our protagonists into an underground chamber called "The Abyss", full of of audio-animatronic devils and monsters. The kids are so scared they run out into the street, and one of them is run over by a passing car. His ghost soon arrives in Hell, which ironically looks similar to the themed "Abyss" room that scared him in the first place.



BEWITCHED?
Did you know Satan watches American television? According to this tract he does. And guess what his favorite show is? Well, the tract isn't titled "Dr. Phil", now, is it? Yep, His High Unholiness enjoys reruns of "Bewitched".

Seems this seemingly innocent show is actually paving the way for the acceptance of the occult in mainstream culture. "Bewitched" leads to Ouija Boards and horoscopes, followed by the inevitable spiral into hard drug use (LSD mixed with speed, according to one of the demons quoted here).


THE LITTLE PRINCESS
This self-referential (and self-congratulatory) tract centers on little Heidi, suffering from some vague malady, whose dying wish is to go trick or treating on Halloween. Amazingly, her parents allow it. She doesn't get too far in her weak condition, falling flat on her face after merely half an hour, but that was just enough time to receive a Chick tract from the kindly Smith family. Inspired by the tract, Heidi prays herself well.



THE LITTLE GHOST
In this brief story, two boys costumed as a ghost and devil try to playfully frighten a little girl. But she's not afraid of them or anything else, thanks to her belief in Jesus. The boys ditch their costumes to join her in prayer.



BOO!
This tract seems to be Chick's attempt to tap into the teenage slasher genre, with baffling results. We start with Charlie, a pleasant enough outdoorsman type, who has rented several cabins in the woods for his high school Halloween party. Then Charlie casually mentions that they'll be sacrificing a cat at the party that night. At this, one friend chuckles, and another opines "That's gross."

It's not clear if Mr. Chick thinks this is what normally happens at high school Halloween parties, or if Chris and his friends are Satanists, for which animal sacrifice at a Halloween party would be business as usual...its all very confusing. Before this tract is over, we'll see a pumpkin-headed serial killer (leading a pet rattlesnake on a leash!), human sacrifice, cat sacrifice, a police shootout, and Satan himself.



DARK DUNGEONS
This one really has nothing to do with Halloween, however I did actually receive this one on an early 1980s Halloween, right at the height of the "Dungeons & Dragons is evil" hysteria that culminated in the TV movie Mazes and Monsters. In this tract, a witch uses the fictional role-playing game "Dark Dungeons" to lure children into the world of the occult. The in-game death of a D&D character (that's Dark Dungeons...wink, wink) leads to real suicide by one child, while another becomes obsessed with witchcraft and demonic possession.


No matter what you think of the message of Chick tracts, they have an interesting look to them and are a unique cultural artifact, making them a fun collectible. You can actually browse and order tracts directly from Chick here. Officially sanctioned flash-animation interpretation of Chick tracts can be found at one of my absolute favorite pop-culture websites Secret Fun Spot.

Once Upon a Midnight Scary

Once Upon a Midnight Scary (1979) was an hour-long television special for CBS that dramatized segments from three scary children's books, "The Ghost Belonged To Me" (Richard Peck, 1976); "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" (Washington Irving, 1820); and "The House With a Clock In Its Walls" (John Bellairs, 1973).

Vincent Price plays a vampire who introduces each story from his castle. Price brings some gravitas to this otherwise luke-warm production. The show has its moments, and the program's emphasis on reading the books is admirable. It worked on me...after having happened upon this program one afternoon, I immediately checked out "The House With a Clock In Its Walls" from the library.

The first story, "The Ghost Belonged To Me", is also the weakest.


A boy investigates mysterious lights in his barn to discover a plaintive girl ghost, who helps him prevent a bus accident at a fallen bridge.

The second story is an excerpt from "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow".

We skip the exposition and start right at the tail end of the Van Tassel's Halloween party.

Ichabod is portrayed by long time TV actor Rene Aurberjonois, and he is actually quite good. The intense midnight ride more than makes up for the dry party scene that precedes it.







Finally comes "The House With a Clock In Its Walls", the most elaborate of the three stories.

The edition pictured features illustrations by Edward Gorey.


Young orphan Lewis moves in with his mysterious Uncle Johnathan, whom he soon discovers is a wizard.

Somewhere hidden in the walls of the house is a doomsday clock that threatens to end life on earth if not found. Uncle Johnathan stays up nights looking for it.

Lewis can't keep his family secret and tries to impress a schoolmate, who dares him to prove his wizardly pedigree. They meet at the cemetery at midnight to perform a spell to raise the dead.


After seeing this, I tried using the same set of symbols to cast a "headache" spell on a substitute teacher. I'm not saying it worked, but she DID have a headache by the end of the day. Causation, or just correlation?

As luck would have it, they raise a witch named Selenna who follows Lewis home in pursuit of the doomsday clock.

Once Upon a Midnight Scary (apparently also released under the title "Once Upon a Midnight Dreary") was available on a now out of print VHS.

All three books are still in print (though if you want a copy of "The House With a Clock In Its Walls" with the Edward Gorey cover, you'll have to find an older edition.)

Buy them here, here, and here.

The Mummy's Finger

On my first day of grade school, some kid played this trick on me. It didn't scare me, but I was creeped out for a good 5 to 10 seconds. It's "The Mummy's Finger".

You can read about that and other gags in Spooky Tricks (Scholastic Book Services, 1968).

Isn't It Cozy Here?

A delightfully creepy moment from The Daydreamer (1966), a Rankin-Bass feature that combines live-action with "animagic" (aka stop-motion animation), to tell four stories from Hans Christian Andersen. In one of the stories, Thumbelina, our protaganists must enter the home of Mr. Mole--a dark, dank cave crawling with spiders, bugs and bats, who treat us to the memorable musical number, "Isn't it Cozy Here?"


ISN'T IT COZY HERE

Isn't it cozy? Isn't it cozy? Isn't it cozy here?
Ten spiders, a-gaily spinning,
Nine bats a-hanging pretty,
Eight caterpillars here and there,
Isn't it cozy here?


Seven centipedes a-flitting,
Six ladybugs a-knitting,
Five busy beetles here and there,
Isn't it cozy here?


Four beez a-busy being,
Three fleas a-quickly fleeing,
Two flies right here and there,
Isn't it cozy here?




One mole is here to tend it,
No windows, thats to lend it
A very cheery, friendly air,
Isn't it cozy? Isn't it cozy? Isn't it cozy here?



The Daydreamer is available on DVD here.

The Monster of Walnut Grove

Along with the costumes, parties and bags of candy, one of the treats of Halloween I always looked forward to were the television specials. It's hard to appreciate now what a big deal these were back in the pre-TIVO, pre-VHS days. When a Halloween special like The Great Pumpkin came on, you had to actually be at a TV when it was being broadcast, or you missed it that year. There was no home taping, no renting, and no repeats. So if your little league game happened to end late and you couldn't get home by 7:30 PM, you were just out of luck.

In addition to TV specials that were made specifically for the holidays, there were also themed episodes of regular series to get you in the spirit. One of my favorites is from the third season of Little House on the Prairie, an episode called "The Monster of Walnut Grove" (1976).

It's Halloween night and the girls are pranking the little town of Walnut Grove, soaping the windows, when Laura thinks she sees the general store's owner, Nells Olsen, behead his nagging wife Harriet with a decorative sword.


Of course it was just a misunderstanding--the figure that lost its head was actually a store mannequin, but Laura doesn't know this.

No one believes Laura's story, and a confused confrontation with Nells mistakenly reinforces the idea in her head. Only her friend Carl seems sympathetic.

This leads to a surreal and creepy nightmare sequence, where we see the beheading play out in her dreams, with a series of heads flying towards the screen, screaming.




In another dream, Laura sits down to a grim dinner party at the Olsen's.





But where's Harriet?


She's the main course, of course.


If the sight of her severed head served up on a platter isn't frightening enough, a few seconds later it comes to life and screams bloody murder!


Eventually the Olsen children, Willie and Nelly, get wind of the story, and decide to exploit it to play a prank on Laura and Carl. The Olsen kids convince Laura and Carl to meet them at their house that night to help them look for Mrs. Olsen's body (Mrs. Olsen being conveniently out of town).

While waiting to rendezvous in a graveyard, we see the moonlit sky in a stock shot that has been used in many other television shows (Brady Bunch, Happy Days, etc.) and even a few movies.

If anybody has any information about this popular moon shot, please leave it in the comments.

After a creepy trip down into the Olsen's basement, evil sister Nelly scares them with this (admittedly lame) ghost get up.

Laura and Carl soon realize they've been tricked and turn the tables. They acquire the severed mannequin head that started the whole mess and drop it down the basement ladder like so...



Leaving Nelly screaming for dear life.

Revenge has been served and alls right in Walnut Grove. But who REALLY has the last laugh? As Laura and Carl head for home, they are interecepted by the Headless Horseman himself!

Unlike a lot of Halloween specials that play for laughs instead of scares, this one was a real chiller, even if some elements of the plot strained credulity (e.g. in one scene a dish rag soiled with catsup is mistaken for bloody evidence of murder). This episode is available on DVD here.