Well, Halloween 2011 is over and it's time to start thinking about that next major holiday: Halloween 2012.
My mom's friend sent her the above photo of an amusing display at a house along her commute. Aquick search revealed the pattern for the dog chasing a skeleton at the Winfield Collection (the link is here.)
They have several good choices for easy designs from plywood. Here are two more:
We were rather entranced by this standing skeleton in the 2011 Better Homes and Gardens special Halloween Tricks and Treats edition of their magazine, and were further intruiged when we saw how light and poseable it was. We also liked that this is a realistic-looking skeleton, and that it is of a thick, durable plastic.
photo: Better Homes and Gardens
photo: Better Homes and Gardens
The magazine did not have a source for the skeletons but our friend Doktor Calamari was also searching for them and told us it was at a seasonal store, Halloween City, a division of the year-round Party City. we visited thier website to find locations and found a 20% off coupon, which we printed out. This brought the price of each skeleton down to $56 plus tax.
This is the first year we have seen these skeletons, and since they were hard to find and sold out quickly, this post is dedicated to them, in the hope that it helps other people who have seen the skeletons in the magazine and are also trying to track them down.
These 63-inch tall skeletons with eyes also have a small button on the head that activates flashing blue and green colored lights and some sound effects, which we were ambivalent about. I doubt that I'd ever need to push that button again, and really, I'd be fine if the skeleton came without the eyeballs. But because the eyes light up red, removing the eyeballs would reveal a hole where the electronics go (and also leave some giant eye sockets) so I guess my skeletons will have eyes for the time being.
Another good feature is that the entire skeleton glows in the dark.
One tiny negative: there is random brown paint on the glow-in-the-dark bones. One of my skeletons got a big dose of the brown paint on one leg and not so much on the other.
The skeleton's stand is very small and unobtrusive. Just some black metal plates, but they do attach to pipes that go up his legs and across his hips. The plates are not easily removed or adjustable. It is surprising how stable he feels on such a small stand.
The only assemply is to attach each thigh bone to it's respective shin bone. The right and left sides are even labeled 'A' and 'B' so it really is simple.
Here's the box:
We're not sure, but we think they are made by Halloween International, because there is a logo on the box that says that:
We also see on the box that they are distributed by Christmas International
To make it a little more complicated, the side of the box says Halloween USA
Something else I really liked about him was that his joints ratchet into place, so he will hold a pose with having to use glue or other means.
The skeleton from Halloween International
2011 was a bumper year for new skeletons on the market. For comparison, here is the above skeleton standing between two other new skeletal offerings:
The $30 Walgreens skeleton is hanging on the left. It has an aged appearnce and is super lightweight, but the plastic is thin and brittle. I returned it to the store, and saw another in the store had his neck torn. Hanging from the right is the $40 Target skeleton, which glows in the dark, is of durable plastic and has ratcheting joints. I like his face and am pretty happy with him, but I do wish that he could stand on his own (the stand is a big feature in my book and worth the $17 price difference). I don't have a photo of it here, but I hung the Target skellie next to an expensive Bucky skeleton from Anatomical Chart Supply, and they look quite alike. I won't be buying any more Bucky skeletons, since there are these inexpensive and realistic options now.
So there you have it, a quick round-up of the new skeletons of 2011.
You may recall my post about the return of Boney Island, one of the most beloved home haunts of all time. Friday night saw the debut of Boney Island's new theme of skeleton magicians performing tricks. The show was a great success with a large turnout, including the press. You would never guess that the plan to put on a new show was hatched only this summer, and that many of the items to build this show were obtained in only the past month or two.
Here's creator Rick Polizzi:
He made posters to highlight each magic act being performed. This poster is for the main event, a water show: The 10 magic cauldrons shot green glowing water 12 feet into the air, eliciting applause:
The popular fortune teller answered questions and amused the crowd:
Neighbor David, on the right, is the secret voice of the fortune teller
The crowd usually gets deep for the fortune teller
A magician passed a hoop around a levitating skeleton:
Another skeleton levitated a bit too much and other skeletons climbed into a tree to chase him down:
One skeleton held a flashlight while another talented skeleton made shadow puppets with his boney hands, including a bird, a witch, a castle- even the Boney Island skull logo!:
A team of blind-folded knife-throwers aimed at a target:
Of course, to make things more difficult for the knife-throwers, the target had a skeleton in front of it:
Another favorite effect that returned was the spinning web gobo:
Like Houdini, The Man In The Can was a skeleton bound in a strait jacket, and wiggled to escape it while under water in this creepy confine:
Another skeleton magician sawed other skeletons in half...but he made a few errors:
In a window, one skeleton lures a skeleton rabbit out of a top hat by waving his magic wand, and another skeleton assists by bribing with carrots:
The collection of super-sized jack o' lanterns is stunning in itself, but these pumpkins sing to the music by flashing the lights inside them:
Oh yes, the pumpkins are in that crazy 3-story tall treehouse.
That's some - but certainly not all- of Boney Island. The crew did a fantastic job with the new display, and though the carnival theme is gone, I'm glad to report the old Boney Island magic is back.
Rick got the Emmy for being a producer on The Simpsons:
But for 10 years, at Halloween, Rick was also the creator of Boney Island, an amusement park filled with over 100(!) plastic skeletons doing silly things in his front yard, like batting at bats in a batting cage:
Or getting their caricatures drawn by another skeleton (of course, every skull looks exactly like the next one):
Or getting duped into being shot out of a cannon, and being called The Once-Human Cannonball:
Or even playing Whack-a-Mole, only here there were witches and vampires popping up, so it was called Whack-a-Ghoul:
Did I mention that is is all animated and each scene had it's own amusing soundtrack to support it? You may have seen some of this on HGTV's "Extreme Halloween" special a few years ago. Or maybe you've seen it on HGTV's "What's Up With That Haunted House?" The 7-piece skeleton band is pretty memorable:
And the hot-air balloon that traversed across the roof:
There was even a Ferris Wheel, and a spinning ride, appropriately called Whirl and Hurl, that had skeletons riding in cauldrons around a witch. And in the background, a tree house, two stories tall:
The two-story tall treehouse is there year-round.
There was so much more, too. You didn't just view this amusement park from the sidewalk, either. You would wander among the attractions and and hear all of the amusing soundtracks. Some of it was interactive: you could play Simon Says with a talking skeleton, get your fortune told by another skeleton, and jump into a large, spinning, spider web that was projected on the ground. The yard would fill up with hundreds of people to the point where it would appear that there was an actual carnival taking place. One year, over the 2 weeks prior to Halloween, over 13,000 people came to see Boney Island. It was good, clean, old-fashioned, family-friendly Halloween FUN.
Did you notice I was using the past-tense?
That's because after 10 years, Boney Island was shut down in 2007 to satisfy some neighbors across the street. Everything in Boney Island was auctioned on eBay. Boney Island vanished.
But now, four years later, those neighbors have moved. Rick had an idea for a new Boney Island, one that would use magic as the theme. And so now with less than 2 months to plan and execute, Rick is working hard to bring Boney Island back, starting from scratch. If all goes well, there will be 3 flying carpets circling up on the roof, one of which will be a toilet bowl rug- because everything is done with humor worthy of The Simpsons. There will be magician skeletons sawing other skeletons in half, and a magician skeleton pulling something out of a hat- perhaps a rabbit skeleton? There will be a skeleton casting amazing hand-shadows on the wall, and there will be tall jets of glowing green water bursting from cauldrons. But first, the cauldrons have to be procured, and the right size has not been located yet.
Rick is a member of our haunt club. After making arrangements, I paid a visit to Rick's house to donate some skeletons, and I saw the FCG rigs used to animate the scenes were laid out to be spray-painted:
Rick graciously gave me a tour of his beautiful home, where shadows cause a heart to form on the bathroom wall:
And I loved the recently renovated yard, with 3 water features including the pool with water falling all along the edge of the retaining wall:
and this diamond-patterned trellis of star jasmine:
But my favorite room was the game room, with seemingly every toy and game from my childhood displayed on custom shelving:
I asked if he had one of my favorite toys, the Mattel Thingmaker Fright Factory, which had little metal molds of skeletons in which you poured liquid Goop. After heating and setting, you had your own rubbery skeleton. I used to hang mine from straws and make them dance, marionette-style. He did indeed have a bunch of Thingmakers, including the Fright Factory:
Rick's game room is no museum- the toys and games get get use. I was so happy when Rick gave me a skeleton they had made with the Fright Factory a while ago, I hadn't seen one in eons! By the way, Rick recently chased and tackled a car thief! He also told of one the home's original occupants stopping by. The man said the house used to be the only one on the block, but there was no block of tract homes then- it was surrounded by orange groves. The man, who had no knowledge of Boney Island, knocked Rick's socks off when out of no where he told how they use to love to decorate the house extensively for Halloween! It seems the house was destined to always be a Halloween house. These days, just standing and talking with Rick's family and a neighbor on the front lawn causes more than one car to stop and the occupants to lean out and ask "Is Boney Island coming back?" This year, happily, the answer is Yes, Boney Island is returning!
