Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Brian over there,
Speaker 1: and there's Jerry And this is Stuff you Should Know
Speaker 1: the right before Halloween. Addition about it, I get like
Speaker 1: a little kid every Alloween. I'm pretty excited about it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: do you get trick or treaters? No? Not really, no
Speaker 1: kind of life hashtag, etcetera. Yeah, And I've told my
Speaker 1: story before, but I'll just briefly summarize again that my
Speaker 1: house is after a big curve in the road, and
Speaker 1: people seem to just stop at that curve in the road. Well,
Speaker 1: they don't want to come up on old man Bryant's house.
Speaker 1: You know, the old dead oak tree with the big
Speaker 1: hole in it that yeah Boo Radley hides figures in
Speaker 1: its kind of off putting. It's right on your property.
Speaker 1: And I think, uh, in my neighborhood too. They close
Speaker 1: they literally close off, the cops close off two blocks.
Speaker 1: This's just this big square of streets and that's the
Speaker 1: official sanctioned no stress area where the parents all just
Speaker 1: walk around and get drunk and all the kids just
Speaker 1: run around and don't have to worry about cars. So um,
Speaker 1: everyone in my neighborhood is congregated there and you're outside
Speaker 1: of them outside, yeah, which I kind of miss, Like
Speaker 1: I like tricker treaters coming to my house. Like I
Speaker 1: guess I could maybe try, and well, I can move
Speaker 1: a few houses in which I'm not gonna do. We
Speaker 1: could casually move the roadblocks of a little further back
Speaker 1: to include your house. One of their actual police cars
Speaker 1: with police officers, and I can't move them, but I
Speaker 1: could put signs that like you know this way for
Speaker 1: the best yet and then you like only two more
Speaker 1: houses right, or like leave a trail of candy because
Speaker 1: I remember when I first moved to Atlanta, we rented
Speaker 1: a house that got a lot of Tricker treaters and
Speaker 1: I loved it. Man, I scared at the heck out
Speaker 1: of those kids. Yeah, it was a lot of fun,
Speaker 1: Like I really got that was my first big adult
Speaker 1: giving out candy night, Like the first time I've ever
Speaker 1: been able to do that because you didn't have kids yet,
Speaker 1: so we weren't out trick or treating and uh yeah,
Speaker 1: I made a really pumped music out like the psycho
Speaker 1: theme and scary John Carpenter stuff. I really enjoyed it.
Speaker 1: Did you like do anything to overtly scare them? Oh? Yes,
Speaker 1: I wore a I was dressed up as a very
Speaker 1: scary person, and I would jump out and scare them
Speaker 1: over and over and over. Did you really jump out?
Speaker 1: Good for you? Or I would stand in the like
Speaker 1: Emily would be giving out candy and I would just
Speaker 1: be in the darkened house, like eight feet behind her,
Speaker 1: just standing there motionless. That's always a nice attack. But
Speaker 1: the point is I sort of feel like we're missing out.
Speaker 1: Like we certainly enjoyed taking our daughter out, but I
Speaker 1: really wish we had kids that came by. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: wish you did too, too bad. Stupid us right there
Speaker 1: near the main road, so close yet so far away,
Speaker 1: so far away, and that's your forever house to huh. Yeah,
Speaker 1: no trick or treaters ever again for you. I walked
Speaker 1: in there. But what we could do is, you know,
Speaker 1: we could go to a friend's house, and that this accounting.
Speaker 1: You have to jump on their coattails. You can't sit
Speaker 1: on their couch, you have to take your shoes off
Speaker 1: in their house. You can't be comfortable We've long talked
Speaker 1: to me and my friend Eddie and Allison, you know them,
Speaker 1: about they have a good backyard. It's about doing like
Speaker 1: a haunted trail one year that like, if you come
Speaker 1: trick or treating, you've got to go through the trail first.
Speaker 1: It sounds like a lot of work. It is, and
Speaker 1: it would be fun, you know, I mean for the
Speaker 1: kids who have to go through the trail. Gotta earn
Speaker 1: you gotta earn that free candy, earned that Reese's pieces.
Speaker 1: So we just hit upon like fifteen different themes in
Speaker 1: this episode, if you'll if you'll agree, I agree. Um,
Speaker 1: So we're talking about trick or treating here, and if
Speaker 1: you look at the thing on its face, just the
Speaker 1: words trick or treat, there seems to be some sort
Speaker 1: of option here you can do one or the other.
Speaker 1: There used to be give me a treat or you
Speaker 1: get a trick, basically was the equation. Yeah, they should
Speaker 1: just change the name now to just treat night, treat
Speaker 1: night right exactly. Um. We aren't sure on where trigger
Speaker 1: treating came from, but what we do know is that
Speaker 1: it was originated in America in the twentieth century, and
Speaker 1: that there was this really like brief golden age where
Speaker 1: it lived up to his name, trick or treat. There
Speaker 1: was a there was an offer to not get pranked
Speaker 1: or tricked, and if you didn't take the people up
Speaker 1: on the offer, the kids up on the offer by
Speaker 1: giving him candy, you got pranked. That was the equation.
Speaker 1: It was in the name. Everybody knew the score. And
Speaker 1: then it slowly kind of moved over to what we
Speaker 1: understand today where the police set up roadblocks and everything
Speaker 1: is safe these kids these days, and it's just kinda
Speaker 1: just like you said, just the treat side of the equation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was, of course kidding, but we'll get to it.
Speaker 1: There are people that really do decry this new generation
Speaker 1: of children who just expect handouts and that it leads
Speaker 1: to the idea of the welfare state and all this
Speaker 1: other garbage that I have no patience for because it's
Speaker 1: just a fun thing for kids. Yeah, or do you
Speaker 1: think they should be earning this stuff? No? No, no,
Speaker 1: I don't feel that way. I do feel well, I
Speaker 1: think it will come through loud and clear as we
Speaker 1: do the episode. Right, Well, we should jump back a
Speaker 1: little bit to the origins of Halloween. We've gone over
Speaker 1: this before in episode's past. But we all know it
Speaker 1: originally started as a pagan harvest or not just one,
Speaker 1: but pagan harvest festivals in general among the Celts over
Speaker 1: in the UK and uh, that evolved into Halloween, but
Speaker 1: it had nothing to do with trick or treating at
Speaker 1: the time. No, it wasn't round Again, trick or treating
Speaker 1: is a pent American invention, that's right. Um. And so
Speaker 1: with Halloween in particular, you've got all these different components
Speaker 1: for the modern Halloween. For trick or treating, you have
Speaker 1: going from house to how you have getting to said
Speaker 1: house and asking for a treat, basically sanctioned begging, costume, costume,
Speaker 1: dressing up, um, got being outside kind of parading around.
Speaker 1: All of these things find their origin in the Celtic
Speaker 1: and I think specifically Gaelic um harvest festivals that introduced
Speaker 1: the dark half of the year, that's right. And in
Speaker 1: particular there was Salwint, which forever I've always said sam
Speaker 1: Haine because that's how it spelled. Now, you said Salen
Speaker 1: right when we did our Halloween episode, didn't you. Probably,
Speaker 1: by the way, speaking of Sawin or sam Haine, you
Speaker 1: realized that I went to New York and saw the
Speaker 1: Misfits on. How was that colossally amazing? This is the
Speaker 1: original Misfits, right, the original Misfits, Glenn dan ziggery only
Speaker 1: Doyle Wolfgang von Frankenstein who actually specifically invited us to this, right, yes,
Speaker 1: um to this uh this show, and it was that's amazing.
Speaker 1: Knock your socks off? Didn't the Damned play as well?
Speaker 1: The Damned open and then ran sid and then the
Speaker 1: Misfits just tore the roof off the succer I saw
Speaker 1: when I saw you were going. I looked up some
Speaker 1: YouTube clips of this tour and it looked pretty amazing.
Speaker 1: It was amazing, and I think Glenn Danzig said that
Speaker 1: was their last one ever and so we got to
Speaker 1: see it. Yeah, you mean I had a great time. Amazing,
Speaker 1: So big, big thanks to Doyle Wolfgang von Frankenstein for
Speaker 1: the invite. The stage set up look great, it was.
Speaker 1: It was just a really cool show and they played
Speaker 1: almost everything. Yeah, yeah, it was just really good. That's fantastic.
Speaker 1: So anyway back to Swin, Yeah, so, uh, I mean
Speaker 1: that's a perfect time to mention that show though all
Speaker 1: worked out, it did. Um. Hallow's Eve was the night
Speaker 1: considered when the veil between the living and the dead
Speaker 1: was the shortest, and so that's when this that's when
Speaker 1: Halloween formed, right, right, So people would dress up in
Speaker 1: like modern day Ireland, Scotland, I believe, Wales, yell of
Speaker 1: and um. They would dress up like demons or fairies
Speaker 1: or supernatural characters who were um because this veil was
Speaker 1: so thin between the living and the dead or the supernatural. Um,
Speaker 1: they could cross over. These creatures could cross over and communicate.
Speaker 1: So if you dressed up like them, maybe they would
Speaker 1: be confused and think you're one of them and leave
Speaker 1: you alone. That's right. So this now we've got the
Speaker 1: costume thing going right, that's right. And uh, part of
Speaker 1: that was the community getting together, uh getting drunk on
Speaker 1: you know, probably high octane mead, meat and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: And they would parade through the town. They saw Halloween
Speaker 1: parades all over the place. Here in Atlanta we have
Speaker 1: one of the best and little five Points Halloween parraade. Fantastic,
Speaker 1: Like when you think about the Halloween parade at your town,
Speaker 1: like that is centuries millennia old, that tradition is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So we have those two things going on, and then
Speaker 1: the one missing piece is knock knock, Hey, give me candy.
Speaker 1: But this we have the origins of which came and
Speaker 1: it's still not Halloween. It took American kids to put
Speaker 1: all this stuff together. But the European tradition of souling,
Speaker 1: which was when kids on hallows E would go from
Speaker 1: house to house house and pray for the souls of
Speaker 1: the departed, and in exchange you would get a soul cake. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which I looked up. They looked pretty good. What is it?
Speaker 1: Just a little bit good. It looks like a muffin top,
Speaker 1: like top of the muff into you. It looks really
Speaker 1: good soul cakes or mumming which is and this sounds fantastic.
Speaker 1: I wish kids still had to do this stuff. You
Speaker 1: would have to perform a short musical number or some
Speaker 1: kind of performance to get a treat of some kind,
Speaker 1: maybe a little spear change. Right, So in that sense
Speaker 1: you have going to house to house and getting something
Speaker 1: from the owners of the house, like a treat or
Speaker 1: something like that. That's right, But there was a reason
Speaker 1: for that, praying for the soul of their departed loved one,
Speaker 1: doing a little dance number something like that. The prank
Speaker 1: part the prank part of the equation that also existed
Speaker 1: before trick or treating too, and in fact, that was
Speaker 1: kind of the origin or the biggest tradition of Halloween itself,
Speaker 1: was pranking. Yeah, and that came from Ireland, Is that right? Yah?
Speaker 1: Supposedly in the eighteen eighties they would prank. They would
Speaker 1: just run around doing pranks, and then they would blame
Speaker 1: those fairies or demons han sawen um for the mischief
Speaker 1: that it wasn't us, it was the fairies, right, I
Speaker 1: mean it sounds that's how it's spelled. Yeah, it's really
Speaker 1: that's a confounding pronunciation, it is. But there you have it,
Speaker 1: that's right. Uh. And then pranks back then, and of
Speaker 1: course we're pretty low key uh ding dong ditch stuff
Speaker 1: like that, um moving the neighbor's furniture to the roof.
Speaker 1: I saw that, like flower pot on the chimney. Sure,
Speaker 1: but it would also get way way worse than that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I looked up Mischief Night. We never did that in
Speaker 1: Georgia or Devil's Night. It was also called yeah, just
Speaker 1: the night before Halloween when all these pranks would happen. Um.
Speaker 1: Region to region is called different. Apparently in Uh, New
Speaker 1: Jersey it's Mischief Night, Cabbage Well in Camden, New Jersey's
Speaker 1: Mischief Night. Other parts of New Jersey call it Cabbage Night.
Speaker 1: UM Cincinnata calls it Damage Night. That's pretty over. That's
Speaker 1: a punk band name right there, Damage Night totally, that
Speaker 1: insurance deductible night other parts. I don't know why Ohio
Speaker 1: is so highly represented here. Beggar's Night is something else.
Speaker 1: They called it in Ohio because there's nothing else to
Speaker 1: do in Ohio but sit around and wait for that
Speaker 1: night for Hallow's Eve. Other names Doorbell Night, trick Night,
Speaker 1: corn Night, tic Tech Night, Goosey Night. And then in Canada,
Speaker 1: Gate Night or Matt Night if you're in Quebec because
Speaker 1: mt they would take they would steal the gate off
Speaker 1: your fence or the mat from your doorstep. And yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: so they're pretty on the nose, especially Becambage Night. But
Speaker 1: Devil's Night in Detroit. Uh, it became legendary over about
Speaker 1: a twenty year period in the seventies and through the
Speaker 1: mid nineties. I saw before they finally got a little
Speaker 1: bit of a UM could put a dent in it
Speaker 1: by forming Angels Night. Yeah, they kind of re rebranded it, well,
Speaker 1: not rebranded. The angels were volunteers who would walk around
Speaker 1: to keep kids from setting everything on fire, okay, because
Speaker 1: that's what they did on Devil's Night. It was a
Speaker 1: night of artis the night of arson. I thought that
Speaker 1: it ran its course because they burned all the buildings
Speaker 1: down in Detroit. There was nothing else left. It was
Speaker 1: a real problem, though. I looked into it and like
Speaker 1: hundreds of kids, Like in nineteen ninety four, I think
Speaker 1: there were like three hundred and fifteen kids arrested, uh
Speaker 1: from Devil's Night fires and other stuff. In the peak
Speaker 1: of Devil's Night in Detroit, there were eight hundred and
Speaker 1: ten cases of arson in one night. Amazing in Detroit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they would just set the city on fire. And I'm
Speaker 1: sure some of these were bags of poop on a doorstep,
Speaker 1: which I think we can all agree. It is harmless fun,
Speaker 1: it is unless you're the steppy so overdid any of
Speaker 1: the stuff? I never rolled the house. Oh you didn't know.
Speaker 1: I was. I'm so mad. I was so busy being good.
Speaker 1: Never too late, buddy, I know I should roll a
Speaker 1: house fork a yard. I don't know what that is.
Speaker 1: The plastic forks just basically get like two thousand plastic
Speaker 1: forks and stick them in the yard. I've never heard
Speaker 1: of that. We never did that, really chew up a
Speaker 1: lawnmar I never egged a house because I always heard
Speaker 1: that really damages paint. But we did have the junior
Speaker 1: senior egg fight every year. That was kind of fun.
Speaker 1: Well you go, you got something, We get together in
Speaker 1: a field and uh the eggs at each other. Aside
Speaker 1: from wasting a lot of resource with well eggs, yes,
Speaker 1: but also um toilet paper. You really should roll somebody's
Speaker 1: house at least it's great, is it? Yeah? All right, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna roll your condo. I remember when I was
Speaker 1: a kid. Actually my friend and I rolled the neighbor's house,
Speaker 1: but we had to be in or at least, so
Speaker 1: we were doing it basically in broad daylight. It was
Speaker 1: dusk at best, and the cop drove by, which never
Speaker 1: happened in our neighborhood ever. Never. The cops just weren't needed, right.
Speaker 1: It was just I think we talked about in the
Speaker 1: free Range episode in his Parents episode, you could just
Speaker 1: do whatever, and um, we had to knock out of
Speaker 1: the house of the neighbor whose house we just rolled
Speaker 1: to let us in to hide from the cop, and
Speaker 1: she went out and told the cop like, it's it's fine,
Speaker 1: don't worry about it. We roll her house and had
Speaker 1: to get safe harbor from her. Yeah, and you can't
Speaker 1: really clean up a roll house, can't you. You can,
Speaker 1: And if they come tell your parents what you did.
Speaker 1: The rain makes it way worse. Yeah, but I mean
Speaker 1: you can't just right, some of it's inevitably stuck up there.
Speaker 1: But you can pull it down as as gingerly as
Speaker 1: you can to get as much as you can. But no,
Speaker 1: something's going to be left over, all right, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: roll a house, Okay, just know whose house you're rolling like,
Speaker 1: you don't want to get shot at her. And I
Speaker 1: don't see that anymore either, I feel like it. I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't live in the suburbs. Maybe it's a little
Speaker 1: more prone to happen there, but it seems like a
Speaker 1: lost art very well. Maybe I don't know anybody who rolls.
Speaker 1: I just assumed it was because we'd outgrown it, you know.
Speaker 1: Emily called it t being a house. Yeah that's Ohio. Yeah, alright,
Speaker 1: let's take a break. Were barely talked about this. I
Speaker 1: think we're one page in good that's great, all right,
Speaker 1: stuff you should know, stuff you should you shouldn't know. Alright.
Speaker 1: So to recap Chuck, we have the costumes in play now,
Speaker 1: we have being out on Halloween nights sometimes parading drunkenly community. Um,
Speaker 1: we have going from house to house, and we have
Speaker 1: the prank factor. That's all of these things are out
Speaker 1: there floating around, have been out there for centuries, millennia
Speaker 1: by the time America is born and makes it to
Speaker 1: the twentieth century. And at some point some kids said,
Speaker 1: we think, hey, you know what, we can pull all
Speaker 1: this together and turn it into something really amazing and
Speaker 1: peculiar and unique called trick or treating. That's right. You
Speaker 1: found a great piece, uh from a sociologist named Samira Kawash,
Speaker 1: great name called gangsters, pranksters and tricker treating ninety to
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty. And is this that pure period that you
Speaker 1: were talking about where she thinks that American kids just
Speaker 1: created this thing. Yeah, there's two historical views because we
Speaker 1: don't know where it came from. One historical view and
Speaker 1: I think this is what co Wash believes to is
Speaker 1: that it was actually kids who figure this out. Which
Speaker 1: is great. Who said we can extort adults to not
Speaker 1: prank them if they give us treats and that it
Speaker 1: was a genuinely a kid invention of kids they made
Speaker 1: it up, and um, there's some evidence for that kind
Speaker 1: of thing. A lot of like the early newspaper accounts
Speaker 1: of it kind of called the kids gangsters and say
Speaker 1: they're extorting people. It's also possible that was like written
Speaker 1: super tongue in cheek and that that dry. It was
Speaker 1: kind of dry and lost to the ages. The other
Speaker 1: historical view is that the kids were out pranking and
Speaker 1: doing the pranks and it was the adults that introduced
Speaker 1: treats into the equation to buy them off, Yeah, to
Speaker 1: keep them from pranking. Uh. Los Angeles possibly as the
Speaker 1: point of origin. Um, and this one wealthy kids. I
Speaker 1: guess that makes sense that this would be the idea
Speaker 1: of like kids of privilege, you know, like come around,
Speaker 1: give me stuff. But apparently in Los Angeles, kids in
Speaker 1: the wealthy parts of town would dress up and their
Speaker 1: parents would take them around from house to house. And
Speaker 1: this is, um, this is that pre nineteen thirty period though, Yeah,
Speaker 1: they think sometime in the twenties. And if you think
Speaker 1: about it, that really resembles what we do today. Yeah,
Speaker 1: But in between that origin and where where we've arrived today,
Speaker 1: there was this pure period nineteen thirty and nineteen sixties.
Speaker 1: Some people might even take it a little further beyond that,
Speaker 1: where the kids seem to have run the show. And um,
Speaker 1: there there really was both sides of the equation a
Speaker 1: trick or a treat, right, But that term actually was
Speaker 1: in nine seven and an article rights that the first
Speaker 1: time they found the two words in print together our
Speaker 1: guess three words. That was in an article about a
Speaker 1: town uh called Blackie and Albert to Canada. And it
Speaker 1: seems like all of it was sort of on the
Speaker 1: West coast early on. Yeah, and again they think possibly
Speaker 1: it did originate in Los Angeles, or it may have
Speaker 1: originated in multiple towns on the West Coast roughly at
Speaker 1: the same time. But we're thinking twenties because in nineteen
Speaker 1: nineteen there was a book by Ruth Edna called Ruth
Speaker 1: and Nickel Ruth endic Kelly called the Book of Halloween,
Speaker 1: and it didn't mention any kind of trick or treating
Speaker 1: in there. No, And it's like an exhaustive, comprehensive homemakers
Speaker 1: would have been in there for sure. And you gotta think,
Speaker 1: like poor Ruth and Nickelly' is like, gosh, if I
Speaker 1: just waited like two years and put this book out,
Speaker 1: they're gonna come up with something brand new with Halloween.
Speaker 1: Two years after I come up with this book, I
Speaker 1: wrote the book on it. Not quite now it's out
Speaker 1: of date, but they did find mentions of it in
Speaker 1: newspapers out West Portland, Washington, Reno, Nevada, Nevada, Helena, Montana.
Speaker 1: And you can kind of track its progress from the
Speaker 1: dates and mentions in West these paper articles. Right. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: So there's those two sides. One say that it was
Speaker 1: kids who came up with it on their own. Um,
Speaker 1: perhaps they were introduced with the idea of going from
Speaker 1: house to house to get treats in Los Angeles, but
Speaker 1: then they said, well, we're also doing these prankings. Maybe
Speaker 1: we can say, hey, we won't prank you if you
Speaker 1: give us a treat. There's that view. The other view
Speaker 1: again is that, um, it was adults who said, whoa kids,
Speaker 1: You know, we don't want you setting fires any longer,
Speaker 1: derailing street cars because every once a while somebody would die,
Speaker 1: people would get shot at by angry neighbors. Um. Sometimes
Speaker 1: somebody would be in one of those buildings that they
Speaker 1: set on fire and they die. People would die in
Speaker 1: a building that kids set on fire as a Halloween prank.
Speaker 1: So for the most part, though, it was this kind
Speaker 1: of um tolerated as one night a year when the
Speaker 1: kids basically had power and we're allowed to run the show. UM.
Speaker 1: So that this idea, this other historical view that adults
Speaker 1: finally said, hey, you know, we're not gonna just say
Speaker 1: you can't do prank king. They'll probably be a bad thing.
Speaker 1: But why don't we just start having parties on Halloween
Speaker 1: night while we're out pranking, and they'll be cider and
Speaker 1: donuts and you can come inside and bob for apples
Speaker 1: and maybe do that instead of running around pranking the neighborhood.
Speaker 1: And once you did do that, you went from and
Speaker 1: this is um samir co washed putting it like you
Speaker 1: under the rules of society. You went from this powerful
Speaker 1: kid who could levy a prank on you if he
Speaker 1: or she wanted to, to a house guest of the
Speaker 1: adult who now had you in and had given you
Speaker 1: donuts and cider. You're really going to set their house
Speaker 1: on fire as a prank. After that, of course, not, no,
Speaker 1: you're not going to so. In this sense, trigger treating
Speaker 1: was something the adults introduced to keep kids from carrying
Speaker 1: out these pranks. Yeah, and it was by the time
Speaker 1: World War two came around. It was a big thing
Speaker 1: in the nineteen forties. But of course, with the sugar
Speaker 1: ration ng and just the fact that there was World
Speaker 1: War Two going on, it put a dent in it
Speaker 1: for a little while. But it came back um bigger
Speaker 1: than it ever had been after the war. And I
Speaker 1: mean seriously, it came very close to dying from World
Speaker 1: War Two. It was pretty new. It hadn't gained that
Speaker 1: much traction. There were a lot of cranks and grumps
Speaker 1: who were not happy about this kind of thing. I'm
Speaker 1: curious what else had died in the war and never
Speaker 1: came back. There's got to be lots of little things.
Speaker 1: It's a great question. But there were a couple of
Speaker 1: big pop culture um sort of tent poles that helped
Speaker 1: Halloween along Charles Schultz's Peanuts. Of course, it wasn't the
Speaker 1: Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown yet that. Yeah, but in nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty one he had a four day um comic strip
Speaker 1: run around Halloween where the Peanuts gang got already and
Speaker 1: got their costumes going, and that really brought it to
Speaker 1: the forefront. Uh. And then Donald Duck Uh. There was
Speaker 1: a cartoon Donald Duck Tricker Treat a year after that
Speaker 1: that had Donald working with his nephews or trying to
Speaker 1: prank his nephews while they were trick or treating and
Speaker 1: working with the witch. And then the candy companies get involved.
Speaker 1: There was also a very famous costume company called ben
Speaker 1: Cooper Costumes did like the cheap yes plastic mask like
Speaker 1: a vinyl smot, but they had this really great talent
Speaker 1: of identifying what was going to be like a culture
Speaker 1: phenomenon before it ever blew up to get the right
Speaker 1: cheap but they were also making these things like ten
Speaker 1: months before, so they really had to have foresight and
Speaker 1: they were really good at it. But the fact that
Speaker 1: you could get cheap, amazing costumes that the little kids
Speaker 1: all wanted of their favorite characters that definitely helped things
Speaker 1: along too. Yeah, it was It's hard to overstate like
Speaker 1: how big of a deal it was to a kid
Speaker 1: to be the certain whatever they wanted to be. I
Speaker 1: think it's still that way. I'm sure it is, but
Speaker 1: now it's a lot easier, I think to buy costumes.
Speaker 1: I think when you and I were kids, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of fashioning costumes. Uh, When you didn't have the
Speaker 1: ability to be like the in from Alien or you know,
Speaker 1: it was a lot harder to put together these elaborate costumes.
Speaker 1: But once you get your heart set on it, you
Speaker 1: like you had to, you know. So I'm going to
Speaker 1: tell you my best costume, and you tell me yours. Okay, okay, um,
Speaker 1: my mom made one from scratch. Clown is a clown costume.
Speaker 1: But the big kicker was that it was an upside
Speaker 1: down clown walking on his hands. So my feet were
Speaker 1: the clown's hands. His head is like dangling between my legs.
Speaker 1: I've got his legs sticking up off of my shoulders
Speaker 1: and I don't remember my head must have been covered
Speaker 1: up like I was in his butt or something like, right,
Speaker 1: but I was upside down walking clown. Greatest costume ever? Yeah,
Speaker 1: you got any pictures somewhere? YEA. Yeah. I did a
Speaker 1: lot of funny ones, like my brother and I were
Speaker 1: Han Solo and Luke Skywalker. When I was really little um.
Speaker 1: But then I got into like I was always wanting
Speaker 1: to do like funny characters. I like, like like Ed
Speaker 1: Grimley one year, the Saturday Night Live character. I did
Speaker 1: Ed Grimley one year, and I was I don't know
Speaker 1: if like I was always trying to make people laugh.
Speaker 1: I never did scary stuff until little kids started coming
Speaker 1: around and trick or treating me at your house. Yes,
Speaker 1: and you started just like movie characters. Like even into
Speaker 1: my adult years, you know, I would try and find
Speaker 1: some cool movie character, like Hi from Raising Arizona. I
Speaker 1: did one year. It's almost a grimly same here. Uh No,
Speaker 1: not same at all, actually uh. And then one year
Speaker 1: I did a great actually won a contest in New
Speaker 1: Jersey one year when I was a hardy Kushner and
Speaker 1: I like, I shaved my head. I did the whole thing.
Speaker 1: I had literature. I passed out. Wow, I made the
Speaker 1: whole the whole deal. You just ended up joining a
Speaker 1: local chapter for a little while. It was fine, really
Speaker 1: got into the rule. But I haven't. It's been a
Speaker 1: few years since I've dressed up here because I just, oh,
Speaker 1: that's not true. I haven't been. I haven't been to
Speaker 1: a Halloween party in probably five years. What were you
Speaker 1: last year? I was Patrick Bateman from American Psycho, So
Speaker 1: you were you but with a tie exactly and like
Speaker 1: a giant inflatable brick cell phone. And you me was
Speaker 1: a specific Michael Jackson. A moment of Michael Jackson's history
Speaker 1: where he's holding blanket over the balcon and Momo was blanket.
Speaker 1: It's on you can see it on Instagram. That's great.
Speaker 1: You have to check that out, alright. So the candy
Speaker 1: company started getting involved. That's where I left off in
Speaker 1: the costume company. They knew it was gold from them,
Speaker 1: mars Uh Incorporated. In the early nineteen fifties, We're doing
Speaker 1: ad campaigns on TV and in newspapers and on the
Speaker 1: radio and stuff about trick or treat um it became
Speaker 1: a thing with UNICEF. They had a Trick or Treat
Speaker 1: for UNICEF campaign back then. I think they still might,
Speaker 1: you know, you know, I'm talking about the little boxes
Speaker 1: holds change and they would just give them too little kids.
Speaker 1: And while they wrote Trick or Treat, and they'd also
Speaker 1: asked for change for unisf to help needy kids overseas.
Speaker 1: And that actually when he really long way to legitimizing
Speaker 1: trick or treating. Yeah, they're doing a lot in these days.
Speaker 1: Two for kids, special needs kids, like it's it's taken
Speaker 1: this long to finally get the word out, like the
Speaker 1: blue pumpkins. Have you heard of those? If you trick
Speaker 1: or treat with a blue pumpkin, that means that you
Speaker 1: have some sort of special need where you may not
Speaker 1: be able to walk to a front door and say,
Speaker 1: trick or treat. I'm dressed as you know Michigan j
Speaker 1: bullfrog what it would be a great it would be.
Speaker 1: But did you pull that off of I just made Yeah. Wow, nice.
Speaker 1: He's been on my mind lately, I guess. But uh
Speaker 1: so people know like, oh, you've got a blue pumpkin,
Speaker 1: so I shouldn't say, like, you know, come on, kid,
Speaker 1: why don't you tell me what your costume is? And uh,
Speaker 1: it's good though, like that it's taken It's ironic that
Speaker 1: it's taken this long to get parents on board to
Speaker 1: the fact that some kids need, you know, different kinds
Speaker 1: of treatment. I don't know if ironic is the best
Speaker 1: word as much as disappointing is. Yeah, you know, you're
Speaker 1: probably right. Should we take another break? Oh my god?
Speaker 1: We're gonna have to take three more. Okay, yes we will.
Speaker 1: Then stuff you should stuftuff you should you should know alright,
Speaker 1: So I think basically what we were saying when we
Speaker 1: left off. And sorry about the nostalgia here everybody, but
Speaker 1: I mean, come on, you get us in a room. Yeah,
Speaker 1: around Halloween, it's gonna happen. Um. So, by the early fifties,
Speaker 1: trigger treating was huge and established and had so if
Speaker 1: the nineteen sixty was the Heyday, the golden age of
Speaker 1: trick or treating, um, nineteen fifty to nineteen fifty nine
Speaker 1: was the salad days of the Heyday? Right? And when
Speaker 1: did people start complaining about it the seventies? No, as
Speaker 1: far back as the twenties, Oh yeah, because those newspaper
Speaker 1: articles that you can track the progress of Halloween, more
Speaker 1: often than not they were like old cranks complaining about
Speaker 1: how they didn't want to have to give tricks or
Speaker 1: treats or whatever the little kids. Don't you blackmail me?
Speaker 1: They don't. Yeah, exactly, you know, what are we teaching
Speaker 1: our kids? And there's actually, um if you kind of
Speaker 1: scratch beneath the surface of trick or treating, at first,
Speaker 1: it appears to be kind of a weird power struggle
Speaker 1: between kids and adults, and it definitely is that. But
Speaker 1: there's also another power struggle going on between adults of
Speaker 1: two different minds, ones who are like you are overparenting
Speaker 1: by being upset about this or this is just one
Speaker 1: night a year, it's good for kids, and other people
Speaker 1: are saying like this is terrible for kids, well, allowing
Speaker 1: them to go from house to house to beg is
Speaker 1: it just a bad idea? It's unsafe is another way
Speaker 1: to put it too. So there's like a struggle weirdly
Speaker 1: over trick or treating, and it has to do with
Speaker 1: under parenting and over parenting and that conversation about the
Speaker 1: whole thing. I have seen parents ruined kids experiences, whether
Speaker 1: it's like a Easter egg hunt or trick or treating.
Speaker 1: I've seen this in action because they're too involved. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, that's what it comes down to, is just
Speaker 1: how involved are you and your kids trick or treating.
Speaker 1: For a very brief period, there was very little involvement
Speaker 1: in kids trick or treating um and a lot of
Speaker 1: people say that's actually really good for kids. In this
Speaker 1: other way that we've kind of started to evolve toward
Speaker 1: is not. Yeah, I don't remember my parents taking me
Speaker 1: around trick or treating. I'm sure that happened maybe when
Speaker 1: I was really little, and we certainly would have had
Speaker 1: to go somewhere else because you know, I've lived on
Speaker 1: the dirt road, the dirt road with no no neighbors,
Speaker 1: um or very few of them. But I just all
Speaker 1: my memories stem from being like probably ten to fifteen
Speaker 1: and being completely on my own with my friends ten
Speaker 1: to fifteen, ten years old. But to fifteen, that's pretty late.
Speaker 1: What to trick or treat? Oh? Now, we trick or
Speaker 1: treated up until probably the like the ninth or tenth grade. Well,
Speaker 1: we'll get to it. But in some places you get
Speaker 1: to get arrested for that. When did you stop? You'd
Speaker 1: still trick or treat if they would let you. Uh.
Speaker 1: I think I stopped around thirteen. Maybe fifteen was too late.
Speaker 1: Maybe thirteen or fourteen you're fine enough. Teens, great, go
Speaker 1: with God. No, but you're you're probably right now that
Speaker 1: I'll look back. Maybe I went to Halloween parties, but
Speaker 1: maybe there's kind of an unofficial slash official again in
Speaker 1: some places, UM cut off after twelve? Really done? Yeah,
Speaker 1: because their teen you're a teenager now, and that's that's
Speaker 1: not kids stuff. As we'll see, it's allegedly trick or
Speaker 1: treating is a transition from kidhood to adulthood. And by
Speaker 1: the time you're thirteen, you've you've made in that transition
Speaker 1: that's in your past. It's sad, but it's I don't
Speaker 1: know why I'm talking like Christopher walk and all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, but I am. Yeah, maybe I wasn't going
Speaker 1: that late, but I definitely remember going by myself at
Speaker 1: a certain point. But now with my neighborhood is just
Speaker 1: the I see mostly parents not involved at all. They're
Speaker 1: they're they're kind of like if your child is two
Speaker 1: or three, helping them walk to the door and stuff.
Speaker 1: But otherwise we're just drinking and the kids are doing
Speaker 1: their things. So let's talk about this. Then let's skip
Speaker 1: towards the end and we'll jump back. Okay, there is
Speaker 1: um this debate over you know, whether it's better to
Speaker 1: just kind of cross your fingers and and hope for
Speaker 1: the best and let your kids go out and trick
Speaker 1: or treat on their own, whether that's good or whether
Speaker 1: we need to Um, the world is just too unsafe
Speaker 1: for that, and we need to much more manage kids
Speaker 1: trigger treating than just letting them go out on their own.
Speaker 1: It depends on where you are. That's the big divide.
Speaker 1: And one of my personal heroes, the World's Worst Mom,
Speaker 1: Lenore Scnazzi, who came up with the Free Range Kid's
Speaker 1: blog and the whole movement. Frankly, she makes this really
Speaker 1: great point that when we let kids trigger treat, we
Speaker 1: let them confront danger like on their own, and it's real,
Speaker 1: it's just a thin the narrowest margin of danger. I mean,
Speaker 1: people always talk about like the um, you know, all
Speaker 1: like the worst things that could happen on Halloween when
Speaker 1: the kids out of trigger treating, getting hit by a car,
Speaker 1: getting kidnapped by a stranger, getting like, um, yes, just
Speaker 1: just stuff that it happens, and it can happen, It's true,
Speaker 1: but it happens so infrequently that the chain its is
Speaker 1: are it's not going to happen, and you're actually better
Speaker 1: off just letting the kid roll the dice. Because, as
Speaker 1: Lenora skanas He puts it, when when you go trick
Speaker 1: or treating, you're transitioning from being a kid to a
Speaker 1: grown up and you're doing this quite literally. Um, you
Speaker 1: go with your parents first, and they kind of teach
Speaker 1: you the rules of the road, like just take one
Speaker 1: piece of candy, or that house over there has their
Speaker 1: lights off, so leave them alone. They don't want to
Speaker 1: have anything to do with this. And then after that
Speaker 1: you let them go on their own right, and they
Speaker 1: kind of take the ball and roll with it. And
Speaker 1: she says that, Um, that when they're all trick or
Speaker 1: treating kids dressed like grown ups, they take to the
Speaker 1: streets night, they encounter the scariest possible locals, which is
Speaker 1: in goblins, and then yes, they're doing it as scaries
Speaker 1: as possible time night and the whole thing is dress
Speaker 1: rehearsal for adulthood, and that like that's the benefit of
Speaker 1: trick or treating. I don't quite get that that is
Speaker 1: the same as adulthood. Like you and I all the
Speaker 1: time walking around night fighting goblins in a way, right
Speaker 1: exact where would we have been without trick or treating
Speaker 1: to preparis for fighting goblins? But just confronting fears are
Speaker 1: on their own without their parents managing their world for
Speaker 1: them so that they can handle themselves, have the confidence
Speaker 1: to know they can handle themselves and um, and and
Speaker 1: I guess feel good about having confronted their fears and
Speaker 1: gotten candy in return. Let's not forget about that now.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, it's just just take the candies. Fine,
Speaker 1: Mommy and Daddy made it perfect for you. All you
Speaker 1: have to do is go get the candy. You're in
Speaker 1: a perfect bubble and everything's fine. Yeah. So that's I
Speaker 1: kind of tend to fall on Leonore Skanazis side on that. Well,
Speaker 1: should we talk a little bit about the um, you know,
Speaker 1: whether or not there have been all these real horror
Speaker 1: stories over the years, and whether or not any of
Speaker 1: those are true as far as the razor blade in
Speaker 1: the apple and stuff like that, hypodermic needles and candy. Um,
Speaker 1: the stuff doesn't happen. No. And the thing to point out,
Speaker 1: and I know we've talked about it before, is that
Speaker 1: it was a an urban legend that came true. Right. Uh,
Speaker 1: there was one case and this is actually kind of
Speaker 1: funny if he asked me. In nine there was a
Speaker 1: dentist in California named WILLIAMS. Shine who uh it, took
Speaker 1: alo laxative pills and disguised them as candy and give
Speaker 1: out four and fifty of them jerk two kids, and
Speaker 1: they were all poop. And I guess so I think
Speaker 1: a fume did poop. Nobody got injured, though right now
Speaker 1: you're not gonna get injured from a laxative over poop,
Speaker 1: over poop. But this is when I think this real
Speaker 1: story got out. And then all of a sudden he
Speaker 1: gets morphed into needles and razor blades or poison or
Speaker 1: candy laced with heroin and stuff like that. Well that
Speaker 1: did happen. Well, yeah, but that's the thing, Like the
Speaker 1: examples that are listed are reverse engineered almost right, right,
Speaker 1: So there was a little boy in Texas who died
Speaker 1: from eating a cyanide um laced pixie stick in Texas,
Speaker 1: and I can't remember what you and um. It turned
Speaker 1: out that it was his dad. That his dad was
Speaker 1: the scum of the earth who had taken taken out
Speaker 1: insurance policies on his own children and then gave them
Speaker 1: spiked Halloween candy to make it look like some mad
Speaker 1: poison or he killed his kids so he could collect
Speaker 1: insurance and one of his kids did die, but it
Speaker 1: was it wasn't just some random Halloween poisoner that guy
Speaker 1: didn't really exist at the time. Yeah, nineteen seventy in
Speaker 1: Detroit was the heroin incident. Um, this kid overdose, these
Speaker 1: kids ate their uncle's stash, is what really happened. And
Speaker 1: then the uncles like, oh, crap, let me sprinkle the
Speaker 1: heroin on the candy and cook up the story and
Speaker 1: maybe cook up some heroin right since I'm cooking, and uh,
Speaker 1: to try and get out of this. So again, it
Speaker 1: really happened, but not in the way that you think. Um,
Speaker 1: the thing that out everybody, So that Williams Shine guy,
Speaker 1: who I just think is a skull for that because
Speaker 1: he scared the pants off of America's parents. He basically said, hey, hey,
Speaker 1: you know how you're letting your kids run free. Something
Speaker 1: really bad had happened to him, and I just showed
Speaker 1: you how. And from the that that next year on,
Speaker 1: the parents were anxiously involved in Halloween like they never
Speaker 1: have been before because of Williams Shine. But um, the
Speaker 1: the thing that really killed Halloween, or at least cementuted.
Speaker 1: I think the anxieties in the heads of parents in
Speaker 1: America is that Thailand all poisoner canceled Halloween two almost
Speaker 1: drove Ben Cooper costumes out of business, candy sales went down.
Speaker 1: Trick or treated, well, your parents didn't love you. I
Speaker 1: think I did too. I don't remember not I would
Speaker 1: remember not trick or treating one year, because that would
Speaker 1: have been eleven. That's prime time. Apparently those are the
Speaker 1: retirement years. But all of this stuff added a veneer
Speaker 1: of fear and anxiety on trick or treating for parents,
Speaker 1: not for kids necessarily, but for parents, and it drew
Speaker 1: them into what was possibly just a kid run activity
Speaker 1: because of fear, probably irrational fear. And now you have
Speaker 1: to this day, the f d A sending out guidelines
Speaker 1: around Halloween saying don't let your kids eat any candy
Speaker 1: until they bring it home, which is just torture, and
Speaker 1: you have to inspect it and if you see any
Speaker 1: pinholes or terrors or anything that looks weird, just thrown away.
Speaker 1: Some hospitals say bring your kids candy and well X
Speaker 1: ray to see if there's any razor blades or needles
Speaker 1: in it or something like that. This is the kind
Speaker 1: of terror that ironically is overlaid on Halloween. It's like
Speaker 1: fun terror has actual real terror on top of it,
Speaker 1: which makes it less fun. We don't inspect candy. Oh
Speaker 1: you don't you roll the dice? Huh, yeah, that's great.
Speaker 1: I don't know anyone who does. Really. Oh man was
Speaker 1: raised like that? You inspected candy? Oh yeah, my parents
Speaker 1: were serious about it. We never did. I don't now.
Speaker 1: I just I don't know. Maybe it's that thing of
Speaker 1: like if you're the because it doesn't happen, right, I'm no,
Speaker 1: I'm hardened to hear that. Yeah, because when we did
Speaker 1: our Free Range Kids episode, I remember thinking, like, what's
Speaker 1: what's going on now? Like like kids are treated like this,
Speaker 1: They're not by Halloween candy. It's just not happening, you know.
Speaker 1: Plus in our neighborhood, with the sanctioned closure, all the
Speaker 1: candy is, people aren't buying their own candy. It's like
Speaker 1: the neighborhood buys all the candy and they congregated in
Speaker 1: these couple of blocks. Yeah, okay, I mean, there could
Speaker 1: be a madman living among us. It happens, but that's
Speaker 1: like being scared to walk out your front door for
Speaker 1: fear of being murdered, right right, Chuck, You know you
Speaker 1: just can't live that way. I can't live that way,
Speaker 1: you know. Umi told me a story about a village
Speaker 1: like villages in Japan and have like a festival or
Speaker 1: two every year, like the whole community comes out. It's
Speaker 1: like a big deal. And there was one village, a
Speaker 1: little tiny town where um, this one woman just I guess,
Speaker 1: went mad and poison the curry that you brought to
Speaker 1: the village thing and killed a bunch of townspeople. It happens.
Speaker 1: It does happen. But you're right. You can't not eat
Speaker 1: the curry just because of the small, small chance that
Speaker 1: some mad person has poisoned it. Yeah. The way I
Speaker 1: look at it is if that that's what happens, then
Speaker 1: that's you know, your numbers up, your numbers up in
Speaker 1: your story in the newspaper to scare other people. You
Speaker 1: get to be immortalized on stuff. You should know. It's
Speaker 1: trick or treat. Going away, Josh, I don't know, Chuck,
Speaker 1: I say, no, Okay, that's good. I'm glad to hear that,
Speaker 1: because again I'm living hashtag condo life. I'm out of
Speaker 1: the action. Yeah, I mean, there's this the last bit
Speaker 1: of this article you sent talked about it, um going
Speaker 1: away potentially, But I just I don't think that's ever
Speaker 1: ever going to happen. So what are your arguments for
Speaker 1: it going away that it might my arguments or is
Speaker 1: my observations your observations? Um. One of the big ones
Speaker 1: is that fear among parents that helicopter parenting has not
Speaker 1: been good for trick or treating. Okay, but but think
Speaker 1: about that's a real struggle going on right now over
Speaker 1: parenting versus under parenting, which one is gonna win out? Okay.
Speaker 1: Another one is there's a perception that that trick or
Speaker 1: treating is dying out, which is kind of funny. Yes,
Speaker 1: because people are moving back into towns and gentrifying those towns,
Speaker 1: like we talked about in the Historic District episode, Um,
Speaker 1: and as they're doing that. Trick or treating was never
Speaker 1: huge in the city, and so people who are raising
Speaker 1: the suburbs and were used to are moving into the
Speaker 1: city and there's no trick or treating going on anymore.
Speaker 1: So I guess trick or treating is dying because that's
Speaker 1: what I'm seeing a differ. I beg to differ with
Speaker 1: that too, Okay, but I mean, you don't live in
Speaker 1: the city city, you live in a neighborhood. Yeah, But
Speaker 1: that's all Atlanta is is a bunch of neighborhoods. Okay,
Speaker 1: you mean I don't live downtown. Maybe these people live
Speaker 1: in Des Moines. I don't know. No one lives in
Speaker 1: downtown Atlanta. No, it's true, although it has gotten cooler
Speaker 1: than it was like a decade ago. But I beg
Speaker 1: to differ that trick or treating doesn't go on in
Speaker 1: the cities. I think I think their apartment buildings in
Speaker 1: New York where people trick or treat, like, just because
Speaker 1: it's not the picket fence suburban neighborhood. I think trick
Speaker 1: or treating goes on everywhere. But this author at my house,
Speaker 1: Julie Beck, who wrote in The Atlantic, she put it
Speaker 1: really well that that basically the suburbs and trick or
Speaker 1: treating just go hand in hand. Sure, like the suburbs
Speaker 1: are set up for trick or treating. You've got houses
Speaker 1: that are close together, super safe, Um yep, where people
Speaker 1: who live there are just well enough off to to
Speaker 1: buy enough candy for the whole neighborhood. Yeah. Um, they
Speaker 1: all have kids. They know each other enough that you're
Speaker 1: not embarrassed for your kid to go up in trick
Speaker 1: or treat there. And you know that it's this candy
Speaker 1: is not going to be poisoned. In the city, you're
Speaker 1: much um more uh isolated from one another, even though
Speaker 1: you're living on top of one another. Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: think maybe if if we're talking about like UH areas
Speaker 1: where there are poor kids and where poverty is run rampant,
Speaker 1: then maybe there's less traditional trick or treating, but there
Speaker 1: are programs and parties and things they try to do
Speaker 1: for those kids too. Okay, so those very things may
Speaker 1: end up being what kills trick or treating that I
Speaker 1: should say, the purest version of trick or treating. You
Speaker 1: can also just make the case, well that's what it's
Speaker 1: evolving into, and just go with it. I think it
Speaker 1: will probably be both. But you're talking about the big
Speaker 1: Halloween parties, community parties, trunk or treating, trunk or treating,
Speaker 1: or what's it called Halloween, Halloween tailgating, trunk treating. This
Speaker 1: is the idea that you and we had this at
Speaker 1: our school. We had the Halloween festival, but that did
Speaker 1: not replace trick or treating. Okay, this replaces trick or
Speaker 1: treating for a lot of children. Yeah, So you go
Speaker 1: out and get in a big church parking lot essentially,
Speaker 1: and you have uh, bobbing for apples and the dunk tank.
Speaker 1: This is different and huh this is a little different
Speaker 1: than that. Well, I mean I've seen these in person,
Speaker 1: and uh, okay, but that's a Halloween festival you're talking about.
Speaker 1: No, No No, I'm talking about instead of trick or treating.
Speaker 1: It's a big party where they have candy and they
Speaker 1: have activities and games and stuff. So are you going
Speaker 1: from car to car getting candy like the cars or houses?
Speaker 1: Uh no, not necessarily, but they're giving out candy. I mean,
Speaker 1: I can you're not talking about trunker treating. It feels
Speaker 1: very nitpicky to me. No, but it's not. And here's
Speaker 1: why I'm not talking about Halloween festival though. Okay, that's fine,
Speaker 1: that's fine, But you're not talking about trunk or treating either.
Speaker 1: You mean you walk five ft to a car and
Speaker 1: they give you candy, then five ft to another and
Speaker 1: they say, don't play any games, don't bob for apples,
Speaker 1: or don't do anything else. All you're doing is walking
Speaker 1: to cars. I'm not saying that they don't have bobbing
Speaker 1: for apples, but the purpose of trunk or treating is
Speaker 1: to basically set up a safe ring of cars where
Speaker 1: the kids are literally penned in. The kids who used
Speaker 1: to be the ones who we're running the show are
Speaker 1: now penned in by the anxious adults cars handing out
Speaker 1: candy rather than going to houses, walking around a church
Speaker 1: parking lot for trunk or treating instead of trick or treating.
Speaker 1: These are not the kids who could pull what the
Speaker 1: kids in the goonies did were able to pull off
Speaker 1: because they had freedom and spark. That kids who trunk
Speaker 1: or treat are being denied that as Let me go
Speaker 1: back to my friend Leonora Sknazi. She says, the trunk
Speaker 1: or treating is just another adult led activity, one that
Speaker 1: reinforces the community killing idea that kids aren't ever safe
Speaker 1: outside the home, school or supervised program. And that is
Speaker 1: most definitely the message that kids get when they're trunk
Speaker 1: or treating. Yeah, I think that is not going to
Speaker 1: kill trick or treating or take over trick or treating.
Speaker 1: We'll see, Chuck. I hope you're right, because one thing
Speaker 1: I have not seen since I've lived in Atlanta is
Speaker 1: any big trunk or treating. Well, that's because you live
Speaker 1: in Atlanta. All you have to do is go out
Speaker 1: to the suburbs, and they're everywhere. But the suburbs are
Speaker 1: made for trick or treating. They're out in the neighborhoods.
Speaker 1: I gotta end on a quote I ran across a
Speaker 1: a website, I guess a church website that's talking about
Speaker 1: trunk or treating. It's awesome this quote. It says that
Speaker 1: the scariest part about the night this is a trunk
Speaker 1: or treating night, isn't the costumes. It's the possibility that
Speaker 1: you could miss out on the chance to use trunk
Speaker 1: or treat to build relationships and reach these kids with
Speaker 1: the gospel. Well yeah, that's the opposite of what Halloween
Speaker 1: is all about. That's right. Um, you got anything else,
Speaker 1: it's about arson of it. Sorry, I'm one of those
Speaker 1: curmudgeons that turns out. Uh. One more thing. If you
Speaker 1: like Halloween, go on to our old stuff you should
Speaker 1: Know website and search Halloween and creepy and you're gonna
Speaker 1: find some amazing slide shows we put together over the year.
Speaker 1: Remember that one of my favorite is um cute and
Speaker 1: cruddy Halloween costumes, vintage Halloween costumes that are really creepy.
Speaker 1: Best Jack lanards, all sorts of great stuff. Remember those
Speaker 1: days where we account page views and get excited about that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this one felt like a bit of a tirade? Yeah
Speaker 1: was it? I don't think so? Okay, Kim, Well, if
Speaker 1: you want to know more about Halloween, get out there
Speaker 1: and trick your treat. And since I said that as
Speaker 1: time for listener, ma'am. Uh this is follow up on
Speaker 1: Paraphelia's that we wanted to read for the last few weeks.
Speaker 1: Just now get into it. Hey guys, a long time listener,
Speaker 1: first time writer. I've had this episode pop up a
Speaker 1: few times. It's just been on my mind. I'm an
Speaker 1: r N with M s N and background and have
Speaker 1: background in neuro physiology who enjoys studying abnormal psych I
Speaker 1: understand you were doing a show on psychological term on
Speaker 1: a psychological term, but you may have ended up painting
Speaker 1: wrong ideas onto certain practices, specifically S and M and
Speaker 1: cross dressing. Um. From when I have come to note,
Speaker 1: it's extremely rare that people practice these primarily for sexual gratification.
Speaker 1: Of course, these practices are adult in nature, but most
Speaker 1: regard it as an emotional practice or exploration of self.
Speaker 1: For example, Uh, shabari or rope bondage takes hundreds of
Speaker 1: hours of practice to perform, and those that partake describe
Speaker 1: a meditation like state as a result, though most would
Speaker 1: say it's s and M. Most cross dressers describe the
Speaker 1: long process of becoming female as cathartic and self affirming,
Speaker 1: although be it uh temporary. Simplifying cross dressers to those
Speaker 1: who walk around in high heels to reach completion, well,
Speaker 1: imagine saying that about a trans woman. Of course, if
Speaker 1: you were doing these practices for sexual gratification, all the
Speaker 1: power to you. I suggest you look into keenk culture
Speaker 1: as an episode. It's where a wide range of people
Speaker 1: congregate and share their interest in a commun any that
Speaker 1: has founded off respect and consent their meetups and presentations
Speaker 1: on practices so that others can learn proper technique. The
Speaker 1: most that practice would like to keep their privacy. And
Speaker 1: that is from Anonymous. Thanks a lot, Anonymous, that was
Speaker 1: a good correction email. That's right. If you want to
Speaker 1: get in touch with us like Anonymous did to set
Speaker 1: us straight, we love that kind of thing. You can
Speaker 1: join us at stuff you Should Know dot com and
Speaker 1: check out our social links there and you can send
Speaker 1: us an email to stuff podcast at i heeart radio
Speaker 1: dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of
Speaker 1: iHeart Radios. How stuff works for more podcasts for my
Speaker 1: heart Radio because at the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,