Trick-or-Treating the Web: 25 Links to Halloween 2011

September 19, 2011 – Still putting off celebrating Halloween until, well, Halloween? Well, you’re behind the Internet, that’s for sure. Right now, the entire web is covered in more black and orange than an orgy of tigers on the field of Oriole Park at Camden Yards.

To convince the Halloween Scrooges, and to continue to kindle the Samhainic passions of those who have already looted stores for their Halloween wares, decorated as if trick-or-treaters could stop by any night (like Jesus), and restocked Netflix queues with more horror than an insane asylum full of axe murder ghosts from other planets, I’ve put together a series of 25 links that, taken together, should at least make it more like Halloween on your monitor, if not your heart. Because that’s where Halloween should be, the heart. The blackened, wooden-staked heart.

1. An awesome site about Halloween television specials.

2. NPR looks into why stores sell Halloween merchandise before Labor Day.

3. American Horror Story starts October 5 on FX.

4. The story behind Imagineering, the company that made the world a better place by offering kid's make-up appliances such as scar stuff, evil teeth, and vampire blood.

5. The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror toys in Burger King kids meals.

6. Scientists make glow-in-the-dark cats. Halloween needed those.

7. New Tales from the Crypt coming to TV. [Insert Cryptkeeper cackle]

8. Bigfoot toys, past and present, but mostly past.

9. Halloween orange cream soda with glow in the dark can.

10. Pumpkin Hollow Etsy shop, from the man behind Pumpkinrot.

11. Ghostbusters I: Theatrical re-release of original movie slated for October.

12. Ghostbusters II: An inflatable Stay Puft for your yard. Buy it for Halloween, keep it up year round.

13. Ghostbusters III: Ghostbusters-themed episode of Castle to air on Halloween night. You like Nathan Fillion.

14. What to do in Sleepy Hollow, NY, during October.

15. My wife celebrates Fall and Halloween on her Tumblr blog, keeps all the best pictures for herself.

16. When Rob Zombie visited Salem, MA.

17. Tons of pics from this year's Monsterpalooza.

18. Horror celebrities making appearances at Count Orlok's Monster Museum in Salem, MA, in October.

19. A new book by Lesley Bannatyne about the people who love Halloween. Haven't read it, don't know the quality, but dig the concept.

20. Dunkin Donuts Fall menu.

21. Mickey's Halloween Party at Disneyland.

22. Skull nickels. 'Nuff said.

23. New Fearnet Trick 'r Treat promo ad coming.

24. A bloody silicone bookmark for those archaic piles of paper we once called books.

25. Butterfinger's Halloween ad campaign stars Rob Lowe directing a project called Butterfinger 13th. Tagline: You can't scream with your mouth full.