Welcome to Halloween Night 1994, the podcast where we remember Halloween in the ‘90s through pop culture, movies and a little bit of history.
On this, our first episode, we’ll discuss the early origins of trick or treating in the United States and dip into a few nostalgic memories. Of course, no Halloween Night in 1994 would be complete without a rousing discussion of the iconic McDonald's Halloween Happy Meal Pails.
And if you haven't heard of them before, they were kind of a Halloween status symbol in the early '90s. So stick around! This is no trick, you're in for a treat.
When black cats howl and monsters roar, it’s Halloween Night 1994.
Say the word Halloween and it likely conjures up a few different images, but for a child growing up in the American suburbs in the '90s it likely meant one thing:
TRICK OR TREAT!
Trick or treating, as we've come to know it here in the US, is the custom of dressing up in costume and going door to door asking for candy or other treats while uttering the phrase "Trick or Treat" on the night of October 31st, Halloween. This custom is primarily reserved for children and teens. Though adults participate, too, by chaperoning younger children while out or often by being the givers of treats.
The tricks? Well that's just what may happen if no treats are received. As a good little kid in the ‘90s I never, ever had any intention of playing tricks or pranks on any home I visited regardless of the occupant's willingness to open their door to child strangers. I do remember hearing about smashed pumpkins, thrown eggs and toilet papered trees though, all the things that bad teenagers did on Halloween if they happened upon a house that didn't answer the door.
But how did this custom of tricks and treats become what we know it as today? Let's hit pause for a minute on the strict '90s trick or treat talk and do a quick recap of the origins of this more recent Halloween tradition, Trick or Treating.
Halloween has a long and fascinating history, with many shifts in its identity along the way–we’re talking a multi episode arc here–so for the sake of this episode I’ll read an excerpt from Lisa Morton's excellent book titled Trick or Treat: A History of Halloween. And this will be a little primer to help ground us.
Quote. "The unassailable facts of Halloween are fourfold. First, it boasts both a pagan and Christian history. Second, its position in the calendar–at the end of autumn/beginning of winter–means it has always served in part as a harvest celebration. Third, it is related to other festivals of the dead around the world, and so has always had a sombre, even morbid element. Finally, however, its combination of pagan New Year celebration and joyful harvest feast have also given it a raucous side, and it has almost always been observed with parties and mischief-making." End quote.
So to trace the evolution of trick or treating specifically we will look a little closer at Halloween's evolution in America starting around the mid- to late-19th century. Around this time there was an influx of immigrants coming to America from Scotland and Ireland, many of whom wanted to keep up with their British cousins back on the other side of the pond. And although inhabitants of the British Isles had been celebrating some form of Halloween for quite some time already, being influenced by the Celts and their Harvest celebration of Samhain, it was a widely reported account of Britain's Queen Victoria spending Halloween Night 1869 in Scotland's Balmoral castle that kicked off the real Halloween craze in America. After this evening of dancing and torches and bonfires articles started popping up in American magazines about American Halloween parties celebrating the quote "English Holiday." You know, Queens–they're just like us! That kind of thing. Anyways these parties, reportedly mainly for children, had activities like fortune telling and other fun party games. There was also talk of costume-wearing, which likely stemmed also from much earlier forms of Halloween celebrations when people would disguise themselves in costume to confuse and hide from spirits.
Now by the early 1900s, American boys were gravitating towards the traditionally Irish customs of the holiday: pranking and general mischief making. So much so that by the 1920s, Halloween vandalism in America was getting a bit out of control. Schools and other community groups started having more parties, parades, carnivals and contests to help curb this vandalism.
In the later ‘20s and early ‘30s the United States entered the Great Depression, and money was scarce, so neighbors pooled their resources together to host “house to house” parties where kids were led from one house to another, participating in a different activity at each house. And so door to door merrymaking mixes with a little bit of mischief!
The first use of the phrase "trick or treat" connected with Halloween was recorded in 1927 in an Alberta, Canada newspaper. Apparently some pranksters uttered the phrase. Once World War II rationing was over in the later ‘40s and candy became more readily available–coupled with rapidly booming suburban areas–trick or treating exploded into the 1950s and beyond. Oh yeah! Also, in the 1950s kids started carrying around plastic pumpkins lit up with batteries which also functioned as treat carriers. Hmm sounds like a pumpkin pail to me!
There were a few bumps along the way to the ‘90s, but once there Halloween and the trick or treating tradition had become big business. It makes sense right? In the ‘80s and ‘90s Baby Boomers who experienced that big trick or treat boom of the ‘50s and beyond now had their own kids to take out trick or treating. A little Halloween nostalgia, no?
And here I am, getting all nostalgic about Halloween myself. It's hard not to!
I remember going out once the sun started to set. Walking around our neighborhood, ringing doorbells and then sort of stepping backwards, because the doorbell is like right next to the door. And then! Being greeted by a warm smile and a large bowl of candy.
Some houses would let me pick out a piece of candy or two, usually the mini- or fun-size pieces. Some houses would chuck out a few pieces to each person at the doorstep. And some houses, though rare, gave out full size candy bars. Part of the appeal of the evening too was feeling the ever growing weight of my candy haul in my McDonald's Halloween Pail. At some point during the evening, I would always swap out the pail for like an old pillowcase that could hold more candy, and make my poor Dad carry the pail around. Sorry Dad!
But one year was different. My sister, who is five years older than me, decided to take me out trick or treating. It must have been the one year when she was old enough to take me out without our Dad, but not quite old enough that she was too cool to be seen trick or treating with me, or trick or treating at all.
It was dark, it must have been later in the evening. We came upon a dead-end street that was filled with homes festively decorated for the night, lit up and welcoming. But there was this one house at the very end of the street with no lights on, not a single illuminated window. On the steps leading up to the front door was a large metal bowl and a piece of paper propped up close by. The bowl was filled with candy. And on the piece of paper something was written in big, capital letters: "TAKE ONE PIECE ONLY, BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING."
What does that mean? I asked my sister. “Psshh.. Whatever,” my sister said as she grabbed a handful of candy. I took one piece, very carefully, and snuck a glance up towards the upstairs window. And then I saw it! A shadowy figure staring back down at us! “Big Brother!” I looked back towards my sister, but, but she wasn’t there. She was running back down the street, already two houses away.
Of course, this whole "Big Brother" thing was likely a reference to George Orwell's dystopian novel 1984, not an actual big brother who would beat us up if we took more candy. Smart reference though, it works both ways and both are equally terrifying.
Alright, up until now, we've been talking about what happens during trick or treating. We have yet to discuss what happens after: bringing home the bounty of candy. If you’re anything like me, you would dump your candy out on the floor once you got home, maybe do some trading with a friend or a sibling. And then sort everything. I sorted chocolate candy into one McDonald's Pail and fruit-based (a term I use very loosely) candy into the other. Don't ask me where I put Tootsie Roll Pops–the lollipops with a hard, fruity outer shell and a soft chocolate tootsie roll center–I don’t remember.
These McDonald's pails, we had 4 of them, 2 for me and 2 for my sister, they would sit on the far end of the kitchen table, their lids only to be opened after dinner for a treat. It was always the same though. The chocolate candy would go first, the Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, the Milky Way bars, you know, until eventually all that was left, a few weeks later, were a few rogue Lifesavers wrapped in plastic and Dum Dum lollipops, you know the remains of "the fruit-based candy."
I read that the most popular Halloween Candy in the year 1994 was–can you guess? Well, you'd be correct if you guessed Warheads Sour Candies. Which I refuse to accept because they 100% would have ended up in my 2nd string pile. Sorry Warheads fans.
But whether you preferred chocolate candy or the sour and fruity, one thing remains true: a very specific scent began to form once candy was placed inside those pails. Like a sweet plastic, which compared with burnt Jack O’Lantern pumpkin, could be an iconic Halloween smell all its own.
So now. It's finally time to discuss the McDonald's Halloween Happy Meal Pails! If you haven’t seen them before they were plastic buckets that the kid's sized meal or "Happy Meal" was served in, instead of the thin cardboard box or, you know, a paper bag. And okay, they were first released in 1986 but they are quintessential '90s Halloween to me. The first release was a set of 3 pumpkin-orange pails, with these lids you could take off that looked like the curved and slightly scalloped top of a pumpkin. And they had these thin black handles that yes, were kind of uncomfortable to carry around once they were full of candy, but hey–it adds to the charm. Adorning these three orange pails were three distinct faces: McPunk'n–that's Punk'n–a traditional Jack O’Lantern face, McBoo–a kind of a shocked face or like a ghost saying Boo!–and McGoblin–a sort of evil face. Yes, the personification of the Halloween season! Those were their official names too, printed on the back of each respective pail.
They were, from what I've researched, a hit! So much of a hit that they were reissued again in 1987. Halloween 1988 saw no pails, but they returned with an updated twist in 1989. Orange McGoblin was back this year and joined by new pals McGhost and McWitch–white and green buckets respectively. McGhost's face was a bit different than the pumpkin 1986 version of McBoo, more of a ghostly smile than a scared face. McWitch had eyelashes and a friendlier face, along with stringy hair and a pointed hat lid. These 1989 versions were the core 3 that we had growing up so I hold them closest to my Halloween heart. Over the next few years the buckets went through a few minor updates, including some glow in the dark action, and in 1992, a larger overhaul with a special secret door in the lid almost, kind of like where the stem of a pumpkin would be–so there was no need to take the whole lid off to drop some candy inside. And the designs were slightly updated with McPunk'n getting a friendlier face. This updated McPunk’n was the other Halloween pail we had growing up.
They went through another redesign in 1994, to look a bit more akin to the design styles of the time, and then stopped again until 1999 but they lost their pumpkin-y shapes here, in favor of regular looking pails with wrap-around illustrations of McDonald's characters in what appear to be Halloween scenes. Throughout the early 2000s there were some attempts at updates and tie-ins to popular movies including Monster High and Minions, ending with the last buckets in 2016 that were Charlie Brown themed. But I'll save you the trouble right now and tell you that 1994 was the last year that they resembled anything like the iconic pails from ‘86.
Now this episode could quickly devolve into me reminiscing about McDonald's Happy Meals and the countless toys from them that I kept in a plastic lunchbox. Not to mention the Hamburger stools affixed to black metal poles that sat atop that semi-glossy red brick floor. But maybe that's a topic for another podcast.
It sure has been fun remembering, and creating this. So thank you for listening!
If you've enjoyed it too, please rate and write me a review. Tell me about your favorite trick or treating memory, or your favorite candy. I'll read a review on air each episode.
You know, working on this episode made me realize though I lived in the same neighborhood for my entire childhood, I never saw who lived at that Big Brother house. But I’ll raise a goblet of apple cider to them now because they gave me a formative Halloween memory. A story I’ve been telling for years... a mix of Halloween Tricks and Halloween Treats.