And That's Why We Drink - E482 A Haunted Coffee and a Propaganda Theatre

Episode Date: May 10, 2026

It's episode 482 and we're joined by our new ParaPods Network besties Kalyn and Christian from the podcast, That's Pretty Dark! First Em tells us some spooky tales from St. Helens, Oregon including the Klondike Tavern. Then we hand the reigns over to Kalyn and Christian to tell us all about a formative movie for Em that was filmed in St. Helens... Halloweentown! Don't miss this deep dive into nostalgia with surprisingly prescient allegories. Let's just say, it still holds up. And always remember to BE the haunted coffee you want to see in the world... and that's why we drink!Check out That's Pretty Dark podcast on all major listening platforms as they deep dive into the media that scared us as children and still haunts us (in all the best ways) today!Join millions banking fee-free with Chime—sign up in minutes at https://www.chime.com/drinkFor 50% off your order, head to https://DailyLook.com  and use code DRINK.Stop settling for wines that don't quite hit the mark—head to https://tryfirstleaf.com/DRINK  to sign up and get 50% off your first box plus free shipping for an entire year.Save 20% Off Honeylove by going to https://honeylove.com/DRINK ! #honeylovepodGet 40% off your first Hungryroot order plus a free item in every box for life at https://hungryroot.com/DRINK  with code DRINK.Download the Reddit app today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you consider yourself an enthusiast of dark Victorian history, you probably already know about the age of spiritualism, the grizzly murders, the body snatchers. But I try to dig a little bit deeper. My name is Genevieve Mannion, hostess of My Victorian Nightmare. If you find yourself intrigued by the salacious scandals, haunted happenings, and Gothic poetry of the 1800s, join me every Monday for my Victorian nightmare wherever you find your podcasts. I'm Rachel, and I have a new show, Woo-Woo with Rachel Dratch. It's an otherworldly comedy podcast where I, along with my co-host, Irene Bremis, talk to my funny friends about their own experiences with the eerie and the unknown. Psychics, spirits, astro projection, check, check, and check. You may think we live in a world where there's a logical explanation for anything out of the ordinary, but after you spend some time with me and my pals, you might have your doubts and find that you too are woo-woo.

So when the lobsters come for us. Our lobster overlords come. You heard it here first. Join me for a podcast that turns the mysterious tales of my funny friends into a spirited conversation. Search for Woo Woo Woo with Rachel Dratch, wherever you're listening now. This is so embarrassing because I feel like we're being called out. We're partnering with Reddit and I use it to fall asleep because Allison, she could hear if I'm watching videos. So I need something silent.

I started using Reddit to read at night. And I'm in all sorts of separates. It's very fun whenever I'm trying to. traveling, shocking amount of information for Reddit these days. If I'm looking something up, Reddit is the first link. My favorite is when you search for things online and like the auto fill in is Reddit and it's basically people like holding something in their hand and then they say, guess what's in my hand. And then you comment and then the next day they reveal it and you see like you can practice your psychic gifts. So listen, there's something for everybody. I mean,

for me, it's my reality TV show scandals. Oh. Because I don't know anybody else who watches my stories. And so I have to go on Reddit and all of a sudden, I'm in a huge community full people who are talking about it. And it's been very wonderful. I also get a lot of, I'm in a lot of local community subredits. So that's how I've actually found out about events. I've taken Allison on dates too. It's very nice.

That's why we turn to our favorite subredits when we are looking for basically entertainment, information, any of the above. Download the Reddit app and get answers on whether you're psychic. Whether or not people agree on your scandals, your drama, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Whether you have a hot take or not, you know, you'll find out. Download.

the Reddit app today. I am so excited to now officially start the podcast and welcome our two wonderful guests. We have Christian and Kalin here from. That's pretty dark. We're so happy to have you here. I've actually not met either of you officially, even E-Met. Not until right now. I've weirdly talked about you when you've come up. That's right. Thank you. I knew we'd be friends. But I have talked about you in that I've mentioned you and said, Oh yeah, I haven't met them. I've met Kaylin, so nice to meet you, Chris.

That's my favorite way to know a person is like, yeah, you know, they, we've, I should know them. Yeah, well, your story precedes you, you know what I mean? Like you have a reputation. Yeah, I think that's actually kind of a superpower. So anyway, we're so happy to have you on the show. Welcome. And yeah, M and Kailen have been on a speed date, right?

Probably capacity knowing each other is when we were dating briefly for 15 minutes or so. And it was a great, a great, honestly, one of the best days I've ever been on. Yeah, same. Truly. But neither of you gave each other a ride home. Wasn't that where it ended up? Not a right home? It wasn't a ride-in kind of vibe.

No, no, no, no. But Kaylin did send me some lovely stickers. And they are officially now the stickers that ended my sticker book. Oh, the final chapter. Wait, you know what? I remember that question of would you give the other person ride and I was with Taylor of Creeps and Crimes and Crimes. And it ended up that we were both trying to give each other a ride.

and we accidentally like swap cities or something. And then it turned out. You'll be where she is. She'll be where you are. Yeah, exactly. We switched places. And then Eva ended up coming in and saying, I'll give both of you a ride. So we kind of just like like botched our way into a ride from Eva.

Yeah. Yeah. So I do remember that. That was fun. You guys are way too trusting. That's one word for it. Hey, we're among the friends of we're among parapods. That's how I feel personally.

Yes. We're all connected. In the great circle of parapods. Yeah. That's right. just beyond thrilled. Thank you, first of all, for letting us be here, for letting us be on your network. It's the thing that you're not supposed to say to like a prospective suitor or like a job or whatever, but Peripods was really the only network we ever imagined.

Oh, God. It's not like we were shopping, if I'm being honest. It made so much sense to us, just too much sense. And we were very thrilled that all of you agreed on that. Oh, my goodness. You're very sweet. Well, that's so kind. It was truly. the like we were shooting for the moon and the moon was parapods and somehow we made it us and now so well from our end we saw your lovely show and i remember like clicking the website and i was like this is this is the stuff this is it oh my god and it's just it's just a great match i think our ego is sky high thank you so much yeah you just you just really it's always ours for being here you butter to be a ride today well well oh jinks i was going to say does anyone have

census is, and that's why we drink, does anyone have anything that they're drinking today? Do you have? Oh. So many things. Okay. Hold on. I put it away, but I'm going to get it because this is the time. So you were like, oh, it's time for it.

And that's why we drink. I guess I'll put my beverage away. We get to be asked the question. And you're going to put away. There it is. That's an incredible thing to drink. Now we're talking. You guys ever had Clyde May's Alabama-style whiskey?

Celebratory. That's a question. That's a sentence that I really. Am I allowed to show this? on the game. You're actually required to show it on air. That is a beauty. I've not had that.

I've not had the pleasure. I'll be honest. I've not had the pleasure, but it looks like a pleasure. Are you a whiskey person? You know, I'm not, but like I try. I know you've done like wine historically. Yeah, and I live in Kentucky, so like I really tried with the bourbon thing. It just is like not.

It's not for me. No, I get it. I get it. Anyway, we're from Alabama. One of an old man, an old rich man. Yeah. Alabama. I feel like if you're in the, yeah, yeah, exactly. Whiskey is my favorite drink to sniff. You know what, me too. I can't have much of any anymore due to like all weird chronic health issues.

So my friends do tastings and I sniff them. Yeah, that's great. Welcome to my world. Yeah, it's, I don't know how to describe it. It is very fun once you just commit to the bin. You're like, I'm the sniffer of the party. Yep, I'm sniffing. We'll see if your palate agrees. Yeah. Do you have a favorite thing you've sniff? Hmm, great question. And I really, I don't. Because it's just the echo, really the memory of what the whiskey was. And I feel like now Chris and I are kind of like, yeah, this is a second date conversation. Go away. What's just really intimate stuff? What have you sniffed? Have you sniffed anything recently? Yeah. What was it like? What was it like? Um, anyway, well, Caitlin, are you drinking anything? Are you drinking? Yes, it's a bubble water, as I call them, forever, Blackberry. And this just has the right amount of bubble. It's the Mason Perry. like I don't know some bubbles are just too much I like the Aldi brand and I like Mason Perrier and I like a blackberry peach occasionally that's charming I like that um beautiful proceed

oh I have a um I have a little THC Seltzer for funsies Christine I thought that's what that was I recognize the can that's all I'll say it's pretty darn good oh it's pretty darn good I got to try it out is that the raspberry lime girl you know it is just know it is you sure do grown in Kentucky by the way So we're all doing our local Just to finish it out I am drinking another moon punch Capri Sun Oh hell yeah It is this one is the way the waning crescent

That's really look yeah I have to find some of that I really I need to I haven't had that one There are so many things that I talk about On our show or any time I talk about nostalgic things It's like super soakers and Capri Sun And like gushers

Capri Sun I would love to talk to you about Super Soakers one day. We don't have to do it right now because it'll get too lengthy, but I do, I have a lot of opinions about the Super Sokers. And I did think Capri Suns, I thought it was fitting since you are also a nostalgia-based podcast. So I thought that was very lovely. Really, anything that had like juicy commercials. Oh, gosh. Lots of fluid.

They were doing something that was psychically to us or psychiatrically. I don't know, but like something was happening. We were all going through puberty, you know. neurons were synapses were firing etc. Some dots were connecting, just like squishing. Yeah, for sure. Well, since you are also a spooky and nostalgia-based podcast, we have a very fun topic for people today,

but I'm going to start it off. I'm going to pregame with my own topic to lead it to your topic. So excited. And the connection between the two, maybe people will know where we're heading when I say this. but I have a story for everybody today, and it is in St. Helens, Oregon. And if people know what that means, then they know what that means. And if not, you're in for a nice surprise.

I have always said that I am not great with banking, and I stand by that. I also stand by that. It's been really helpful to have a buddy next to me, and that buddy's name is Chime. Is Christine. Oh, wait. Oh, I've never offered you the benefit of up to $1,150 in annual rewards. I don't offer, I don't feature Spot Me,

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Chime is a fintech, not a bank. Bank. Banking services for My Pay and Chime card provided by Chime's bank partners. Optional products and services may have fees or charges. Stateed annual percentage yield and cash back for Chime Prime only. No minimum balance required. Checking account ranking based on a JD Power survey published October 20, 2025. For more information on APY rates, my pay, spot me, and travel perks, go to chime.com slash disclosures. I told Esperanza, like this year, you know, I'm not going to be on stage like I was last year. And so this year when you are styling me through daily look, my personal styling service, I would like you to look into more elevated, like, day-to-day kind of carpool stuff. I just want to like, bop around and be like, oh, me?

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we're going to cover the Klondike Hotel and I say Klondike Hotel hesitantly because I learned through my research that it is sometimes called the Klondike Hotel sometimes it's called the Klondike Tavern and sometimes it's called the Klondike Restaurant and Bar

and recently it has just been called the Klondike So All three, all four. Concise. At once. Thank you. So buckle in. And as I mentioned,

this is in downtown St. Helens, Oregon. The building itself was built in 1910. And it was originally called a completely different name, which is the St. Helens Hotel. Five rooms. More on the nose. And the St. Helens Hotel opened, although it was mainly more of a boarding house for the workers in town. And fun fact, there was a brothel behind it. So I like to imagine that there was probably some colorful history going on there.

It was not your. Not your average Joe hotel, except just kidding, every hotel in the early 1900s seems to have been connected to a brothel. That's just part of the, it was just a different time. What else were they going to do? Yeah, exactly. They didn't have screens. I know.

Pre-screens in general. They didn't have phones. And they couldn't read so they couldn't like have a library. Right. Many of them could not read. It's actually like so tragic. And down here we have our selection of fine books and literature class of literature. And there's the brothel.

the door to the right. Yeah. Sorry. Take your break. So my understanding of, I mean, I'm going real quick through this, just that it was a hotel, also a boarding house. And then at some point, the bar closed. I know the bar closed in 1961. There was a bar inside this hotel.

It closed, but then. Oh, was it by chance called a Klondike bar? Oh, literally, yes. What would you do? Anything. Literally anything. Well, thank you. First of all, thank you for mentioning that. If you did not, I literally had highlighted in my notes that like a Klondike bar is like also nostalgic and I was like, what are the odds? I cock blocked your own joke. I'm sorry.

You were totally, I was hoping somebody would say it. So I'm glad. Stole the thunder. It had to be. The dots. The dots. They keep connecting. It's that stella of, I think, is what it is. Yeah. The bar closed in 1961. and I think it was on the second floor of this building that was a hotel. So I say that because it's odd that now the tavern has reopened sense on the second floor of what is now everywhere else in abandoned buildings. You have to go to the second floor of a building that's not really used to go to the restaurant. Well, that's a recipe for paranormal happening. Yeah.

For bad. They asked for it. I agree. And at some point, I don't know if the. St. Helens Hotel became officially named the Klondike Hotel or if it got the name the Klondike because the bar inside was called the Klondike Restaurant and Bar. So I don't know how Klondike people have suggested in the past do the Klondike Hotel. And then Eva, who actually is the one who suggested this topic, I think Eva also called it the Klondike Hotel. So it's known as the

Klondike Hotel when you search for it, but nowhere is it actually called that. And what came first to borrow the hotel? It's just kind of murky. Yeah, it's all murky. I really, I tried. And yet I came up with kind of nothing. So we understand that. Thank you.

So although the bar is open inside the hotel, the rest of the building is closed off, which as you said, is the perfect recipe for ghosts. And in 2018, the Klondike restaurant and bar, or the Klondike Tavern, however you call it, it at the time they thought it was permanently closing down because i guess it was just hard to maintain and things like that and up until that time 2018 this was known to be one of the most haunted places in Oregon so um it or Oregon I don't know you're right the first time I hear it every time on Oregon Oregon oh regan oh no another option the Klondike state Yeah.

So in 2018, right before it closed, up until that point, it was noted everywhere as incredibly haunted. People had investigations going on in there. TV shows filmed in there. Lorraine Warren actually went in. I don't know if you were familiar with the Warrens. Oh, yes. Okay. So Lorraine Warren went in there with one of the TV shows, and they did a three-day investigation there.

And she was like, oh, it's so haunted. Of course. Of course. I've never seen her going to a place. I'm not think it's haunted. I'm not surprised. Did Mr. Begans? The chat.

Begans has not been there yet. Okay. Well. There's always time for that, I think. Always. He'll find his time. Of the things people have witnessed here, people have heard voices in empty rooms.

They've also heard voices whispering their names, which cannot imagine something worse. Lorraine. That's wrong. Lorraine. Lorraine. Oh, that's actually very scary. Horrible.

Thank you. your husband sucks Your husband's in turn So who do you You're the worst You know what That's a verse It's just being judged and criticized

It's just being like Negged like ghosts who hate you Yeah You specifically We just covered that in an episode We recorded an episode That will come out before Before this one

But hasn't come out yet Where these ghosts just hated Nick Groff of ghost adventures And literally anytime they talk to him, they were like, fuck Nick Grove. They were like, let us know you're here. And it's like, we hate you, Nick. And it's like, wow, it's got to be personal at that point. I don't know.

Well, so people hear all sorts of voices. They hear a little girl crying out. Apparently the radio will turn on and off and the volume will change itself. Awful. A coffee maker turns itself on and off, which I'm kind of okay with that. Ghosts, yeah. Well, I mean, if it's making a good cup of coffee, sure. Like, make me a pot.

But if it makes a bad cup of coffee. Yeah, I was going to say, if it's making it from the same grounds over and over again, that's pretty gnarly. I think that's kind of like, it's not like your fault, but it's your responsibility to like replace the soft. You have a new task. Yeah, it's up to you. If you're going to be involved in this, do something about it. It's a very important way to see in the world, you know. Imagine if the ghosts are now also leaving notes on the coffee maker, be like, whoever

didn't clean up last time. I'm on to you. While you're out to clean the microwave. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, man. So objects move on their own throughout the building. Pictures have thrown themselves off of walls.

Light bulbs explode. Drinking glasses have shattered themselves. And people have seen figures in the windows on floors that are blocked off, so nobody should be there, but they see people walking around up there. They've seen a little boy asking for his dad, and then he vanishes.

That's just sad. Yeah. I want to know the lore, but also I think maybe for my own mental health, it's probably for the best I don't know. Yeah, it's probably just a real bummer. Like I'm nosy, but I don't know if I'm that nosy. Yeah. People have also seen an older man sitting at a booth,

and as soon as the waiter goes up to take his order, he vanishes, which I love. Fun. And then people see a floating half of a body at the top of the stairs. I see just the head and torso, but no feet. How'd you get up the stairs? Anyway, to go back to the waiter, isn't that just a waiter? Oh, dis. Hey.

Now that's something. Actually, we officially side with the service industry. Yeah. Thank you so. Just getting real. All of us. You know, you guys are on your second date. It's all about how you treat the wait staff.

You know what? Pay attention. We're eyeing it. That's true. We're paying attention. That's a great point. It's so true. The building, like I said, has had a bunch of paranormal

investigations come through. They've also had like, they've hosted spiritual classes there. I just know Christine would eat the shit up. They're, they've had like classes hosted there were like to open up your third eye and like psychic classes and you go in there with an experience psychic and they help you tap into stuff. Yeah. I just, I just know Christine. Would you do ayahuasca at the Klondike Bar? Oh, that feels like a fake sentence. It's gone from what would you do for a Klondike Bar? What would you do at the Klondike Bar? It's truth or dare at the Klondike Park. Yeah, I mean, you have to because you don't want your third eye to be blind.

Oh, yeah. Now, come on. Hang on. Your life can't semi-charmed. I've actually, my footing has been destabilized. Apparently, this is a quote from a newspaper article I saw, nearly every team or a group that's gone investigating there, nearly every team has reported senting an altercation that took place somewhere on the second floor, which is,

where the bar was. So I could see like a saloon where the alcohol is, yes. The show that Lorraine Warren guested on was paranormal state, fun fact, in case you want to go watch it. And I did say in 2018 that the building closed and they thought for good. But after the pandemic, there was a guy from Portland named Holcomb Waller. And he took a tour of it and he was like, I've always wanted to open my own bed and breakfast or boutique hotel or some phrasing like that. He was like, maybe I just do that right now. And he ended up buying the place. And his plan, at least at the time of this news article, was to reopen the restaurant

and reopen the hotel and completely have it as it once was. I think since then, the hotel plans are out and it's just the restaurant that's open, which it's now been, according to its website, renamed the Klondike. and I have not seen any mention of him talking about ghosts but maybe that's part of his like rebrand but I would argue that the rebrand needs the ghosts it does why wouldn't you lean in he's wrong to lean in at this point

I don't know if he's listening bring him back can get your shit together man Volcker that's a hotel that guy owns a hotel like you just would assume that if he's born for it yeah my name's Holom Waller you are you are the owner of your hotel waller's yeah your name's interesting

but we have to make your first name way weirder than your last name. It's very, like, Hallmark movie. Yeah. Yeah. Very weird. I feel like there's a lot of people in the world who have two first names as their first and last name. You don't get a lot of two last names as the first name. That's much more unique.

It's a power move. Anyway, that is the Klondike building, I'm just going to call it, in St. Helenswergen. So that's a quick little one. And I only made it super quick. So that way the two of you could really, I know that you prepared. some very extensive notes. And I did not want to step on your toes here. Too many, honestly.

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Well, I think it's only fair and only fitting that M reveal the topic as this is your childhood haunt. This is the thing that was haunting you in childhood. One of several that you gave us options to talk about. And we were very excited to talk about this one. Thank you. I was very excited. You said, hmm, give me some nostalgic.

movies that you really liked and I went oh my god please sit down options are endless but one of the first ones I requested was was Halloween town yeah I was saying St. Helens or Halloween town that's where we're going today that's where we're headed yeah Halloween town um you also mentioned double double toil and trouble and any listeners of that's pretty dark will know that I am champing champing really at the bit to do uh Ameri Cate and Ashley episode so I was so stoked to see that and And then they, dual star is so tight-lipped. They don't tell you anything. So I was like, if I can't do a dual-star production with him and Christine,

Halloween Town is the next best thing. Yeah. Caitlin has shoehorned a Mary Kate and Ashley reference into every single episode. Yeah. And we've ever died. It's a sickness. And I'm not mad about it because I grew up with older sisters. I'm the youngest of, I have two older sisters.

And I used to hang out with them and all their friends. And we used to watch Mary Kate and Ashley movies at every sleepover we had. So I'm very familiar. It's a perfect sleepover for the education. You putting a reference into every episode is actually why we put you on the network. So it was worth it. That was the test. That was where all along it was riding on that.

I'm really glad that we connected that way. Before you start, I would like to have our audience also know that Christine, this was your first time watching Halloween Town, which is so exciting. Welcome to the folds. It was a fucking delight. I was beside myself. I'm so happy. I'm just so happy. I just fucking loved it.

It's like if a Spirit Halloween became a cozy little town. And gave you like a hug. Yeah, and gave you a hug. It was so cheery. I just loved it. Well, the way I described it was it's like hocus pocus set and stars hollow. Oh, man.

I think the best quote I've ever heard in my entire life. That's a power house. 100% correct. All right. I'm signing off. You guys have fun. Thank you. That was a great contribution, Christian. We appreciate it. Before we do dive into Halloween town, though, I'll give kind of a brief idea of what our show is, again, where that's pretty

dark podcast. It is more than just a rewatch podcast. The thing that Christian and I kind of found as we were just talking, you know, we've been at this for like five years now. We've been friends for a decade. And as we're talking about, like, what we grew up on and what we cared about, we kept realizing that we all felt like we watched these things on our VHS player, like by ourselves or with our siblings, you know? But this was before any of us could connect and talk about what we were seeing. That's such a good point. So much of the media that we were consuming at the time, we are millennials, but obviously

even Gen X and Gen Z, like we were consuming this media, but it was very emotionally deep, we'll say. There was a lot of emotional depth to the things we were seeing. And it's not like we talk about like the subliminal darkness or like what was darker or deeper. And we kept having these conversations and we realized we just needed a place to talk about that from our childhood. Because we're the last generation to fully experience, like, true disconnect from, you know, the social media era.

Pre-internet, pre-Digital age and everything. So, yeah, I mean, to have a place to talk about it has been, you know, bountiful to simply. That's amazing. Because it's more than just, like, what was made. It's the why and the how. Like the Don Bluth movies that made you cry constantly, like all dogs go to heaven and, like, the rest of. Fears, traumatizing. Things like Courage is Cowardly Dog, you know, that are just...

Traumatizing. Yeah, it's classic and we grew up on it and like, what did it do to us and why? And nine times out of ten, we come into it feeling like, whoa, this was so heavy. Why did we watch it as kids? And we come out going, we're really better off for having watched that. Like, that taught us a lot. We grew from it. So it's like, you know, the cultural context.

There's often folklore. Decades later, like now connecting over it, which is so cool. So unifying. at the time of the time. Yeah. It's commiserating, honestly, oftentimes. Essentially. Commiserating. But it's kind of like we're taking the head off of the Scooby-Doo monsters of that stuff that

we watched when we were alone. And everything that was like hiding in our imagination and in our closet and better understanding how they actually impacted us. Well, I haven't shared this yet. But the reason when I watched Halloween Town, I remembered the reason I had never seen it is because I started it. And I was too scared as a kid and I never finished it. I was too scared.

I was so scared of everything that, like, It just wasn't going to happen. I was too, but I would watch everything with my older sister. I think if I had older siblings, I would have. Yeah, I didn't have any. We would laugh at it during the day. And then at night, I would be too afraid to sleep and I'd have to go run to her room on the other side of the house and sleep in her room. Because I was too scared, you know.

I was the older sister, but I was also so sensitive. I wasn't. I was an only child. So no one was telling me. what was going on. I just heard at school I needed to watch this thing and I went, okay. And let's do it. I had to get it. So whatever hit you, hit you. Our show, we tend to focus on children's media, things that we grew up with. But it's the things that scared us as children that still continue to haunt us as a dance that have stuck with us over time.

And so we make it a point to. And we dip back into like Pinocchio, like older stuff too. You know, like things that. We do. We did. We covered Pinocchio, the history of Pinocchio back to Coloree back in the 1800s writing these stories and everything. I mean, there's no limit. There's no limit. I have to write that one. Go check it out. We did it for Christmas one year.

There's so many layers of his, it's not just the like what was made, but like what were the creators thinking that made them make what they made to make us think how we think to bring us here today making the stuff that we make as a generation. Quick side question. Have you covered the brave little toaster goes to Mars? Well, okay. We've covered the original. We have not done goes to Mars yet.

Because yesterday after I finished Halloween Town, I keep having this. So this is so fucking insane. I'm so sorry, everybody. I'm just going to say it and then we can move on. It's insane. Say it. I got Reiki two weeks ago.

And while I was receiving Reiki for the first time in years, I had this sudden like flashback. And it was of all these balloons in outer space singing. And I was like, what the fuck? It's like I was there yesterday. It almost like kept popping. back into my head throughout the week. And then finally I was like, that's seen from the brave little toaster goes to Mars. Like I don't know where from the recesses of my subconscious that got pulled out. But then after I finished Halloween Town, that came up as like recommended viewing. And I was like, I wonder if it really was in this movie. And I clicked it and like 10 minutes in. It's these balloons in outer space singing. And I'm like having this like weird existential crisis. Like why is this? That was just really stuffed in there somewhere. It must have like need to come out of my head.

It was so strange. Anyway, I watched that and had a lot of weird, like, memories of how much those two movies kind of, like, disturbed me. Well, a lot of people remember the clown, the clown scenes because it's a dream in that movie. Yes, the clown. Yeah, I hadn't, because I didn't watch the first one. Sorry to bring it back. No, I'm like, oh, my God, the clown. I forgot about the clown.

Oh, no. We've never done a sequel yet. Okay. If we ever, okay. that you're going to have to come on the show. I really will say I watched it and I was like, okay, aside from the fact that they call humans master, all the appliances call human master, which is like super not really, didn't stand up, didn't hold up over time. But other than that, like, I was like, it was pretty good

watch. Yeah. Hey, well, I've never seen it. Sorry, we're here for Halloween town. Anyway, that's, no, we needed to tangent to that because that's very important. Again, formative and that's really what we're here to talk about. So part of what we do is we talk through like the production story. So I've got some brief stuff on that. And then we'll kind of dive into the plot of the movie and give all of your very gracious listeners a little taste of what it's like over on. That's pretty dark.

And if at any point, this doesn't sound fun to you, just let me know. And we'll truncated even further and speak up. We'll hold the plug. We'll fast forward. The VHS. Fast forward. Love that. Just yeah, vaudeville hook.

Just get me get me out of here. We would never do that to you. I will say as someone who's obsessed with fun facts, I don't think there's going to be a moment that I regret at all today. So, so amazing. That helps. Truly, that does. But I'll start off, again, with a little bit of the production story because the story of Halloween Town started not with like a grand studio vision. Nobody was like imagining this happening to make money necessarily on the studio side.

It was a kid who asked a question. So in 1991, we have Sherry Singer, who was the senior vice president of TV movies for, well, Disney television was assigned to collaborate with Steve White Entertainment, and this was a new company led by this television executive who had been at NBC before, like, striking out and creating his own company. They worked together as producers, and they ended up falling in love, and they got married in 1993. So it started on this, like, TV executive love story.

And around that time, Steve had told Sherry, so we had a daughter from a previous relationship, who asked him, where all the creatures from Halloween go the rest of the year when it isn't Halloween. And Nightmare Before Christmas premiered in October of 1993. So that's probably what everyone is thinking. But she, this little girl, did not have the benefit of knowing Jack Skellington yet. But this question that she asked her dad turned into a pitch and then a script. And then it was rejected several times by many different studios. They shopped it around for years and years. NBC passed on it. Disney Channel passed on it. But then there was sort of a turn in the tides because Disney Channel made Raps. I don't know if you are familiar with under wraps.

The very first decomm? Thank you. Thank you. I think I don't know about under wraps. I knew you would have it. But once they did that, they were like, oh, wait, turns out kids do love spooky stuff. After all, what were we thinking? And so they circled back to this team who had this idea.

And for whatever reason, it was not clear to me in my research, but the original, like, screenplay had been written with more of like an adult demographic focus. like it wasn't even written as a kid's movie, despite it being a question from the kid, which I thought was very strange. But once Disney Channel circled back, they kind of had it retooled for a child audience. Although the writer of the original screenplay

left one little souvenir, which was that he named the Piper Kids after his kids. So Mourney and Dylan and Sophie are named after his kids. Oh, and I even watching that was like, those are great names for three siblings. They sound like kids in a 90s movie, don't they? It does. Yeah.

Then Disney Channel brought in director Dwayne Dunham. He, like, in his early career, was editing for projects like Return of the Jedi, blue velvet twin peaks, like in the 80s. And that's something else we love to do on our show is, like, we see the creative voices that were behind, like, this, like, where did they come from and what were they? And then now it's Halloween Town, you know what I mean? So they're bringing their vision in that, like, that 80s slant, that, like, focus into

Halloween Town. So those, again, the layers are just all on top of each other. but he had previously directed Homeward Bound. Hates even bring it up. Painful. Homeward Bound. Trauma. And Little Giants.

Oh, God. We're definitely going to get there. I shudder at the thought. I recently made my partner watch it for the very first time because she was like, what are you talking about? And I was like, how did you miss this? Yeah, how did you not see it? Oh, now she still cries.

Anytime I just go, Peter, I knew you. I'm so fucked up. He was just too old. He was just too old. Oh, geez. Yeah, we watched that over and over and over. Painful. Yeah, but that's exactly why we're here, honestly.

But after Halloween Town, here's more decomm lore. Dwayne Dunham went on to do several more decoms the 13th year, double teamed, right on track, Tiger Cruise, now you see it. So these were all the same director. He became like a decom director. Yeah. slam dunk after slam dunk. Seriously.

Nailed it. Yeah, but he didn't direct Luck of the Irish, which is my favorite deco. Interesting. A great decomm. Because I didn't grow up with Disney channels. I didn't know. I didn't know. I didn't know.

I didn't discover until I was like 12 or something. It was horrible. I have a fun fact about Luck of the Irish. That kind of plays into Halloween Town. Yeah, okay. Do tell? And Halloween Town High, Halloween Town High, wasn't that one of the movies? Yes.

The same high school in that movie. is the same as Luck of the Irish. Wow. Oh, like the filming location? I was going to say, it must be probably in L.A. I don't know. All I know is I remember watching Luck of the Irish very recently, and I was looking up fun facts, and it said Halloween.

Oh, cute. And I was like, the fun fact that I saw this St. Patrick's Day is that there's the scene where they're sitting at the Macs, like the Big Mac computers, and they're in a rainbow. Like, the colors are in the rainbow. And Ryan is at the, like, at the end of the rainbow. Yeah. I never noticed that. Amazing.

Oh, my God. How fun. Very fun. Two for one, decomm fun facts. Wow. But anyway, they hooked Dwayne in by telling him that he would be working with a 20 to 30 million dollar budget. And if you have seen the film, you can probably guess that that's not what happened. It was closer to a $4 million budget, which is very different.

Yeah. But still, obviously, incredible for what they were able to do. They shot the entire movie in about 24 days in 1998, in and around St. Helens, like you mentioned them. They basically took over the whole main square. of the town and turned it into Halloween town. So that's kind of why it feels like it does because they just they just took over. The whole like stars hollow. Like you said like here is this whole town square.

Of course that's on a lot. But this was just a literal town functioning is existing. And they're like, you know what? We're just going to commandeer this space for how did they find that space? So pretty cool. Great question. And I am not certain. There were several locations around St. Helens and it's let us know him.

I don't, I don't want to steal. from you. But I think I have an answer. I just remember like the town recently experiencing like a volcano or something. And it was, uh, because of that the town was like pretty abandoned. And so they were so eager for people to, hey, they were very excited for people to come in and like, hopefully bring it. Wow. Wow. Wow. And that really paid off. Because I was just going to say, I'm not positive. That's amazing to hear. I didn't know. But like they, they have filmed, like that's a popular filming location now or at least somewhere. what because in addition to it being the filming location for Halloween Town, it was also the

filming location for a lot of twilight. Several different twilight filming locations are right around the corner from all of these Halloween Town filming locations in St. Helens. And they still have like a spirit of Halloween Town festival there like in October. I've never been. But they Kimberly J. Brown attends. And last year Jackson Rathbom was there like Jasper Cullen. I have yet to go, but I follow Kimberly J. Brown on TikTok, and she always filmed herself there. And she, apparently every year, they do a pumpkin lighting ceremony in the main square where, like, they have a replica of the big pumpkin that they bring out and like the whole town lights it together. It's incredible. You have to do that.

Yeah. I wouldn't. Again, that's how you keep Calibar from coming back. I was going to say, do you think they have a Calabar every year that comes out like, no. They should definitely have a guy on a top hat. I wonder because they every year invite Kimberly J. Brown there and she usually hosts the ceremony. So I wonder if she like has to fight someone off. I don't know.

To your point. We all need to go. Let's just join there. Honestly, there's one way to find out, huh? We all know. Hello. We can expense it for work, right? Is that how that works?

Oh, yeah. Write that off of my taxes. Yes. I'm in. I'm down. I need no further convincing. There were several other like filming locations. one of which I know Eva had mentioned in the research the Columbia Theater was kind of prominent in Halloween Town.

That's also got some haunted history to it. But this was all kind of done in the same few blocks. Absolutely. It becomes that for sure. It is scary. That's probably Berkerson stopped watching. It was probably much earlier than that. But I'd like to think it was at that scene.

I want to go watch Halloween Town in that theater. Oh, you know they probably do that. I was going to say it would be such a wasted opportunity if they'd do. agreed and they have to have bodies in like every other seat let's go yeah storm the doors they have to stage like let me find something instead of a trailer they should have the pre-show of like the swirly portal and a guy comes out you have to I really react the whole thing I love the machine's just in the whole yeah yeah such a good idea and speaking of Kimberly J Brown I need to get your opinion on this M how upset were you about her recasting yeah in the later how

You didn't even have to finish the sentence. I, I didn't know that. And I find that extremely absurd because she was a fucking star, like to, like, you look at her in that movie. I'm like a fucking star power. And I went and followed her afterward and was like scrolling all the way through to like old Halloween towns that she hosted. I was like digging way into her. I'm like, what a delight. I have the biggest crush on her too.

I also did back in the day. I remember. I didn't understand what it was. but I was like, I'm weirdly attached to that person. Why can't I stop looking at her? Can't I stop thinking about her? Even though I'm so scared of that. Do I want to be a Cromwell witch or do I want to be with Marnie?

Do I want to marry a Cromwell witch? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. But no, I remember when they recast. And honestly, that's the reason I didn't watch Halloween 3. Wow, I can't believe they recast. Yeah. Might as well boycott.

She didn't, she didn't want to be recast either. I think she just got too old or something and they like couldn't come up with a deal. It is literally on record that she was recast because they wanted somebody younger and in the role, which you think you're going to pull the wool over? Like, it had been many years. Like, one of my idiot? Yes, seriously. Some of us may have aged out, but like, we're not dumb.

We all have a crush on her. We recognize her. To which I say, make the character older. Yeah, jump ahead if you want. How fucking is it. My argument, my whole thing with this is that she was considered too old to play Marnie. She is literally Marnie's age. She was 13 when she played the character of Marnie.

She is Marnie. That's an incredible point Yeah, how can you How do you, I don't understand I don't know how you can rubics You're way out of saying that she's too old To play the character that she originated They know nothing

They don't know anything They don't know anything about art And then they keep like all of her siblings Like the everyone else was normally cast So her grown ass brother who had like a deep voice And a beard by the end He was like perfect age You're fine, that's good

That's okay I know he's a man so he can do no wrong Wow Wait am I performing? too much? Is that too much? No, just right. Just exactly. Don't worry. We'll mute you when you're, when you're overdoing it. That's what I was thinking is like her mom was the same actor. Yes. So she had to pretend to have a new, a different daughter. Like she's the same daughter. At the very least, they should have written in a storyline that like, oh, you know, she's become so

powerful they had to disguise her. Like yeah, something. Something. That irks me like on sitcoms when they don't, they don't even address it. Like I think, oh, Fresh Prince may have addressed it when and Vivian was recast, I think, like early on. And I think they made a joke. Like they said, oh, Boy Meets World did it. Oh, Boy Meets World. That was a masterclass in how you thought. Boy Meets World, yes.

Fantastic, because it was like Morgan has been in time out for a really long time or something. And then they redid it. I don't know. I also watched the Girl Meets World, the Boy Meets World spin off. Yeah. And they extra called out the fact that they not only recast her as one person, but two people. And they literally had both women acting in the scene as one sister. And they would go, hey, Morgan.

and both of them would just wave. It was like, good for them. That's the only way to do it. Just be a little little self-aware. Somebody has to do an episode on recast women, like in the roles. Oh, yeah, that's interesting. Because that's where, fuck Kevin or whatever the show is called. Oh, I love that show.

What's it called? Kevin, Kevin can fuck himself. That's the whole premise, right? That is one of the best shows I think I've seen in recent years. You've never seen it. Yeah. It's so good. It's good.

good, but it comes from the idea that like... And you jot it down. It's like dark, but like... Absurd. Yeah. And it's like a sitcom but not. Oh my God. It's so good.

Okay. Perfect. You go in so many directions. But one more direction we have to go in before we get into the plot of Halloween town is that the, you know, millennials must know this information. Mark Mothersbaugh, who is from Devo and also the brain behind Rugrats did the score for Halloween Town. Wait, what?

The score. Oh. Did the score. Mark Mother's ball. Get out. Oh, cool. Yeah. So if you hear like the Rugrats theme now, every time you hear it, you can think of Halloween

town. I love that. Fun. Fun. And I bet you M hears that theme song quite a lot. Oh, I hear both of them in my head right now. Right down. I was talking to somebody the other day.

And I mean, it's not just because, you know, we talk about it on the podcast all the time. But I truly think so much of my worldview came from Rugrats. Like the way that the adults interact with each other and the weird like tongue in cheek. Yeah. And they're Dr. Lipchitz and they're just, you know what I mean? Just Dr. Lipchitz, man.

I learned how grownups behave watching that show. And it's like for a accurate. I often feel like stew pickles with the pudding at 4 a.m. I've lost control of my life. It's so relatable. And they're like younger than us, but they seem so much older. Oh, they look like they're like 32 or something. Yeah.

Stupid. I just refuse to that they would be like invited to a party at my house. house and we would all be the same age. We refuse to believe it. Painful. Yeah. And really, Halloween Town is about that coming of age, about feeling like you're ready for something, all that good stuff, because basically the whole premise of this film is that

a 13-year-old girl is having a very relatable, very aggressive early teen crisis because she knows that there's something different about her. She feels stifled by her parent. And she is absolutely convinced that the normal life that she has being, like, shoehorned into, is a scam. And she's correct. She's fully correct about everything that she thinks and feels. Yes. She goes about it in an interesting way, though. There is so much nostalgia in these opening scenes. There's that orange hue that everything had in the 90s and the wind was like whipping up the street, the glow. And there's a bunch of pop psychology happening in this one

suburban house because this really precocious kid is trying to like outsmart her mom. And that's also a trope that we run into on our show all the time is just like I don't think they knew how to write another type of kid you know in the 90s like like they're like a smart alice they're all way too smart it's we we talk about it in Jumanji with Chris E Dunn's character like they're just way too smart for their own good and I like to think that that was who we were the witty the witty like callbacks and stuff I'm all about that yeah yeah Marnie's mom will not let her dress up for Halloween or any of her siblings not because of razor blades and apples or any kind of satanic panic which is why most of my friends couldn't participate in Halloween as a kid. It has none of that overtone at all. She's

just basically saying that you can't dress up and she just refuses to tell Marnie why. She refuses to explain anything at all. And we eventually learned this is due to her own generational trauma being forced into like a witchy world that she didn't, being forced into like a witchy world that she didn't choose. It's very much like a Troy Bolton like no, it's your dream, dad. It's such a Troy Bolton. Oh my God. And she just can't bring herself to explain any of this to Marney, like maybe not realizing or knowing if she's ready, like just not knowing where that line is and Marnie is really pushing it. And I feel like that happens in most parent-child relationships where there's this like individuating. And the parent, like, I think the problems in that come from when a parent takes that individualation as like a personal attack. Yes. And or if the children lose side of the like love that's underneath the decisions and like why the parents doing what they're doing, like they both just kind of lose side. And of each other's perspective and it gets really hairy. It does in this case for sure. And I love that it's just a decomm that's just like platforming that because we were all this age going through it and watching somebody going through it on the screen in a pretty loud way. Yeah. It was really empowering.

And just like getting and like venting and like letting steam on like I mean not to get too into it, but like yeah, that I didn't have space to necessarily be that way. And I feel like it was such like a, it's such a emboldening or like validating thing to see on stage yeah or on screen all the above and I was going to say that I was going to ask I would shut down immediately if I had any any opinions on what was happening I was just like

stop don't talk back just do what you're told like yeah don't talk back you're being a smart ass you know like all that kind of stuff it's like I'm just I'm just being a person I just have questions I'm confused yeah I wonder as as I'm getting older and now I'm like I can see like the parental side of things also.

I'm like I feel like it's a second chance to also experience the nostalgia but from a different perspective and be like from the parents side. Yeah. You just wanted to protect your kid but then on the flip side the kid like doesn't feel hurt and like they know that they're smart enough to be able to probably have these conversations or they think they are but the parents still sees them as a little kid and like it's a very. And the parent hasn't reconciled it in themselves. So like they don't know how to handle it. Yeah. Can't adjust.

Yeah, nobody's like able to like compensate or adjust for the other perspective. And so everybody's just like mad at each other. Yeah. When in reality like all parents like all adults have been children. Children don't have the luxury of having been adults. So the parent has to be the one in that case to be like, you know what? I remember what that's like and to try and step outside of themselves. But they're also doing the really hard job of like parenting and keeping their kids alive and like making this happen.

You know, so. It's a thankless job. Being a parent is hard. I say that all of this is a non-parent completely fully recognizing that it is a huge, crazy undertaking. And like we say on our show all the time, I think that everybody could benefit from just like, like you said, like looking at it from a different perspective, looking back, remembering how it felt for you. That is something we talk about a lot is like, we're adults now, so we have to look at it from both perspectives. Like just like you're saying M is like now we're analyzing things in a very different way than we did 30 years ago. Yeah.

It's tough. There's a lot of psychology there. With the added layer, and we're going to get to it in Halloween Town as well, that our parents maybe didn't go to that extra mile. They maybe didn't do that step. That's certain they did not. No. Because their nostalgia stuff is like Andy Griffith.

You know? I mean, their stuff is like. Completely different values. We know best and we just tell everybody what to do. And it's like. Well, they were also, they were raised to think that when they became parents that it was the, you know, I'm the boss, listen to me. But nowadays, I feel like it's a little more,

you're expected to be open-minded and actively communicative with your kid. So I don't even know if the movie would be, if the script would be written the same way today. Right. Interesting point. Probably not. And honestly, this was like the edge of that. You know what I mean?

This is the early 90s. There is that like flip in parenting psychology where, where they're, like, people are at least questioning it. And then look at, you know, how far we've come 30 years later. You know, the most alarming thing is that after we finish this episode, I have like an hour to kind of take a bee, walk the dog, et cetera, and then I'm like, on to dinner. I think a lot of us can relate to that, and a lot of people don't even have that extra hour built in. So I'm very fortunate. But that being said, hungry root has been a huge, huge savior in our household, custom deliveries for us that really fit our lifestyle and our budget.

And Leona's a very particular food taste. So I am thankful for that. snack, sweets, salad kits, ready to eat meals and even supplements. It's easy to find options that fit your taste and nutrition goals. Hungry Root also holds all of its food to high standard, so it screens out over 200 additives, including high fructose corn syrup, artificial sweeteners, preservatives. So you are getting quality food and you have quite a variety to pick from. If you've got picky eaters like Leona, it's just, it's very wonderful to have it on your side. It's like a personal grocery shopper, you know. It's actually very convenient. You're going to

love hunger root as much as we do for a limited time get 40% off your first order plus get a free item in every box for life just go to hunger root.com slash drink and use code drink it's hungary root.com slash drink code drink to get 40% off your first box and a free item of your choice for life. So honestly I wasn't even sure if I was going to mention this but I feel like it's a valuable allegory because of the way that like Gwen is so like tight-lipped about how she feels and what she's thinking she's not sharing with her kid. I feel like it illustrates the in efficacy of ignorance or like abstinence-based education, if you will, like behavioral like it's not going to, like she's not going to forget it, she's not going to drop it.

Yeah, you want to protect your kids so you don't tell them about magic. Then it makes them curious for more. Or like sex or drugs or whatever thing. Totally. And that ignores the reality are so juicy and there's so much liquid. There's so much to understand in this life. There's so much to figure out. And yeah, if your kid is going to step into that reality eventually, which by the way, they all will,

it isn't not better to like give them something foundational rather than ignoring it because I know in 100% or families are like regions of the country we're from Alabama it's presented as if like sex education for example will lead to an increase in sexual behavior right and that kind of fear-based thinking has been used over decades to like shape policy and curriculum and actual science and like research shows the If you educate kids, if you give them tools, if you give them information, they're going to use those tools and that information to make better decision. And to me, it feels like common sense. I was going to say, what a shocking thing to learn. It's such a good point that it absolutely mirrors that of just like, well, I'm not going to tell you. And then I'm going to be surprised when you're curious about it because I didn't inform you. When you act out or whatever. Yeah. And in Marnie's case, it's something inherent within her. You know, she's like, I feel pretty. magical mom i don't know like this just feels like it's me and she's like i wish you can know wait to hormones or any other thing that's happening that's out of control i'm turning 13 soon and all of a sudden these these feelings in my body are telling me i have a crush on marney and i'm scared of the movie she's in but i keep staring at her that was my own problem anyway but yeah we've all been there we've all been there and ignorance is also always far more easily manipulated than knowledge so you know what you're doing it's going to be less you know imagine if marney had fallen in with the wrong crowd in halloween town

Yeah. Imagine if she was just a minion of Calabar. That's true. You'd hate to see it. Far too easy. Just because she didn't know. I think this was a sticking point in our own episode because we've actually covered this before.

We did a full. We did like a big, yeah. But we tend to cover Halloween movies in October for like spooky season. We do like a big. Because we're doing spooky stuff all the time. Yeah. But we're halfway to Halloween. We're halfway right now.

This is like the perfect time to do this. My daughter's birthday is October 1st. So every April Fool's Day, I'm like, we're halfway to spooky season. Yeah, but like growing up, I went to, so I grew up Baptist at church. Cool. But I went to a church of Christ. You were a Baptist at church. You were something else.

And when I wasn't at either one, I wasn't either one. But yeah, I kept, you know, because of all the media, every show, everything had like a sex education moment in school. And I kept waiting for that time to come. like, when's my time? She never watched any videos. We never learned anything about anything. And it was very, it was very disappointing and confusing. About how Jesus was involved when you got pregnant.

So I was like, oh, that's even worse. Yeah. It's sort of like I don't get. It's always a threesome when Jesus is involved. It's true. It's true. I didn't get a lack of information. I got like completely like all, but bad wrong information.

You were very informed just in a very wrong. Very misinformed. Yeah. That kind of works, though, because we were always, we couldn't have school dances because they were sinful. Dancing with the opposite sex was sinful for some reason. They never talked about dancing with the same sex because that was just unspeakable. But they always said you have to leave room for the Holy Spirit. Of course.

So you're kind of, you know, dancing the Holy Spirit's there when you're having sex. Jesus is there. It's an orgy. I escalates. All the way around. I'm just throwing a fun fact in because I only learned it not too long ago. So I recently started taking queer line dancing on the weekends. Oh, nice.

And one of the, I didn't realize that there was like such a queer history to line dancing, but it was because dancing with the same sex was so sinful that a bunch of queer people started agreed to go line dancing together. So they were technically, you wouldn't know if they were dancing together by themselves. That is a favorite fact of the episode. Yeah. And I don't even line dancing in, hope. In Halloween.

Line dancing is actually very gay. Wow. Very gay. I love that. I saw they're having a line dancing, like a free line dancing class like in our town tomorrow and I was literally considering it. You know what? My local bookstore, which is like super like very progressive and they do a lot of queer events. They're having a queer line dancing event.

So I guess maybe that's catching on that fact. I love that. I love that. I had no idea. And then someone said it. Wow. They said it. class and you're like, well, as you all know, it's very gay. It's very gay in this room. What are you

talking about? I know a lot of people who don't know that. Yeah. I can't wait to tell everyone. I know. I can't wait to share this. It's like, oh my God, are you two dancing together? I can't tell. Below some minds. Because yeah, we did like the only kind of dancing, it was like, you know, the cupid shuffle, the cha cha cha-cha slide. Like there were certain line dances. And for the opposite, like, because you're not close together, it was were the only ones we were allowed to do. So I can't wait, tell everyone I know. It's a fun fact. You have the gaze to thank for that.

Just contributing where I can. And speaking of the gays, I mean, we don't know for sure, but enter Grandma Aggie, who is a beautiful, wonderful, incredible icon of a Cromwell witch. She shows up unannounced. She's got a bag of candy. She's got some cursed artifacts, and she has no respect at all for Gwen's, like, no Halloween, no magic on nothing. She has no time for that bullshit.

No, and I respected, frankly, I do. And also no respect. She gets to the house and within, minutes. She has them in Halloween costumes, which wasn't allowed previously. And she has them reading this bedtime story. And she's like, by the way, witches are real. Just so you know. And what are the odds? This one in the book looks exactly like you. Oh, weird. Here, look at here. Fun fact, Kimberly J. Brown got to keep that prop, I'm pretty sure. Fun, which is cool. Because it was modeled after her, which is awesome. Fun. But, but, but Agie says, what did the new actress get when she was the cast?

Yeah. Sarah Paxton, stick to your, stick to your mermaid. Stick to your aquamarining. They should have shown that. They should have shown that. book in the one where Sarah Paxon is it and just her face like paper like just glued out just to show how ridiculous it is. Yeah. How insane. If there is ever a Halloween round Halloween town reboot, I really hope they have heard our commentary. Yes. It needs to be like a decom spoof like you know there's like scary movie. Yeah. Oh my God. Can we make one? They should do a decom oh my god. A satire decom? That'd be hysterical. I think that would go over really well. It'd be like Like how scary movie is about all the scary movies out there.

You got a trademark it, Christine. They should do a decomm scary movie. I would except Disney's really a little bit scary, I think, in a real way. I feel like they'll probably fucking destroy us. That's true. I guess we can't TM. We'll see if I have the bandwidth for it. They can hire us.

We'll hire a good lawyer. They can hire us is really what we're asking. We don't mean we're going to do it without you. We would never do it without you. You'd never do it without you. We want you to do it with. We're on your side. because Halloween Town is a magical place

where lots of different sorts of people live together in peace. And harmony. And can't we do the same? Can't we do the same? Utopia. Aggie says that all of these spooky creatures that call Halloween Town home are just like everyone else.

Some are kind, some are mean, and it's just all in the way that they use their magic. And she says, sometimes the slimyest, raunchiest, ugliest little monsters turn out to be the nicest. And that's just true. I just love that. It's a universal truth. Love it.

And that was my, my, my, my, my, my, my, low-up arc as well. You're like, that's how they described me back in the day. That's how I feel. But through this conversation and another with Gwen, Agi basically reveals that Marnie is reaching this magical expiration date because on her 13th Halloween, um, if she doesn't start her, her training to be a grama witch, then she loses her powers forever. So Gwen was almost there. No pressure at all.

It's a little like reverse puberty. It's kind of like you have until 13 and then it stops. Can you imagine if you just lost? That's so sad. And Marney was within hours of losing it. Gwen was within hours of having victoriously shepherded her child. She super flew there. She went, I got to figure.

We have to do something now. We got to fix this. And she sure tried. And of course, Marnie overhears all this. And so she is like, I'm going to another dimension tonight. That's what's going to happen because it's now or never. So she and Dylan and Sophie, they all sneak out and they follow Aggie onto this flying bus. There is no misfrizzles to be found, I checked.

But we're in Halloween town now. And this is where we're getting to see all of these creatures of Halloween. There's witches, goblins, skeletons, vampires, the whole roster of Spirit Halloween costumes, essentially. But they've got jobs. They've got an economy. Like, things are popping in Halloween Town. If only. I can just go.

Aggie is like explaining to the kids like how Halloween town came to be and basically said that the people that started a human Halloween imitated the traditions of these creatures like mortal see, mortal do. And she says this was actually how the kids' parents met because Gwen crashed a mortal Halloween party. So this witch is like dying to live her mortal life and she crashes a mortal Halloween party. So can you imagine if you're the dad, if you're her husband, you're meeting a witch. at a Halloween party, cute, good costume, whatever. And then you, like, the next day you find out, oh, wait, that's not a costume. It wasn't a costume.

That's like waking up the next thing going, what did I do? But it's like, no, but like really cool. Like, in a really cool way. Really cool way. In a magical way. Oh, boy. Wow. And basically they decided to, humans and monsters didn't mix because humans were the real monsters, if you can imagine.

They marginalized these monsters. They made it hard for them. exist and so they kind of made it miserable in return. They're retaliating. And this retaliation on the monsters part was turning them evil, which Aggie is very clear and make sure to say, which they were not evil. That was not who they were. So they decided to just distance themselves, very healthy, take some space. And they created a whole new world, which is Halloween town. And she said this distance allowed the monsters to like settle down and have homes and children's and jobs and an expert bowling league. And I don't know if it's... Every community has one.

all of them. And I don't know if it's sad or sweet that when they are like safe and like not oppressed and not being hunted for sport, all any of these magical metaphysical creatures actually wanted in the first place or aspired to have was a human life. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Like a house and a family in a bowling league. Oh, my God. That's all they wanted. All these goblins and goals.

Whoa. But that normal life did not last because now people are acting strange. there's this undercurrent of fear. Aggie says that the residents are changing, they're becoming hostile or disappearing. Not unlike America right now, though it's not usually the same neighbors that are becoming hostile as the ones who are disappearing.

Right. Keep that straight. A slightly different allegory, yes. Wow, very profound what you just said. Oh, but she suspects that there is some kind of dark force behind this change. And Aggie needs help to combat it, especially from Gwen,

who has now fully rejected all of her magical identity. So there's this generational guilt trip. She tries to put it on Gwen that she needs help. And Gwen says that there are plenty of other witches that could do this. And Aggie basically says, like, you know how it is today? Nobody wants to get involved. And that made me take pause because I'm like, hey, hey, everybody, get involved, by the way. Get involved.

Whoa. That just had like a ripple effect in my. Yeah. Whoa. Nobody wants to fight a fight that's not theirs, but you have to recognize that like first they came for the. Exactly. Next their first they came for the goblets. It's all our fight. Then they came for the witches. At the end of the line, like, you're in there

somewhere. Everybody that you care about is in there somewhere. It's not your fight now, but it will be your fight. Yeah. Which makes it your fight now is how I feel. Right. It has to become your fight. I mean, you're exactly talking to the very right audience. So we're with you. That's the hope. That's the hope. And us, us too. Yeah. I wore my band the fascist shirt for this. Oh, I love that. It's so whimsical. That was a birthday gift. Wasn't it? Did I get you Like a birthday or Christmas? Oh, I love that. I love that little whimsical book on it.

I know. He's so happy. It's going about that day. He lives in a world without fascists. Imagine. Yeah. But Gwen wanted to have a normal life, right? We talked about that earlier.

That was really where she was going. She wanted to be free of whatever, like, danger or chaos that she associates with this magical world. And she felt like she could protect her kids from that if she could just keep them guessing until after their 13th birthdays. But she didn't tell them the truth. And now the truth is showing up anyway, like it does for all of us. Yeah, I mean, imagine finding out on your 14th birthday, you could have been a witch and live in Halloween.

Oh, it's so sad. Oh, my God. I'm stuck here? Just miss it. And in college, they're like, I don't talk to my mom. I really can't get into it, but it's like, it's really complicated. It happened in high school. She basically.

Yeah. Oh, I can't go there. Can't go there. You wouldn't understand. It's like a really, like, insular family thing. Deep family thing. Super niche. Yeah.

So Marnie takes it upon herself because her mom is, you know, not going to engage. She wants to help her grandmother and, you know, her people, her kind. And that involves activating this ancient talisman. They say it's Merlin's talisman, which is a nice touch, I think. It's this ancient thing. But it needs a very specific witch's brew, which is made from scratch, not the boxed witch's brew that Agi tried out in the microwave that had like the bubble bubble, totally trouble settings on the microwave.

My favorite joke in the whole movie. Of course. So good. And then they run around Halloween town collecting all these ingredients. They go to get werewolf, like, locks of hair from a werewolf from a salon. They get ghost sweat from a sauna, which don't, you can't think too hard about that. Like on our show, we think too hard about a lot of things. And sometimes we just have to let it be.

I think since childhood, I've thought too hard about that one. That one was like, how are we? Why does a ghost need to be at a sauna in the first place? Because we said ghost tears. Yeah, ghost tears would be. What a great. Ghosts are upset, sad as a trope. Make a ghost cry and keep their business.

Yeah. That's like. Good. Yeah, the sweat thing was weird, especially because he, like, lost all that weight. And then, like, did you see that at the end? He's like, oh, my pants are, I'm like, I like that they gave everybody kind of a bit. Like, I wrote in my notes, like, oh, I love that every, like the kind of the, oh, sorry, the off the wall characters kind of all got like their moment. And I love that. Like, the barber, like, the hair salon werewolf had his, like lines. I was like, I love all these speaking roles. But then with that damn ghost and I was like, okay. It's getting weirder by the second. And it's like a bunch of children with this, like, presumably naked ghostman. Yeah, that's what I was thinking. I was like, why are we just standing around with this guy in the song? Yeah. Yeah.

Like touch him. Shockingly, of everything based in Halloween town, that's the one thing I just can't logically justify. Everything else made sense to me. Yeah, that one was a kind of weird offbeat one. But anyway. I agree. And it had like a similar tone like to, I thought of Casper, but I thought of like the uncles. Like Casper meets Wendy Casper where they're just all of the ghosts are kind of

and that's the kind of world where a ghost would go to Asana. I guess. Right. Yes. And it wouldn't feel so like off. But this was also, there's so much that was honest about it. The punch of that was just not, it didn't. It was odd. It felt like kind of like slapstick. Yeah. It felt like it was a clip from back when the show was supposed to be darker. And it was supposed to have some like, more grown up. Adult jokes. Yeah. That's a good point. And instead, what that results in is a bunch of kids standing there waiting for a ghost to sweat. I don't like it. Yeah. I just don't like it. It just doesn't quite track. All of these. moments. This movie just keeps threading in these little warnings. There are these characters that

like know too much. Like they know stuff they shouldn't know. And people are like acting off. And there's this sense that they're being watched. And there's this guy Luke. He's a local bad boy. He's especially suspicious because he's going between like flirting with Marnie and these weird vague threats. At one point he calls himself a big cheese, which is not a move I would recommend upon approach. It didn't work. Wouldn't go there. This is our second datum. So I I can, I feel like I can now say that I'm a big cheese. That should be impressive. It's now a safe place to say that.

Yeah. But we made it here. You know, we earned it. You know? We did. We did. We did. Lou could not earned it yet. It's the payoff, you know.

Kind of a big cheese. Kind of a big cheese around here. When Marnie rejects him, like any, like, burgeoning maladaptive massaginus should be rejected. He immediately channels this attraction into anger. It was like, wow. Okay. Really written. now plainly for us there.

Uh-huh. Yeah. It was like, this is going to be important, by the way, um, because he knows some very powerful creatures, which I'm sure, um, a lot of, a lot of folks are hearing stuff like that on the dating apps. Yeah.

Yeah. You, you haven't heard the last of me, you know? Right. Like, mafioso energy. Not a good look. Like you've crossed me now and it's like, whoa.

Right. What do you with us? All I did was say no. No. Yeah. No. Yeah. Uh-huh.

But meanwhile, Gwen shows up in Halloween town. maybe a product of like a do you know where your kids are PSA and she's like oh you know what I don't um I like I know just where those little twerps would for immediately yeah immediately she she's watching like infomercial like the world's worst infomercials and just like eating candy that like I do feel really like I relate to that because that is what I do when Leona goes to bed and I'm like oh my god mom's never change I guess yeah eat candy and zone out the little tiny kitchen TV and yeah yeah love that. that for her. It's so good. The glow. That's the 90s glow too. You know what I mean? Like the kitchen

TV. I didn't even have one, but like I know what that, I know what that feels like. I know. It's magical. And speaking of a glow, uh, we next find ourselves at Calabar's propaganda theater. Aggie is here, Gwynna's here. And they end up having to confront this dark force, which we learn as Calabar later. And they lose, which was also surprising, I guess, watching it as a kid, because there's this moment of, oh, no. Calabar freezes Aggie and Gwen, and they're stuck there, staring at the screen,

eyes forever fixed. That's another, like, allegorical thing that we might get to. They're in a theater. Locked into this propaganda that they're watching to brainwash them into something that they aren't,

these creatures from Halloween town and now Aggie and Gwen. It's very on the nose. Very on the nose. Very on the nose. And it is another, like, foundational 90s kids film convention, which is basically dismissed

the adults, like remove the safety net? Yeah, they're no longer. They're not here to help you anymore. Yeah, they are going to exit stage left and now you have to handle it. Like, you have to grow. We talked to DJ Mikhail, who was the creator of Are You Afraid of the Dark on our show? And he made a point to mention that where he was like, really the beginning, the question in every episode was how do we get rid of the parents?

Like, where do we put them? Wow. So that the kids can grow. That's such a good point. Yeah, because the kids have to realize that they are resourceful, that they have within them what they need to, you know, be with you. Yeah. And I guess that's like an ancient trope, Harry Potter even, not that that's ancient,

but I mean, you know, going back and back like Harry Potter, all the young adult. Well, also in this. They're always on their own. Yeah. I feel like at least in this movie, it also plays into by the end, not only do they feel more that they have autonomy and that they can be taken seriously, but at the end of Halloween town, the parents finally respect the children's opinions. And, oh, you, I should not look at you as a little kid anymore.

rely on you and your own information. Yeah. Yeah. Like I should respect you more. Like I, yeah, there's this, yeah, there's respect that gets earned like through these journeys. Like the hero's journey. It's the hero's journey, but like in a tiny little like familial way, you know. It's also funny because they also kind of dilute this moment. Like Aggie, whenever they're struck with this magic, Aggie says the words, we'll be all right. It's just an evil spell that freezes us. We're not dead by the way. We're not just fine. She, Like she could have looked at the camera. Like that was for me.

That was for kids like me. Yeah. Who was so scared and was like, does she die? It's just pretend. We're not really dead. We just look it. Yeah. We're just closing it on TV.

It's not real. That's what I needed. It was really, it was heavy handed. In a way that most decoms, I don't feel like they were so much in that way. But it was also, it became funny to me looking back at it. I think early on, because I think it was like one of the first like five decoms out there. So I think they didn't have a real. rule system yet on like how

how dark we can go. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I mean, that stayed a question mark, I feel like, for a long time. Yeah. That's true of much the media that we cover. It's like, this was the first time they were doing a lot of this stuff.

Yeah, testing the water. There wasn't, yeah, there was not a yardstick. There was not a ruler. They had to kind of make it up as they went along. And then like hope they didn't go too far. And then that's what we find often is that you kind of did, but it might have turned out okay. Yeah.

For like a lot of TV in that era, there wasn't really. like the TV rating system yet. They actually invented that. I think they invented it for Power Rangers. Is that? We talked about it. We talked about that in our Power Rangers episode.

It was around that time. So there was nothing like really. They were just trusting these like kids networks, you know, kid-friendly programming. They were just like, well, that's for kids. Well, that's why I feel like I got so traumatized because my parents said it's for kids. Here you go. Same. Yeah.

That is pretty much could be the tagline of our whole show. Yeah. And I would be like, what? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, my ultra-religious aunt, thank God, gave me a DVD of the Goonies. Oh, wow.

I guess it was a VHS, technically, way back then. But she had no idea what it was about. Oh, I love that. This has kids on the cover. Here you go. This is a bunch of little boys. It's like when they misread the situation. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's how Labyrinth was for me at my grandparents' house. It was like, this looks like fantasy. Kids look. There's puppets. It's in here. That's for kids. There's David Bowie's crotch. Trauma again.

Little did they know. God. God. Little did they know. Yeah. Do you know where your kids are? Do you know what they're watching on the Disney channel because it's scary? And speaking of some of that, like I like also the implication we get Dylan, Marnie and Sophie,

they're all now off to brew the witches brew on their own, right? This is now like the turning point where it's up to them. But there's this implication because Sophie keeps showing up as like the most. witchy. Like she's just able. She has the instinct and she she knows what she's doing. Even more so than Marnie because like Marnie doesn't remember the spell to like turn on the talisman. But Marney's like so in her head, you know, trying to do it. And I feel like Sophie's just like, oh, this old thing. Yeah. I wonder if it's because Sophie would one day be like the most powerful or if they were like hinting at that at the time or if it was just because she was younger and more

connected to that. There it is. Yeah. That's that's the implication that I like is that she's more in touch with her powers because she's younger. And I think that that's a trip that we see across a lot of things. Like she hasn't, she spent less time internalizing the world, which is telling her no or telling her she can't or whatever, like unwittingly having the unusual traits socialized out, you know? Well, there's a line where Marnie even tells her grandma like, oh, I'm no one special. And it's like, well, of course if you're thinking that way, it's going to take some shifting

of your thinking. But yeah, so he's kind of like, I also know, like that's the one of the main reasons why they think children are able to have more experiences with the paranormal because they haven't been told that that's an imaginary friend yet. They haven't started believing that yet. Yeah. They're still open to the possibility. Right.

Because, yeah, they just don't have all of the other experience and all of the other things that are telling them something else. They can just know what they feel, like what they feel. Their third eye hasn't been gouged out yet. They're blinded. That could be a whole topic in and of itself. because we, you all talk about just different paranormal stuff on your show. I always get lost in the comment sections of like my kid was two years old and was telling me that they used to be an airline pilot or like, I get so, like, sucked into that stuff.

Like, what do they know? What do they remember? They know so much more than we do. So they activate the talisman and they head for the final confrontation. This is time for the big batty. And of course, Calabar is back. This mayor that's kind of been skulking around. the whole time. He's too charming, too smooth. He used to know Gwen. We get some glimpses

into that. He has this like middle, distant gaze about her, which clearly has become a problem. He's been waiting years to give this monologue. You could tell by the top hat. He was ready to perform. You had, also, you had, you had your whole life to like decide whether or not to bring the top hat that day. Literally. And you went, no, no, that's going to really seal the deal. It's a top hat day. And you went, I'm not even going to question that decision. Yeah, I'm just going to do it. It's like, why would I even think of course? Yep.

Where else would I be? Such a good point. It's a top hat. He actually went so hard. The actor did during these scenes that he lost his voice and like completely fucked up the production schedule. Like they had to change the schedule because he yelled so much and screamed. He was like too good of a villain.

Too good of a villain. And he's like, there's the wind machine. He's like, you know, being suspended and there's all this stuff. Holy shit. He's just screaming for days on end. But yeah, Calabar was out for. blood because he believes that Halloween Towns creatures were unfairly marginalized by humans and they deserve to reclaim their world by force and eliminate the offending humans. I agree that they shouldn't

have been marginalized. And I guess Aggie's whole thing was like they kind of started going at each other rather than it being like a one, you know, kind of overpowering the other. And the creatures that had the power to create a new world just said, hey, we'll just go do that. Seems, you know, relatively simple, but that's not how Calabar remembers it. And I'm afraid that's something that's coloring his memory or understanding of the situation is that he is still hung up on Gwen choosing a human over him. Yep. So this big power trip is basically just the work of jealousy and ego and fragile masculinity. It's like nothing changes.

Yeah. You know. Nothing new under this. We didn't even have to come up with a whimsical answer to that. It was just, oh, he's just, yeah, he got rejected by his crush or whatever. Holy shit, like decades ago. Like, oh my God. I was literally going to say that's some in-cell shit right there.

Oh, and I just like quick side note because I'm the only one who's going to bring this up. So sorry. But there is a weird comparison here or similarity to the brave little toaster goes to Mars. Because the plot of that film is that all the appliances on Mars feel rejected by humanity and want to destroy humanity and take over for themselves. And then the brave little toaster is like, no, humans are good. And I'm like, well, I wouldn't go that far. Like you're a toaster. Shut the fuck up.

You're like a toaster. Actually, the toaster becomes the supreme leader. It's a whole thing. Wow. They go out. They're like, we're going to blow up the earth. And I'm like, no wonder I was scared as a kid. I'm like, what do you mean the refrigerator is going to blow me at?

Like, wants to kill me. To walk around thinking your whole kitchen like resents you is crazy to kill you. It's pretty wild. The first brave little toaster gave you empathy for appliances. You're like, oh no, the poor vacuum. Oh, no. The air conditioner got so upset that he had a panic attack. and crash out and died.

Like, yeah, you get all this empathy. Damaging. That movie's just like, no, they actually want to hurt you. So it's like a double-sided thing. It's like, oh, wow, you really feel for them? Well, guess what? They're going to fuck you up. And it's like, oh, my God.

Wow. So really it was a one-two punch with those films because they rolled us into a false sense of security. That's right. And they said, never mind. Talk about a life lesson, man. They just wanted to test how quickly they can manipulate us to feel like. Well, I hope they're fucking happy because I really haven't recovered.

Now I'm still scared of the toaster. Me too. Me too. I'm still scared of a vacuum cleaner. He was so mean for no reason. Oh, he was. And the air conditioner. You remember that radio that was like, I'm all super cool transatlantic radio?

I'm so sorry, but I was convinced the radio was the first gay man I ever experienced. That was the sassiest, unnecessarily sassy man I'd ever met in my life. He was sassy. I love it. Okay. Sorry. Oh, sorry. Did I derail us by talking about the brave little toaster going to Mars?

I love that we're talking together about brave little toaster and Halloween down. That makes my soul happy. Perfect. But Marnie tries to use the talisman and she fails the first time. She gets knocked down. There's this, oh no, all is lost, which we get a fake out like we often do in films like this. And then she has this realization that feels very inevitable because magic is about more than spells and training. It's about belief, believing in it.

Aggie says earlier in the film, which I really liked the way she described magic. magic. Yes. She said magic is knowing what you want and then letting yourself have it. She said it's really very simple. You just want to have to want something. Yeah. And let yourself have it. And I just thought that was so profound. And then when they brought it back, I was like, oh, beautiful. Which I feel like a lot of it now, I feel like in today's world, a lot of magic is manifestation work. Yeah. And I feel like that. Whether or not that's because of Halloween town, I feel like it's interesting that a lot of the kids who watched Halloween Town grew up. And those who are now involved in magic are like, oh, it's a manifestation is the first.

You had a crush on Marnie. I wanted to be Marnie. Now we're all doing witchcraft. And that's where we landed. I mean, that's where it brought us. And I personally don't want to be anywhere else. You did it. Marnie's like, hey, chocolate bar, you better give the talism back.

You're in big trouble. She's like, mouthing out. Like using her powers as a 13-year-old for good. You know what I mean? This is the sass that we need. She rallies her family together. Even Dylan, who stops citing science textbooks because he's had this whole actually kind of vibe for the whole time. He realizes that he too is a warlock.

He has some internalized hatred towards his own kind. I don't know what's going on there. Yeah. Yes. He's definitely been been socialized in a way that makes him. I think he also has little brother syndrome because I feel like my little brother and I always bickered like that. And whether he believe me or not, he'd be like, that's stupid to whatever I did and said. And I think it was just kind of our thing with siblings.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He says at one point, like, Marnie's running off and he, like, it's like a classic middle child thing because he's like, it's always the troublemakers that get the attention or something like that. Yeah. Yeah. There's so much of that in this movie. I had to admit, I had to admit to myself.

I saw myself in him a lot more than I thought because I am always the one who's like, well, it's probably just because the thing is the window was open. Oh, well, it's probably. And so, like, I'm like, I'm more like him than I think I am. Like, I want to be more like Marnie, but yeah, I did see myself. And then when he got some magic powers at the end, I was like, oh, that's so fun that he got to be part of it too. It's great.

Because, I mean, in all of us, there's a little bit of money. There's a little bit of Dylan. Like, there's, we've got that energy. And I liked that they were calling it out. Like, that was the, they kept saying it out loud. And when you first watch it, like, when I watched it back as a grown up, I was like, this is all really loud. You know, they're saying it really plainly.

But then I'm like, this was for kids at a time when people weren't really talking like that out loud. Yeah. You know? We kind of take it for granted now, you know? Yeah. But that's, it was. It was a new voice that pop psychology night.

We talked about it in Jumanji, where they're marginalizing this character because she has a therapist and she's doing all this work and she's like neurotic and panicked and whatever. That was really the 90s picture of psychology. And this is like the kids are psychoanalyzing the grownups, which softens it. And I don't know. Yes. Yes. And you're more likely to listen to it if it's another kid. True.

Right. Mm-hmm. And I was like accurate. Yeah. For sure. So in this moment. they combine their power, they're humming. They really got the like meditation going on.

And all together, they, their power and the talisman combine such that Calabar is defeated, the spell breaks and everything's good, everybody's restored. Marnie apologizes for being like an emotional 13 year old with a point. So, you know, I mean, apologize for maybe the way you said it, not necessarily what you said. Yeah. In that case. Quinn apologizes for hiding the truth and like underestimating Marnie and Aggie's like, great we're a coven now everything is awesome like can do no wrong and there's also this moment

with luke um who admits that he made bad choices for shallow reasons because he had agreed to like be calabar's minion in exchange for improving his goblin looks so he's a goblin that turned into so he's an insecure male with so whatever you said earlier so far i've got to find a man who is a shirt of himself he um he also was the voice of i should probably check that in my notes before I say it. I don't know. I'd have to look at my bigger group of notes, but he was the voice of Arnold and Hey Arnold for a while. Yeah, this kid, same kid. And so when I found that out, I was like so much. Oh my gosh. I think he was the first Arnold. That may be. He was the second or third. I know Lane Toran. Because Lane Toran was the first. Okay. And then he was the second

Arnold after that. Wow. But yeah, so Marnie has this moment with him where she's like, you know, we get it like he's done this. It's relatable, honestly. Like he just wanted, he's 13. And It wants to look better, wants to impress and, you know, made the wrong friends along the way. He just wants to be the big cheese. Just supposed to be the big cheese. I get it. I get it. And Marnie gives him a kiss on the cheek that does not turn him back into a prince because that's the only trope that we aren't doing today.

Right, right. I do love that for us. That would have been kind of a want-w-w-w-w-and-and. And then this crowd of like grateful cheering Halloween Town Citizen sees them off in the book. us and Gwen asks Aggie to babysit on Thursday nights, which is her way of like asking Aggie to live with them. And so they're going to combine the worlds. And Aggie like accepts this offer very quickly for somebody who is like uprooting her life

over 200 years. She's been like a fixture in this town for 200 years and she's just like, nah, I'm going to go with the grandkids. Peace out. I'll see you. Yeah. To a different dimension. Yes.

Although like I guess that was, um, its own trope of like, oh, well, one of the parents, like, the grandparent in this case, was away. and not paying any attention to the family. And then the other one had to stay and, like, become the full-time parent. Whereas now we're now at the end, like, oh, we've been reminded that family is the most important thing. Family is important. We've got to stick together. Yeah.

There's like generational reconciliation, like, across three generations all at the same time. Yeah, but you can have that in Halloween town. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. Yeah, that's my argument. Why would, like, Marnie wouldn't want to live in Halloween town. Are you kidding? Imagine finally discovering Halloween town.

and that your grandma's, like, one of the most powerful people there, and you just saved their asses and then to go to middle school? Let's go home. Yeah, time for eighth grade tomorrow. You're going to be a homecoming queen every year for the rest of your days. Yeah, she would be the most popular kid in the town if she stayed in Halloween town. No, yeah. She's going to have to go back to the mortal world where nobody knows.

Nobody knows who she is at all. Wow. But their bus soars off into the clouds, just like the car in Greece. and that's the end of Halloween town. Just like Grace, yeah. But that's the thing that the movie lands on. It's a very Disney Channel, very like pointed way of doing it, but not everything has to be either or. Like, that's the takeaway.

You don't have to reject where you come from to build a new life. You don't have to stay small to stay safe. You don't have to be normal to belong. You can sing and play basketball. You can sing and play basketball. You can do both. That's your dream dad. Nobody's going to punish you for doing.

both, except, you know, all they get to school, but that's another story. Well, someone will, but you just got to get over it. This movie is just such, like, a cozy way of saying that identity isn't something that you can bury without consequence. And if you know that there's something true about you that's bigger or stranger or more you than what you've been allowed to explore in the past, you have to choose that at some point, and it's going to pay off. That's a great way to put it.

I love that takeaway. I want to watch it again tonight. I I One of my favorite things about it I think I think Kimberly J. Brown

has talked about it on her TikTok or somewhere but she did have at some point I've heard it where out of all the props that she kept she said that she got to keep her like witch witchy dress

and that Debbie Reynolds also kept her witchy dress and Debbie Reynolds used to answer the door for trick or treaters in her dress and so then when she died Kimberly J. Brown started doing it in her dress

Oh my I'm going to cry. Oh my God. That's amazing. And also, I think Kimberly J. Brown has an Etsy now. Like, she, like, sells Halloween Town Etsy stuff. Oh, she also does cameos, I found out. You what?

Camio. She does cameos, too. Fun. No, I was just going to say, we need to talk to Kimberly J. Brown. Like, I need her opinions on all of this. I know. I bet she has some very interesting insight. Yeah, no, for sure.

Have you, you should also tonight maybe Christine watched Halloween Town, too. See, now we're talking. But she's in that one, yeah. Is that the third one? Calabar's Revenge is the, I thought that was the second one. Maybe it is. I thought it was, yeah. I want to say there are four and I want to say Halloween Town High is the fourth one.

Is it still Kimberly? It's still Kimberly and Halloween Town too. Okay, I'll watch that. I'll watch that and then I'll watch the original Brave Little Toaster. There you go. Well, fun fact for you though, Christine, the next one is the other main character and it ends up being her future husband and real life. That's right.

Oh, and I was just stalking them. So they met on at Halloween Town. I didn't know that. Oh my gosh. There's so much beautiful lore here. I'm so happy. Thank you guys for introducing me such a beautiful world, cinematic universe.

Thank you for having us. Thank you for letting us. Thank you for letting us give a little taste of like what we do all the time. And thank you for your paranormal story that coincides with with Halloween down. Yeah, what a weird coinky dink. That was an Eva original to lead you in. Thank you for coming on, but also, like, it was very fun to talk about something that I love so much for my childhood, but in an adult way. Like, you really, you brought some very, some very deep, wonderful points of, like, I would not sit here and think about myself.

I love it. Thanks. Well done. That's very kind. I love, like, the point about magic, and I think that's even taking a step further, because it's, like, figure out who you are and then let yourself be that person. And I, this movie is just. such a great, like, I don't know, just does a great job with it. And to be able to look at it now, like in 2026, through this lens, all of the oppression, everything that's happening and

recognize that this is the message that we were getting as kids in the 90s. And let's keep that in media. And it still holds up. Yeah. It's also horrifying that the warning signs were always there then. And no one listened at scenes. None of the important people listened. At least we're not surprised. Hopefully all here. Just us. Just us. We're all in this together, you know, just like Troy. Just like Troy. I hope that's the moral that you learn at the end of each year episodes that every movie is basically Troy Bolton discovering he can do it all.

Far more often than not. That is the same way. You can always tell your dad that it's his dream, not yours. I do often. But in song, for sure. In song preferably. Wow. Thank you so much both for coming on.

Can you give people a little teaser tag where they can find you and listen to your show? You want me to take it, Christian? How do you feel? Yeah, go ahead. You got this. You're doing great. You can find us at That's Pretty Dark Podcasts. We're on all the podcast platforms. You can find us on Instagram at That's Pretty Dark Podcast. We are part of Parapods now, which is an incredible place to be. We love that all of these ideas, like all of this that we put into our show, all of the research, all the folklore, all the history, all the layers of everything. We knew that Parapods would be the right home for that because of everything that M and Christine and all of the incredible shows on Parapods are doing with their shows. It's all about community, finding community. Like, I am getting really especially extra cheesy now, but like we are all in this together. The thing that we say at That's Pretty Dark is you're never really alone. And it's sort of a spooky tone. But at the same time, it's us finding out that we weren't alone in all these things that we were thinking and feeling

as kids and that there is true, like, magic and power in that when we can all come together as grownups and hopefully do things better and differently. So yeah, find us, come check us out, be with us. we would love to have you and again we both have just I mean for 10 years at this point you guys have now you're in 10 years like I remember driving to work listening to and that's why we drank listening to both of you like driving to my corporate job 10 years ago telling Christian like oh you should listen to this episode they covered this thing like we were literally listening to you guys in 2017-ish 18 oh my god that's crazy oh yeah and to be here now like I was panicking all day just in a sense of like this is almost dear de-re realization. Like, where am I and what am I doing? Don't dissociate on my account, please. Because I get to talk to Em and Christine today. So, yeah, we're thrilled. We can't wait for more. And, yeah.

I've told other people this, but I get to tell you guys now that I did listen to you on Kailen's recommendation. But I was working on a movie and like Biloxi and I just needed something new to like get me through the month I was about to have. I believe, I don't, it wasn't during COVID. It was, I don't know when it was. I don't know. But I know I was listening pre-COVID. Yeah, but I finally did listen to you guys and I was like, I want to be in the room doing what they're doing. I want to hang out with that.

That's all we ever wanted. Talk about manifesting energy. And then somewhere along the way, we were like, let's start a podcast. You guys like summoned reality. That's so fucking cool. See, it's magic. What did she say? If you first believe it, believe it and then.

All you have to do is want something and then let yourself have it. I'm going to cry. I'm going to fucking cry. Guys, that's real. It's real. I'm going to have a panic attack. Like the brave little toaster. Thank you for what you've built and maintained. Thank you for what you do every day. Because you were bringing like joy to my, you know, corporate job and commute. I know you're doing that for so many other people. And yeah, it's an honor privilege. Well, it was an all in an effort to do it for ourselves. And then we were so excited that anybody else wanted to be a part of it. And that's exactly how we felt. We're just like, we just have to talk about this. We'll see if anybody wants to listen. And I can't believe that you all wanted to listen. Yes. And more so now, I want to go listen to that. I'm going to watch my little toaster and then listen to the episode to make sure I didn't miss any huge, dark, heavy themes. It's real heavy. Yeah, I think it's just existential dread straight. It is straight up. I think it's going to like open a lot of conversations with my therapist, you know. That's what we're here for this whole show. I love that. Triggering left and right. Thank you both for coming. You said very sweet things, but no, you're you have a wonderful show. I hope everyone goes and listens to it. This was definitely like a very great taste into what you guys do. Yes. And we look forward. We're going to have you all on our show as well. Yes.

We're not sure when it's all coming out. I was going to be about my. Speaking of talking to your therapist. Right. I was going to be about my trauma watching the ring when I was far too young as in my own opinion. I was scared of Halloween Town and then I watched the ring. So just to give you an idea of like how bad it went for me psychically, psychologically.

Yeah. And we're going to talk about that. But now I'm like, oh my God. I have so many fucking movies that I don't, whatever anybody wants to talk about. I'm ready to hop on the show. Part two of the crossover. It would be very fun to hear the two of you talk about some really horrific things. I mean,

Caitlin and I were very lucky that we got to talk about a haunted house and then witches. But it sounds like, sorry, Christine. I'm not. Do you guys have the heavy hitting? Should I watch? She turned it into something more heavy hitting, but. Oh, boy.

It's definitely going to be heavier and darker than we usually go, I think. Because it's like, not children's, I don't know. But, hey, It's perfect. It's perfect because it's a haunted VHS tape. Yep. Yeah. And nothing's more nostalgic than that.

Good point. It works for both of our shows very well. It's nostalgic. It's nostalgic. I can't wait. Well, thank you all for coming on and we'll see you on the other half of our crossover. We'll see you on that flip side. We can't wait.

Thanks again. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. You're never really alone. You're never really alone.