Halloween Filmstrips
December 11th, 2009 by John WolfeFor some reason, anytime I watch vintage footage like the images contained in today’s vids, they remind me of the old View-Master toy from my childhood. I spent many hours with my eyes glued to those binocular-like openings checking out the adventures of Disney characters, Johnny Quest, King Kong, etc.
The Halloween images in the following strips come from the 40′s and 50′s. Along the way, YT user, syottoys provides a comical narration of the drawings for us.
I got a kick out of how these strips overemphasized Halloween’s paranormal roots being born solely out of superstition and make believe: “Long ago people believed in ghosts… But we know there are no such things…” 
December 11th, 2009 at 7:47 pm
Those are really amazing. I had to laugh in the first one, the boy holding cutting the Jack O’Lantern with the knife in his hand as if he’s going to stab someone–safety first–boy!
December 12th, 2009 at 12:37 am
I never thought to do this with my Halloween book from the 4th grade, “A Holiday Book Halloween” by Lillie Patterson on video!!! That would have been a wonderful way to share it…maybe next time
Though the cover to this book is simple, orange backdrop and all black writing with a tiny black cat on the front. My favs…black cats! Love ‘em though you know me, I adore and cherish all living animals. The book I have is much longer and not really done as a story, though there are plenty of great stories in the book, but rather more was written about of the history of Halloween. It’s from this quality of writing that had me so drawn to it at such a young early age. There’s always been an unexplainable sensation for me and Halloween. I just couldn’t wait for the holiday to roll around and so, at school, we would begin making arts and crafts in EVERYTHING Halloween. YeeeeeeeeeeeePeeeeeeeeeee, talke about the greatest time of the year 
You know what would be interesting John…..to find a few boxes of Halloween books from the 60′s and back up in the attic and take in the range of differences regarding authors take on Halloween stories. Every author has truly had their own unique spin on it, as well as, sharing some of their most inner thoughts regarding a holiday we all love and miss so dearly. I believe this is why my Halloween book was on the shelf; it was/is a girthy book and in the 4th grade not many children wanted to take the time to read a book with such size
Always been my favorites. Thanks for the memory of growing up in the 70′s.
December 12th, 2009 at 5:15 pm
autumnforest,
LOL, I didn’t even notice that! Around that time I was listening to the commentary on the pumpkin’s color more than I was paying attention to the drawing. Speaking of safety, there are some retro Halloween safety vids on YT. I’ll probably be posting them soon.
Goldie,
That’s a great idea about taking some video of your book. I wish many of the old Halloween books would be turned into video or filmstrips or even saved in a format that could be downloaded into Amazon’s Kindle or Barnes and Nobles new e-book reader. That would be awesome and it would be preserving a piece of history for future generations, since those works are no longer in print and are only going to become more scarce over time.
I know what you mean about October/fall/Halloween during grade school. Though I didn’t enjoy my time in public school, I did love all the art projects, Scholastic Reader book sales, and Halloween parties that would take place in October. Those Halloween school memories definitely helped to shape my passion for fall and October 31st.
I don’t have a lot of old Halloween books stored away, but I do have a few from the 70′s and 80′s that were obviously geared for small children. Yet, even in those works, you can clearly see how Halloween was viewed quite differently among each author and publishing company, as well as the sharp contrast in how Halloween is viewed today — you’re absolutely right.
Thank you for checking out the post. I’m glad this one helped trigger some fun stuff.