#vintage

#vintage

Reliving Halloweens of the PastIn the 1950s and '60s, Halloween was a holiday totally built around kids. That was mainly because there were so many of us! That's why we were called the Baby Boom generation, and those kids were concentrated in suburban neighborhoods. Parents didn't go trick-or-treating with us, because everyone had older siblings or close neighbor kids to group together. If Halloween makes you long for the carefree days of homemade costumes (which were often awful but we were proud of them anyway) and homemade treats (that no one was afraid of), this video will let you relive those memories. It also explains how Halloween became scarier in the 1970s, when families became smaller and adults started to take over the holiday. #nostalgia #Boomer #BabyBoom #vintage

A Halloween PSA from 1977This 1977 film is delightfully retro and creepy. It wasn't meant to be creepy, just a little ominous because it's a safety film for trick-or-treat night. There are many ways Halloween costumes can be dangerous for little kids, and these tips for making them safer are pretty good. I especially liked the makeup sequence, as the kids looked so much better in face paint than in those cheap, ugly masks. The kids at the party looked awesome, despite the cheap polyester costumes, because I remember trick-or-treating back in the say, and half the kids I would see were dressed as "hobos," meaning they didn't really plan a costume at all.Trick-or-treat has changed a lot since then. We now have reflective tape and glow sticks. No kid would ever think of trick-or-treating on a bicycle. Their parents accompany them. Expanded Daylight Saving Time means trick-or-treat is mostly over before dark. And Halloween revelers don't stay in their own neighborhoods; they go to an area where the houses are dense, the terrain is level, and there are sidewalks and street lights. In other words, my neighborhood. Decades after the poison candy panics, we are used to inspecting our kids' candy when they get home, but it's mainly to appropriate the Reece's peanut butter cups and other premium treats. -via Mental Floss#vintage #PSA #trickortreat

An 1899 Halloween Party in New York Had Little to Do with HalloweenAn account published in the Waterbury Evening Democrat in Waterbury, Connecticut, in October of 1899 gives us a rundown of a Halloween party held in a Dutch neighborhood of New York City. Although held well over a hundred years ago, this party harkened back to even older tradition of the Netherlands, and was quite different from other Halloween parties of the time. The participants didn't dress up as scary characters. The young women wore their best blue and white dresses, and the young men were given blue jackets and caps made of paper. The decorations were blue, and the white dinnerware was painted with blue designs for the occasion. This party was all about matching up young men and women with each other for romantic purposes, and the activities were designed to draw them closer. One game resembled musical chairs, except that when the music stopped, everyone noted which couple were caught underneath the mistletoe! Other games allowed players to see who they would marry someday. Among the fancy foods, there was a pie with a number on each slice. These corresponded to a souvenir for each guest that had lots of meaning. There was no description of spooky stories, begging for candy, or communicating with the dead. Read about this Dutch Halloween party that had nothing to do with Halloweenas we know it at Strange Ago. -via Strange Company #party #vintage #Dutch #tradition 

A 1906 Horror Film: La Maison EnsorceléeHere's a fun throwback to the early days of cinema, when horror was all about showing off special effects to make the supernatural look real -to the audience of the day, at any rate. La Maison Ensorcelée (The House of Ghosts) from French director Segundo de Chomón may well be the earliest haunted house movie. A group of explorers, or home invaders, find a house full of paranormal activity in the form of moving objects, apparitions, and other unexplained shenanigans. The people do not flee in terror, and inexplicably trust the haunting spirits to serve them a formal meal. They even attempt to sleep over, which is another mistake. Take a hint: get out! Of course, the original film wasn't in color. That was added to make it more enjoyable for us 115 years later. You can imagine how a theater audience who'd never seen stop motion or double exposure effects would have reacted. #horror #vintage #specialeffects #stopmotion #hauntedhouse #movie

The Trendiest Halloween Costumes each Year Since 1950As far as trick-or-treaters go, the most popular costumes will always be witch, pirate, princess, cowboy, and superhero. But pop culture always manages to slip in, especially for adults going to a Halloween party. Last year, the costumes from the TV series Squid Game were very popular, but you won't see nearly as many this year. And it's been that way since the neighbors first got a television set back in the 1950s. Here's a list that claims to show us the most popular costumes for each year from 1950 to 2005, although it's really a list of pop culture events that inspired Halloween costumes for each particular year. Some of them are bit of a stretch (Marcia Brady, really?) but it's still a walk through nostalgia land. If you want to continue perusing trendy Halloween costumes by year, check out the trendiest from 1983 to 2019.The thing to remember about designing your Halloween costume around the latest pop culture phenomenon is that you can be too trendy. It's no fun if you have to explain your costume to everyone else at the party. And beware of trends that have expired, because you'll have to explain your thinking all over again.#costume #costumetrend #vintage #throwback   

The Merry Skeleton, 1898Le squelette joyeux (The Merry Skeleton) is a simple minute-long short from film pioneers the Lumière brothers. The brothers filmed mostly documentary scenes to promote the possibilities of motion pictures, so you can say that any film they did was "experimental."