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Kicking Off Halloween with Elvira, Universal Monsters, and Monster Mash Retro Cereal!

Let's get this Halloween party started!  If you are deep into this nostalgia culture of ours, you'll know probably only second to the Christmas season, Halloween is pretty important.  The remembrances of old decorations, candy, TV specials, and yes... even cereal!  We'll get to the cereal later...

I've got some fun stuff in store this year for Halloween that I hope you'll enjoy.  Like last year's "The Holidays on Home Improvement" series, I'll be kicking off this year's series with "Halloween on ROSEANNE!"  Besides "Home Improvement," there was nobody who did holidays quite like Roseanne during the 90s, and Halloween was no exception.  If you missed last year's "Home Improvement" series, please click HERE to go read it.

In addition to covering Halloween through the years on "Roseanne," I have a few fun Halloween-themed Retro Scans, some more stories from my own childhood, and of course... Elvira!  It just wouldn't be the spooky season without discussing the Queen of Halloween, now would it? 

Speaking of Elvira, her new memoir came out recently, which you can click below to purchase through my Amazon affiliate link.  Using my link doesn't cost you anything extra but really helps with the cost of running this site, so thank you in advance!  



My copy of her memoir arrived the other day but I've yet had the chance to sit down and read it.  It did make news you may have noticed for revealing some things about her personal life that most of America didn't know about.  

Also, speaking of Elvira, she just turned 70 on September 17th, and it's recently been announced she's making her return to television on Chiller as she hosts her "40th Anniversary Very Scary, Very Special" special.  During the special, she'll play host to four classic horror films, including Elvira: Mistress of the Dark (1988), along with House on Haunted Hill (the 1959 original), The City of the Dead (1960), and Messiah of Evil (1973).  The special promises to follow the familiar format of Elvira's "Movie Macabre" show when she debuted back in 1981 with corny wisecracks with lots of camp and vamp!  You can catch it on Saturday, September 25th at 8 PM Eastern via the Shudder TV feed in the Shudder app before it joins all Shudder platforms and AMC+ on Monday, September 27th.  


One last item of note, the Universal Monsters are making their return to movie theaters for 2021's Halloween season!

Four classic monster films- Dracula, Frankenstein, The Invisible Man, and The Wolf Man will return to the big screen as double features from Fathom Events. The first double-feature will be Dracula and Frankenstein on Saturday, October 2nd, and that will be followed by The Invisible Man and The Wolf Man on Saturday, October 30th. This is to help celebrate the 90th anniversary of the Universal Monsters.  Screenings will be accompanied by a look behind the scenes at the Universal lot where the films were created.  Click HERE to see the list of participating theaters and buy your tickets!

Now, let's officially kick off the Halloween season by talking about breakfast cereals!  

I'm sure if you follow other retro bloggers, you've already seen the snot out of these, so I'll spare you the details.  I've been hunting and hunting and finally found these at Walmart!  My wife and I have been searching for these in all of the typical grocery stores, but here on Long Island, we typically get the special edition stuff very late or not at all.  If we get it, scalpers grab it the second it comes in, and the regular Jeffs like me don't have a chance at finding it.  

But there it was, on its own end cap at Walmart!  When we went back a week later, they were pretty much all gone.  Let that be a lesson to grab these special edition items when you see them.  In all honesty, I found this stuff in mid-August, but with the glut of nostalgia bloggers and prominent social media folks talking about them in such detail, I didn't think I would be adding anything to the conversation other than to say, "Hey, I found them too!"  

Now that we're past summer and rocketing towards the Halloween season, it's time to post these pictures!  The box art on these is stunning.  The bright colors, the retro font, the character artwork itself... I could go on, but I'll just let you soak in the packaging for yourself.  






Growing up, Mom usually bought us Frosted Flakes, Cheerios, or Froot Loops, so I wasn't very familiar with most of the cereals here.  I've had a few bowls of Count Chocula in my day, though, but unfortunately, Count Chocula is not included in the ACTUAL cereal inside the box.  

Pouring the bowl, it smelled like Froot Loops to me.  Initially, the taste was that of Froot Loops but quickly turned to the chewy marshmallow taste of Lucky Charms.  Not bad at all.  I wouldn't turn my nose up for it, but it's not something I'd reach for daily.  


I also found the Fruit Snack pouches (probably the tastiest snack in the Monster Mash lineup) and the Monster Cereals Snack Packs.  I'm still looking for the Count Chocula Mini Treats, which is basically a cereal bar with chocolate and marshmallows.

The artwork is magnificent on the smaller ticket items as well.   

There you have it, folks, the official start to YesterYear Retro's 2021 Halloween Season!  Enjoy!

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