At some point, I’ll probably do more in-depth reviews of some of the current crop of shows, but I thought I’d share this tidbit. The other night I was clicking around and landed on “My Ghost Story” on the Biography channel. It didn’t seem too compelling to me. A couple people were investigating an old lighthouse, supposedly haunted by the ghost of a little boy and…a cat.

They did some EVP work (electronic voice phenomena), where they set up a recorder and record ambient noise as they ask the “spirits” questions. Usually, any sounds captured are just gibberish, or are so vague you could twist it to make it sound like anything. In this case, they captured what actually does clearly sound like a cat meowing. Whether it was a ghost cat or just a neighborhood stray remains to be seen, but I’ll concede it sounded like a cat.

Now, one common technique on these shows is to show a faux computer screen with the audio waveforms of the sound, and a caption at the bottom with the words the investigators think were said by the ghost. It really reinforces their power of suggestion. In this case, even though we clearly hear a cat, the editor still thought it necessary to spell out the word “Meow” on the screen.

I don’t know why, but this struck me so damn funny. Just me? Okay, fine.

Click here to jump to the point in the show where they make this amazing discovery.

The site is kind of a grab bag of Halloween pop culture including clips from sitcoms, old commercials, movies, games and cartoons. There are some great haunting-related clips from old shows like That’s Incredible, including a couple about Amityville.

The site is all kinds of nostalgia for a guy like me, born in the early 70′s. The author has only posted twice in 2011, but there are tons of great posts in the archives.

(ps: not responsible for many lost hours on this site)

Check out the pics to see all the little details.

Remember that show from the late 70′s, early 80′s called That’s Incredible? For those of you young’uns, it was a weekly show hosted by John Davidson, Fran Tarkenton and Cathy Lee Crosby. In the vein of Ripley’s Believe it or Not or Real People (remember that one?), it had various segments of people doing amazing things or wild stunts. In fact, the show pretty much pioneered the use of the phrase “Don’t try this at home”.

For some reason they also focused a lot on unexplainable phenomenon (bigfoot, etc), as well as the paranormal. I was about 8 years old when the show started airing and remember watching it religiously with my family. To this day, I vividly remember watching one segment in particular. It was about a Toys ‘R Us store in California that was supposedly haunted.

As a boy, I was really drawn in by shows and stories about ghosts and haunted houses. But I was also susceptible to nightmares, as it turns out. I also recall running screaming from the living room one day, babbling to my mother that I’d just seen a ghost…on tv. It was the Brady Bunch where the boys try to scare the girls with a fake ghost. Yeah, I was a cool customer.

Again, no idea why I remember this one episode of That’s Incredible but I do remember that night I had bad enough dreams to fall out of bed. Not sure what made me think about this again, but I was pleasantly surprised to actually find a clip from that episode about the haunted store. Other shows have since featured this same location, but I think this would’ve been the first.

Oh, and this also is probably an early TV appearance of Sylvia Brown, made famous in recent years by her psychic dog and pony shows on Montel Williams. The haunted store is still an interesting story, but it’s rendered much less credible by her very presence.

Today’s post is about a book and a movie by the same name. In 1972 (a good year, indeed), Ray Bradbury wrote the novel, The Halloween Tree. It told the story of a group of boys who set out for trick-or-treating, only to find that the leader of their group has been spirited away by mysterious forces. With the guidance of a shadowy old man named Mr. Moundshroud, they pursue their friend across different time periods, where they learn the true origins of the holiday known as Halloween.

In 1993, the book was made into a feature-length TV movie starring Leonard Nimoy as Moundshroud. Ray Bradbury himself provided the narration and won an Emmy for the screenplay. I must confess that I’ve only seen the animated movie, but after recently reading another of Bradbury’s books, Something Wicked This Way Comes, I’m looking forward to giving The Halloween Tree a read.

The cartoon itself isn’t anything technically groundbreaking, the animation is actually quite basic as you might expect from a made-for-tv venture. But it’s made up for by Nimoy’s performance and by the absolutely perfect narration by Bradbury, who has an uncanny gift for painting nostalgic pictures of small-town America.

While the movie might be a little too intense for younger kids, I think it’s a good mix of entertainment and education. The characters learn all about customs all over the world, with visits to Egypt, Ireland, the cathedral at Notre Dame and Mexico, where they learn about the Day of the Dead.

Unfortunately, it looks like the DVD might be hard to find at the moment, but I’ve heard they play it on Cartoon Network at Halloween, so keep your eyes peeled. Meantime, you can pick up the book cheap on Amazon.

As a side note, according to Wikipedia, The Halloween Tree originated as a collaboration between Ray Bradbury and Chuck Jones. Too bad that project didn’t turn out; would’ve been great to see what Chuck would have done with it.

I’d love to try something like this on a smaller scale, but I’m pretty sure I can guarantee a lawsuit from our H.O.A.

PS: Don’t get me started on H.O.A.’s.

As mentioned in my previous post about “All Hallow’s Read“, my favorite author at the moment is Neil Gaiman. This has only been the case for the last few years, even though I knew of him for some time. Way back in the mid-nineties, when comics were getting a resurgence from titles like Todd McFarlane’s “Spawn”, I used to go to the comic shop every Wednesday for the new releases. Over the course of my visits, I often saw these graphic novels called “Sandman” written by a guy named Neil Gaiman. For whatever reason, at the time they didn’t interest me. I think I was just more in love with “Spawn” and the new stuff Image Comics was putting out, than wasting time on details like “story”. Hey, I was in my early twenties.

I honestly don’t recall how Neil sprang back up on my radar. It may have been when my wife and I saw Stardust, a film adapted from his novel of the same name. The movie was just so inventive and different, I wanted to learn more about this guy.

The first book I read was Neverwhere, the story of an average man who gets drawn into an alternate-universe London that exists below the surface of the real one. This had been the first book I’d read, other than programming books, for a few years. I absolutely loved it, and proceeded to read his other books, including American Gods and Coraline, as well as one of his collections of short stories, Fragile Things.

But possibly my favorite of his books is the simply titled, The Graveyard Book. In it, a shadowy assassin murders a family in the night, all except the toddler, who manages to make his way to the nearby graveyard. The resident ghosts of the graveyard take in the boy, whom they later name “Bod” (short for “Nobody”), and vow to protect him from those who would do him harm.

The book moves along pretty fast as Bod has adventures and gets in and out of trouble. Along the way he makes new friends, both living and dead, and is able to learn a few undead tricks, such as “fading” (the ability to make himself invisible to the living).

Full disclosure, my first “read” of the book was the audiobook version, which is read by Neil Gaiman himself. This can be hit or miss with some authors, but he absolutely nails it. Maybe I’m just a sucker for an english accent. Once I decided to write about it, I started listening to it for a second time on my daily commutes.

While The Graveyard Book is often described as a book for young adults, do not let that that sway you from picking it up. I don’t think there was ever a point where I felt anything was being held back or dumbed down at all. That said, if you’re looking to make All Hallow’s Read a tradition, and there’s a young adult in your life, you could do a lot worse than giving them this book. I think it’ll easily become a favorite.

On a semi-related note, Gaiman announced a movie adaptation way back in May 2009. At one point it appeared to be on indefinite hold, but from more recent articles, it sounds like it’s back on track. Neil Jordan (Interview with the Vampire) will be directing it.

One of my favorite authors is a chap by the name of Neil Gaiman. In fact, up until Stephen King released “Under the Dome”, I think Neil had taken his place at the top of my list. His work ranges from the dark “American Gods” to the Sandman graphic novels to the teen-friendly “Coraline” and “The Graveyard Book”. He’s even written a few children’s books.

Last October, Neil proposed an interesting, yet simple idea: give someone a scary book on Halloween. Thus, a new tradition was born, All Hallow’s Read.

So this year, the week of Halloween or Halloween night, give a friend, spouse, relative or your kids a scary book (age-appropriate, of course). The All Hallows Read website also has some recommendations to get you started. I’ll keep specific recommendations to myself, as I think one of them will be an upcoming blog article. But for adults, you can’t go wrong with Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, Clive Barker or even the great Ray Bradbury or Edgar Allan Poe.

Check it out, and start thinking about what scary book(s) you’d like to share this year.

For day 2, I’ve got something that I actually wish I owned. I first saw this a couple years ago and thought it was the coolest idea. It’s called “Hallowindow“, and it’s essentially a montage of creepy animations with sound that you can project in your windows for Halloween.

The idea is pretty simple. All you need is a projector, a DVD player and a decent-sized window in the front of your house, and you’re all set. You can use either a screen capable of rear-projection, or just a white sheet.

Honestly, if it wasn’t for not having a projector, I’d have been doing this by now. I even thought it would be cool to open a garage door and stretch a white sheet across it for a HUGE display.

The discs are $24 Canadian, which, as of this writing, is just about $24 U.S. dollars. You can even download HD versions for twelve bucks.

Just watch some of the sample videos on their site (my favorite is still Volume 1), and you’re totally going to want to try this.

This year, I knew there’d be no way I could commit to an art project like that due to a new “day job” and other projects. But I kinda wanted to do something. Preferably something I could do quickly. So, inspired by my buddy George, I thought I’d post something Halloween-related each day, something folks may not be aware of or that I think is worth recommending. I looked at the calendar and as it turns out, it works out to 13 days left in October

So for day one, I wanted to share a link to a great website I’ve actually been a fan of for many years, Doombuggies.com.

This site is THE definitive fan site for Disney’s Haunted Mansion attractions. Run by Jeff Baham, aka “Chef Mayhem”, the site was launched on Halloween, 1997 and has been growing, both in size and popularity, ever since.

I’m actually a giant fan of the Haunted Mansion and still have my original vinyl record of the story of the Haunted Mansion, featuring a teenage Ron Howard and narrated by Thurl Ravenscroft. Unfortunately, I’ve only been to Disneyworld twice in my life, but each time I must’ve gone through the mansion at least a half-dozen times.

There’s so much to love about it, from the character and room designs by the Disney Imagineers to the music and sound effects. Seems like for most of October, I can’t get the tune “Grim Grinning Ghosts” out of my head.

Doombuggies.com has everything a Haunted Mansion fan could ever want. There’s audio, video, rare artwork and advertisements, behind-the-scenes tours and much, much more. You could easily kill many an hour learning about how this 50-plus-year-old attraction came to be and how it’s evolved over the years.

There’s even sections devoted to Phantom Manor, located at Disneyland Paris, and on the Haunted Mansion Holiday celebrations. The site does have a feature on the 2003 film adaptation starring Eddie Murphy, which I don’t think I saw all of but as I recall it wasn’t that great (note to self: need to give it another viewing). I haven’t seen any coverage of the upcoming movie translation by Guillermo Del Toro, but I would imagine it’s coming.

So if you fancy places where the crypt doors creak and the tombstones quake, welcome, foolish mortals to the Haunted Mansion.