It's the Great Pumpkin, Kid Ecto!

Nothing says fall like a farmer putting down his salt-pellet-firing shotgun and opening up his private property to the local urban community. Instead of being fired upon for trespassing, visitors are welcome to trade green paper currency for orange organic vegetables. 

Look at that lense flare! J.J. would be proud. A lot of families have traditions surrounding Halloween and pumpkins, I'm sure. Going to an actual farm where there are other activities to draw you in like corn mazes just to grab a pumpkin seems to have developed within the last 10 years or so in America. I think there are at least 4 Crazy corn mazes within a 5 mile radius of my house. 

In the 80's and early 90's we would run over to the local grocery store to get a pumpkin. There was no pageantry surrounding it. My mom and dad weren't trying to polish the turd that was taking me and my constantly fighting younger brothers to pick out a pumpkin that we would carve, then days later have smashed on our porch. The event wasn't getting the pumpkin. The event was carving it. 

Not only did we go to the local patch that has a corn maze, but it also had Mater from Disney's Cars as well as a hay ride on the back of a tractor. 

More lense flare. I'm available, Hollywood. I love how it is now with so much extra sensory overload. So many things to do to turn the mundane task into an event. Makes it more fun. We used to just carve the best faces we could draw into our pumpkins. If I could nail the design of the McBoo pail, I was happy. 

Now, thanks to sites like ZombiePumpkins.com, if I want Slimer on my pumpkin I can have him!

What memories do you have of the Raiders of the Lost Ark-like adventures of getting your pumpkin? What about carving stories? Leave them in the comments below. 

Halloween Crunch

Picture this: It's 1980 something. You wake up Saturday morning and immediately turn on the tv. You flip through your basic channels because Cartoon Network hasn't been invented yet. And there it is... You've found it. Your favorite cartoon to wake up to. As you settle in you hear, "After these messages.... We'll be riiiight back!" in a singsong jingle. 

You notice your not alone. Something is just as cranky as your mom and dad would be if they were to awake at this hour: your stomach. You need to get something to eat during this commercial break. You've got your classics; Trix, Lucky Charms, Frosted Flakes. But what if we had this: 

Halloween Crunch! Oh how much better our Saturday morning would have been. I seriously wish I could time travel and give the younger version of myself a box of this on an early October morning, along with the replica Mattel Hoverboard I finally own, but I digress.  The Cap'n and his team finally got rid of the Soggies and turned it up to 11. 

The box art is nothing short of amazing with our favorite cereal scourge of the seas now donning ghost captain garb. They even we're kind enough to throw in some reading material on the back, for those mornings where there was nothing on tv and your attention span was too short to keep flipping through the channels only to find Rambo: First Blood playing on Fox again. 

So, you've seen the box. If you don't buy it based on this alone, you've probably looked in the corner and noticed that last piece of text that makes you shout to your legal guardian, "WE HAVE TO GET THIS!" 

You're sold! This is what really got me. Normally, as an adult, I don't care what color my milk turns. I'll usually just drink it. This time, it called for me to pull out my phone to document it as my significant other looked at me and realized her life had reached a new low. 

Not 100% accurate for a glow in the dark color, but it was close enough. It tastes just like regular Cap'n Crunch, if you care. The fact that it does something different than the normal pink berry color was enough to get me excited. My wife, not so much. So there you have it. Halloween Crunch. And a 1080p picture of greenish milk.

Let me know if you tried this stuff in the comments. Tell me about your favorite Saturday morning rituals. As sad as it sounds, I'd honestly love to hear them. 

- Kid Ecto