A Vintage Halloween Potpourri (1960s & 1970s)

 

I thought for Halloween this year, I would share a selection of Halloween photos and "spooky" items from my childhood.  We'll start with some Halloween costumes.

This 1965 photo of my brother, shows him wearing his "scary" Halloween costume.  I say "scary," because doesn't that description apply to pretty much ALL clowns?  I wasn't even one year old yet at this point, so I'm pretty sure that I did not have a costume that year.

For 1966, my brother was the Hanna-Barbera character, Peter Potamus, and I was a "teddy bear."  Both of our costumes had huge rolled up cuffs on the pant legs.  There is a photo of us in our costumes from that year, but it is a little blurry.  Since we both wore the exact same costumes the following year, I'm only including this pic from 1967.  I'm assuming that my mom saved the costumes, because they were so big on us the previous year.  Why not get two years use out of them, right?  That was the only year that we ever reused a Halloween costume.

By the way, I still have those plastic pumpkins that each of us is holding.  And, I still have my childhood teddy bear, which I am also holding in the photo.  Those Halloween costumes however, did not get saved.

For the following year (1968), my brother was a "devil," and I was a "tiger."  These costumes were made of a flannel material and were similar to pajamas.   My teddy bear costume from the year before, was made of the same type of material.  Because of this, my mom let us wear these costumes as pajamas, after Halloween.

I also still have that large plastic pumpkin, which was new for me that year.  I remember my mom buying it at Gemco, which was similar to a Walmart or Target store.

For the next year (1969), both of our costumes came from Gemco.  Mine was a "skeleton," and I believe my brother's was "Igor."

I saved my mask from that year.  I remember that it was bothering my nose, so I cut a triangle shape out of it, for my nose to go through.  I thought I still had the costume that went with the mask, but I wasn't able to locate it.

For 1970, my brother was a "skeleton" and apparently, I wanted to be a "tiger" again.

 

Both my mask and my costume, managed to survive all of these years.

In 1971, I was "Dracula" and my brother was "Frankenstein's Monster."  Unfortunately, I don't have any photos of us from this year, but I saved my mask and costume.  The teeth on my Dracula mask glowed in the dark!

My brother's costume did not survive, but I was able to find his mask on ebay.

Now we will switch gears a bit, here.  This book of "Spooky Tricks," belonged to my brother.  It was published by Scholastic Book Services, and was one of those books that was ordered through school.  Once a year (or maybe it was twice a year), the teachers would pass out order forms which included a list of books and their prices.  We would take those home to our parents, and check off the books we wanted to order.  After giving the forms back to the teacher, along with our money, we'd wait a few weeks and then our books would arrive.

There isn't a copyright date in this book, but I know it goes back to at least to 1968, because I have a picture of my brother from that year, and he is holding this book in the photo.

I've only scanned a few of the pages inside:

The back cover:

This is another childhood book from Scholastic Book Services.

This one has a copyright date, of 1972.

Again, I only scanned a few pages.  Some....okay, ALL of these jokes are real "groaners."

The back cover of the book:

We will end this post today, with some vintage Halloween Cards from the 1970s.  All of these cards were from my aunt and uncle.  They sent my brother and me Halloween cards every year throughout our childhood, and even beyond that.

 

 

 

 

This card is my favorite, out of all of them.  

 

 

The inside is "three-dimensional," but I pressed it flat to scan it.  When you lift the lid of the wooden crate, the ghoul and black cat "pop up" out of the tub.

 

This card even had graphics printed on it's backside.

 

I hope everyone has a very safe and happy Halloween!

 

 ****Update - 10-11-22****

To see even more vintage Halloween greeting cards, costumes, and "scary" themed children's books, click here for "Part 2" to this post:  A Vintage Halloween Potpourri - Part 2

 

**BONUS**

Last week, Elvira released a new Halloween video.  Just by coincidence, it includes both my brother's Frankenstein and Igor masks, and also my Skeleton and Teddy Bear masks.  Below, are a couple screen grabs showing these masks, along with the full video.

 

 

 

The 1969 Tournament of Roses Parade

Happy New Year, everyone! I thought for today, we'd travel back to January of 1969. While I have never been to an actual Tournament of Roses Parade, my family has gone a few times to view the "parked" floats after the parade, and this was one of those years. My dad took the color snapshots of the floats, included in today's post.

The parade's theme was, "A Time To Remember."

This Dr. Pepper-sponsored float was titled, "Playmates" and featured the characters from the story of Pinocchio. Walt Disney's Pinocchio was reissued in 1962 and 1971, so this would have been in between re-releases. I wonder if these were not supposed to be the Disney version of the Pinocchio characters?

A photo of the float, appeared in the Los Angeles Times.

Here is the original artwork for the float, taken from the Official Parade Program. The artwork definitely looks like the Disney characters.

After writing last month's post, I thought it would be fun to show some childhood toys (again), that relate to the floats in my dad's pictures. Here is my brother's Pinocchio marionette, which we saw in last month's post.

My brother and I also had a few Pinocchio children's records. Each of them included a song "From The Original Soundtrack" on one side, and "A Story From Pinocchio" on the other side. I've always liked the artwork on the Disney 45 RPM record sleeves.

We also had this "non-Disney" Pinocchio record.

Next, we have the Sunkist Growers' float titled, "Return of Doctor Dolittle." The original version of Dr. Dolittle (with Rex Harrison playing the title character), had been released in theaters thirteen months earlier, in December of 1967.

My brother and I had quite a few Colorforms sets, including this Doctor Dolittle set. Does anyone remember the jingle from the Colorforms commercials?

♪♬ "It's fun to play, the Colorforms way!" ♬♪

For those of you who aren't familiar with Colorforms, Wikipedia gives this description of them: "Colorforms is a creative toy named for the simple shapes and forms cut from colored vinyl sheeting that cling to a smooth backing surface without adhesives. These pieces are used to create picture graphics and designs, which can then be changed countless times by re-positioning the removable color forms."

Colorforms are still manufactured today. For a decade by decade history, check out their official site at: http://www.colorforms.com/history/

Here's the background for the Doctor Doolittle play set.

And here are some of the pieces. Unfortunately, a few of the pieces were lost over the years.

This photo from eBay, shows what the complete set would have looked like.

The instruction booklet gave an example, of how you could arrange the pieces.

Getting back to the parade, the "Friends of Dr. Seuss" float was sponsored by the City of South Pasadena and featured The Cat In The Hat, as well as other Dr. Seuss characters.

The Cat In The Hat book was written by Theodor Geisel under the pen name, Dr. Seuss and was first published in 1957. This float would have been appearing in the parade two years before the book was adapted into an animated television special.

My mom enrolled my brother and I, in a "book club" for the Dr. Seuss books. I can't remember the frequency, but every so often (maybe monthly?), we would receive a new book in the mail.

Back then, the books came with dust jackets. It appears that the original books, with their dust jackets still intact, go for big bucks on ebay!

St. Paul, Minnesota sponsored a float titled, "Minnesota Fun - Winter and Summer." The float featured a giant "jack-in-the-box," representing Minnesota's Winter Carnival.

My brother had a generic "clown" version of a jack-in-the-box toy:

And I had a "Flipper" version, which was given to me on my third birthday. Neither one of our jack-in-the-box toys survives today, but I found the ones that we had, on eBay.

This Universal Studios-sponsored float was titled, "Remember When." After the parade, the float was taken to Universal Studios and could be viewed by guests on the tram tour. This photo is used here, courtesy of "Matterhorn1959" (and originally appeared on his blog, "Stuff From The Park," in September of 2012.)

I'm including a few other pages, from the Official Parade Program.

The 1969 Tournament of Roses Royal Court:

Information on post-parade viewing of the floats in Victory Park:

Various advertisements from the Official Parade Program:

The back cover of the program:

Once again, a VERY happy New Year to all!