# Do you remember Halloween decorations from the 1980s and 1990s?



## AstorReinhardt (Sep 6, 2016)

I ask because I'm trying to rack my brain for what we used when I was growing up but since I was an only child and the only one obsessed about Halloween...it ended up mainly being my toys...stuff like Beanie Babies and such.

What about you guys? What did your families use to decorate when you were growing up? Picture examples would be great. Name of items even better.


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## FIESTEE23 (Aug 6, 2017)

I remember a lot of grave yards, shaking coffins... I remember my mom and I getting chased by a gorilla... lol. 

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## patch_of_pumpkins (Aug 8, 2016)

Jointed halloween stuff https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?
_...alloween.TRS0&_nkw=jointed+halloween&_sacat=0
Cut outs














http://www.ebay.com/itm/BEISTLE-HAL...574099?hash=item58fc926313:g:dJMAAOSw8GtZTgXY 
My strongest memory is the pumpkin leaf bags 







Of course the basic pumpkin buckets and carved pumpkins
Also try watching the beginning of Double Double toil and trouble for ideas, I remember their house was pretty decorated and that was the same era


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## disembodiedvoice (Sep 24, 2011)

Leaf bags lol I do remember when those were really popular, I used to see them in almost every yard. A lot of times the only decoration they had.


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## Zombie4* (Aug 29, 2015)

I remember the dumb plastic mask and plastic costume that you would tie on you. They came in a box. Looking back now...they were quite creepy!!


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## Madame Leota (Sep 19, 2005)

My kids were born in the late 80s and early 90s. I don't remember seeing anyone decorate their yard with much more than pumpkins on the porch and and those leaf bags, which we all thought were so clever at the time.  Maybe the jointed paper skeletons on a few doors. In the mid 90s, I started doing some painted plywood cutouts and we became the cool house when we did the ring of sheet ghosts around a tree. It was all very simple stuff in those pre-internet days.


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## halloween71 (Apr 22, 2007)

Zombie4* said:


> I remember the dumb plastic mask and plastic costume that you would tie on you. They came in a box. Looking back now...they were quite creepy!!
> View attachment 464433


This was my costume I busted the butt out of it lol I was so excited to see ww still dress up like her.
I also remember the leaf bags and people jumping out of coffins and sugar daddy suckers yummmo


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## pauly88 (Sep 10, 2016)

I sure do. The leaf bags being one of them. I also remember Kmart and Fedco. (Not sure if anyone remembers that store here)
Had lots neat blowmolds cutouts. And when Casper the movie came out it was so fun seeing stuff of him. I have the Casper where holds candles still.
Oh and the telco and gemmy small animatronics. Boy now that to me is worth more than gold..


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## LadyMage (Aug 15, 2014)

My parents bought this house in 93, and bought a bunch of decorations to have a halloween party either that fall or the fall after, and they bought a bunch of decorations for it. Mom dropped most of them off to me last year or the year before when she was downsizing. There was a plastic mat that screeched when you stepped on it, some cardboard cut outs, a ghost that made an electronic woo noise when it detected movement, a couple of candle holders, and I don't remember what all else. I will see if I have some pics.


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## kakugori (Aug 26, 2013)

I still have my 90s childhood plastic jointed skeleton - his name's Kooky, and he still makes an appearance on the porch every year. Been repaired a time or two. He's bigger than the paper ones, probably 4'.

Classic witch-hits-a-tree prop is very 90s, probably older.

Paper bag luminaries.

The leaf bags were definitely a thing, starting to see them again.

The battery operated shaking ghosts

Spooky sounds cassette tapes

Definitely the Telco animatronics (I have the witch and Dracula)

Lots of string lights, garland, and Lisa Frank party favors like pencils (I still have to buy pencils every year), erasers, bookmarks, treat bags, etc.

McD's happy meal treat buckets

Seems like more home made crafty decorations. One of my teachers would hang tissue paper ghosts from a tree, and hand out tootsie pops covered with a kleenex as little ghosts.

Spray painted hay bales!

A house in our neighborhood was the original Halloween house doing the haunted yard thing. I remember the classic caged gorilla, and one year they built a volcano over the top of their fountain. Really wish I had gotten to know these people.


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## disembodiedvoice (Sep 24, 2011)

pauly88 said:


> I sure do. The leaf bags being one of them. I also remember Kmart and Fedco. (Not sure if anyone remembers that store here)
> Had lots neat blowmolds cutouts. And when Casper the movie came out it was so fun seeing stuff of him. I have the Casper where holds candles still.
> Oh and the telco and gemmy small animatronics. Boy now that to me is worth more than gold..


Oh my gosh pauly88 !! I had forgotten about Casper, I went crazy over the merchandise, it was so cute. I still have two pairs of Casper PJ's and I had the cutest Casper Keychain, kept it for years and years and then my son lost it, it was attached to keys no less, that was 10 years ago at least and I still haven't found those keys, I think of them from time to time just because of my long lost little Casper....sob


Collected all these guys from Pizza Hut too, still have them somewhere.


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## spooky night (Sep 23, 2011)

I think that's when the real "haunter" thing started. When I was growing up we only had cardboard decorations around. Then they started making these really cool animatronics and that's when I got hooked into decorating. I started collecting the life size Jason, Michael Meyers, Freddie, etc. and would think of different scenes I could make around them. I tried to collect them all, and in the beginning I did, now they make so many I could never keep up with them all.


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## mb24 (Sep 7, 2013)

For me, I remember merchandise and costumes more than decor. 

Vinyl costumes- E.T., Strawberry Shortcake
JOL pails
Blow molds
Inflatable Head costumes


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## AstorReinhardt (Sep 6, 2016)

disembodiedvoice said:


> Oh my gosh pauly88 !! I had forgotten about Casper, I went crazy over the merchandise, it was so cute. I still have two pairs of Casper PJ's and I had the cutest Casper Keychain, kept it for years and years and then my son lost it, it was attached to keys no less, that was 10 years ago at least and I still haven't found those keys, I think of them from time to time just because of my long lost little Casper....sob
> 
> 
> Collected all these guys from Pizza Hut too, still have them somewhere.
> ...


I used to have Casper!


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## AstorReinhardt (Sep 6, 2016)

People keep mentioning blow molds...anyone have picture examples? There are a lot of blow molds out there...


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## pauly88 (Sep 10, 2016)

AstorReinhardt said:


> People keep mentioning blow molds...anyone have picture examples? There are a lot of blow molds out there...


Here is some examples.


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## pauly88 (Sep 10, 2016)

disembodiedvoice said:


> Oh my gosh pauly88 !! I had forgotten about Casper, I went crazy over the merchandise, it was so cute. I still have two pairs of Casper PJ's and I had the cutest Casper Keychain, kept it for years and years and then my son lost it, it was attached to keys no less, that was 10 years ago at least and I still haven't found those keys, I think of them from time to time just because of my long lost little Casper....sob
> 
> 
> Collected all these guys from Pizza Hut too, still have them somewhere.
> ...


Good golly I had Casper and stinky (I never got the others) I used them as bath toys when I had my bubble baths. I didn't know they were puppets silly me (I was 8 at the time) However I bought the Casper not too long ago to bring the more young kid in me. 

About you're key chain I hope you do find it somehow


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## ferguc (Dec 15, 2011)

What i remember were the 60's era blow molds (haunted house, pumpkin man ) , Beistle cutouts or some other brand (we had life size skeleton on door and black cats in windows), Kleenex ghosts, making garland chains out of construction paper, a scarecrow made out of dad's old clothes, motionettes, carved pumpkins, and all the costumes in boxes galore (Collegeville and Ben Cooper). A rubber mask of some sort. The plastic pumpkins.


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## LadyMage (Aug 15, 2014)

Pretty sure this guy is from that era. Just picked him up from a local thrift store. I have a sign and another blow mold that I know are from that era, but they're buried currently in my storage, and I apparently don't have any decent pictures of them.


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## mohawk640 (Aug 26, 2016)

Telco









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## AsH-1031 (Aug 28, 2012)

I remember those but I don't think I ever got one to wear. Usually my mom would help me make a costume out of various stuff. As a kid I remember always wanting one of the Star Wars ones even if they were just cheap plastic.




Zombie4* said:


> I remember the dumb plastic mask and plastic costume that you would tie on you. They came in a box. Looking back now...they were quite creepy!!
> View attachment 464433


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## lisa48317 (Jul 23, 2010)

I remember the paper jointed skeleton that was always taped to our front door. And we had this blowmold when I was a kid - I always wondered what happened to it, and was thrilled to find it on ebay.


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## dane82 (Sep 24, 2012)

lisa48317 said:


> I remember the paper jointed skeleton that was always taped to our front door. And we had this blowmold when I was a kid - I always wondered what happened to it, and was thrilled to find it on ebay.
> 
> View attachment 468729


i still have that one (somewhere) too!


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## SusanSpooky (Jun 16, 2014)

In the late 90s my parents got a Bela Lugosi as Dracula blow mold! It was awesome!










Other than that, my parents would use lots of fake spider webs, the usual pumpkins, etc.


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## grogan81 (Sep 27, 2010)

Actually the pumpkin leaf bags have made a comeback. Saw some at the drug store the other day. I remember back in the 90s filling those up with leaves which I actually enjoyed doing. I also remember the buckets that my kids' McDonalds Happy Meals came in. I think McDonalds brought those back last year or something similar to them.


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## mohawk640 (Aug 26, 2016)

Bump..................


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## sneakykid (Sep 19, 2010)

Like others, I remember Casper, McDonald's Halloween treat buckets, the motion-detecting ghost, and the JOL leaf bags.

My mom would always decorate with die cuts and plastic door covers. She also had a ceramic jack-o-lantern (that she would turn the face around to make it a normal pumpkin for Thanksgiving) and the Halloween ceramic bears (in costume) that I was not allowed to play with.


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## Stinkerbell n Frog Prince (Sep 4, 2009)

The early 80's was the time period of the Tylenol scare so ToTing as more limited to shopping malls. I recall searching hi and lo looking for stuff to decorate with for the kids parties I held instead of the traditional ToT. I grew up doing. There wasn't much in stores for decorating. As mention leaf bags, cardboard cutouts McD's pumpkin pails. I managed to get 2 Blowmold Gargoyles and a Frankenstein. There were light strings they called Witch-icles... Icicle lights but using combos of purple, orange and green lights. I recall a craft store using the old fashion crepe paper cut to make huge panels of "webs" or chains. Selling glue/starch and cheese cloth to make ghosts. The Hallmark store had tissue paper bat garland that I still have. My best find back in the day was a tree hugger Frankenstain. Mine is not in great shape anymore the rodents found chewing on the sleeve was great fun and he's faded with years of use. But here's what he looked like new and of course a blowmold gargoyle.


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## halloween71 (Apr 22, 2007)

I always loved the rosanne halloween eposiodes to look at the 80/90 halloween decorations.


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## boo who? (Feb 28, 2005)

Bluckies, bluckies and more bluckies! 

Do they even sell those anymore?


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## RCIAG (Jul 19, 2010)

Yeah but they're ridiculously priced now, closer to $40 than the $20 (or less) that they used to be.


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## boo who? (Feb 28, 2005)

I think I remember buying them for around $5-$7. Some of mine are in very sad shape now due the plastic becoming brittle with age. Haven't seen any in stores lately - just the $40 buckies - but not those _bluckies._ Even Big Lots and Walmart only had the nicer versions.

Classic Bluckie


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## halloween71 (Apr 22, 2007)

boo who? said:


> I think I remember buying them for around $5-$7. Some of mine are in very sad shape now due the plastic becoming brittle with age. Haven't seen any in stores lately - just the $40 buckies - but not those _bluckies._ Even Big Lots and Walmart only had the nicer versions.
> 
> Classic Bluckie
> 
> View attachment 580415


I remember when I joined this forum I had to learn the diff between bluckies and buckies lol


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## dane82 (Sep 24, 2012)

halloween71 said:


> I remember when I joined this forum I had to learn the diff between bluckies and buckies lol


i've been wondering this exact thing lately. after 6+ years here i still don't know.


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## halloween71 (Apr 22, 2007)

Bluckies are the above one lol buckies are from anotomy places check out skeletonstore.com there is even a bart skelly lol


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## halloween71 (Apr 22, 2007)

https://skeletonstore.com/


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## dane82 (Sep 24, 2012)

halloween71 said:


> Bluckies are the above one lol buckies are from anotomy places check out skeletonstore.com there is even a bart skelly lol


mystery finally solved!


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## scarenoob (Aug 17, 2017)

Back in 80s-90s, Mom put a large Halloween smiley pumpkin poster (with a hook) on the front door. That was it. On Halloween Night, she flip on the outside house lights. Very few houses had any decorations at that time.

Early to mid 2000s, I took over the decoration duty and started to put out spider webs and signs stakes.

Then few years ago, I decided to go big more (UV colors) spider webs, lights, fog machine, tombstones, fences, hangings, inflatables, etc).


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## UnOrthodOx (Apr 24, 2007)

80's/90's, mom decorated the inside with biestle cutouts from the late 70's-early 80's. My favorite I've never seen available again, was a headless horseman against the moon. But the traditional skeleton on the door, a couple witches, a green skull, a spider with a honeycombed back (we'd sometimes make a web out of streamers). Loved those. Wasn't happy when she tossed em.

Edit: Here's the spider: https://www.ebay.ca/itm/Vintage-Bei...h=item3fb5fcdaed:g:uIMAAOSwFPRZ2qQZ:rk:2:pf:0

I can't find the right skeleton or witches we had.


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## boo who? (Feb 28, 2005)

Side-by-side:


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## dane82 (Sep 24, 2012)

boo who? said:


> Side-by-side:
> 
> View attachment 580441


 awesome, thanks! Is "blucky" just "BLow mold" + "bUCKY"?


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## UnOrthodOx (Apr 24, 2007)

boo who? said:


> Side-by-side:
> 
> View attachment 580441


Not going to say you're WRONG, mind you. I might be just showing my age, but the one on the right is a Pose n Stay if I'm not mistaken. The original Bucky was Budget Bucky (their model name) from various anatomical companies. They were generally casting errors useless for medical models, but great for decoration. Heavy, and used to go for $60-100 depending on what kind of deal you could finegal. Back when your options were a Blucky, Bucky, or squishy latex skeleton. The pose N stay/Walley/etc cheap decent looking skeletons have been a godsend for the most part. 

Bucky:

https://skeletonstore.com/budget-bucky-skeleton-4th-quality-56-tall-without-stand-c-100001


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## boo who? (Feb 28, 2005)

Oops! Sorry. I knew that buckies were the medical ones - but thought they came to include the Pose & Stays as well - because of their fine detail. Back in the day, the only choices were the buckie anotomicals OR the blow mold cheapo looking ones. Showing my age as well!

Thanks for the clarification!


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