Halloween in the 80's

climaxer

Just noticing how different Halloween is for the kids nowadays. I'm 29 so pretty much most of the Halloween's I had as a kid were in the early/mid eighties until we felt we're too old to "go around" and wanted to go to the bonfires for a few cans!!

This was the typical Halloween for me when I a kid compared to my daughter who "went around" last year for the last time - she's 11 now and says she's too old.

80's child:
Pretty much every child wore a black sack with holes cut out for the sleeves and head. The girls were usually a witch and the boys were dracula. No-one really wore fancy outfits. We used a regular plastic bag to collect stuff in. We would say "anything for Halloween". Usually our bags were fairly full and heavy - mostly with monkey nuts, bad apples, around IR£1.50 in small change and maybe one 50p if you were really lucky, a slice of brack wrapped in a piece of tissue, a 10p mix bag from the woman in the shop and the rare occasion a snack size bar of chocolate. Go to the bonfires with our parents then home to count the money and play a few games. The games we played were filling a basin with water and my Nanny would put around 4 50p's in the end and then put 10ps in quarters of apples and we would all put on our swimming hats and try and get the money with our teeth. I could go on but won't bore you. Brilliant memories and very little money spent by the parents.

00's child:
Fancy outfit that you buy in the supermarket for around €15 and fancy wigs, face paints, etc.. They are now saying "trick or treat" which I hate (thanks to tv programmes like Sabrina). They have special bags made that you buy for around €1.50 in the shop. Speaking of shops - its almost getting as bad as xmas with the amount of merchandise available. Halloween lights in the windows in my area a lot last year - instead of little santas they were little pumpkins. Next we'll have a Halloween tree! COme to think of it I did see a pumpkin tinsel in one shop. And what they get in their bags is unreal. Last year my daughter got around €12 - a lot of neighbours throw in €1 and €2, very little fruit and lots of sweets. Then back to the house for a party. I'll admit I had a party the last two years for her and invited some of her mates but its costing me more every year. Between the halloween plates, cups, hats, tableclothes, etc. etc. which is what made me think about the difference between both our expectations of Halloween. In one way I love it and we do have a great time but then I think back to when it was a lot simplier and cheaper and it was just as much fun.

Anyway what's you're best memories of Halloween...

fragile

We used to spend weeks collecting stuff for the bonfire (tractor tyres, trees, pallets etc..). We would sneak onto farms that had small small forests and cut down trees where they wouldn't be noticed missing. It would be so big, and we would have so much stuff to burn that it would take a few days for it to burn out.

It has been cut back to a small fire nowadays though :-( the Guards made a fuss saying it was against environmental law to burn that much stuff, and a few of the local farmers noticed sections of their forests missing :-)

Mr E

Always went over to our cousins for halloween (in the 80s). They lived on a farm. We'd spend the day collecting wood and junk for the bonfire. We'd go out Trick or Treating around 6pm for an hour or two. The bonfire would be lit, trays of sambos and cocktail sausages would be brought out. Our uncle would set up a fireworks display, with stuff he bought abroad. Then back in about 11 to watch the late night horror film on RTE (usually Halloween 1,2,3 or The Fog!). Good memories....

super_furry

Halloween was a huge event when I was a kid. You’d start collecting for the bonfire around September, knocking on doors, taking away old beds, doors and like and hiding them in someone's back garden. I lived fairly close to an industrial estate so we'd rob the wooden palates from the factories, living in constant fear of the Group 4 security or "Groupies" as they were called. There was huge competition between the different estates and roads over their bonfires and fist fights and acts of sabotage (setting their bonfire alight the day before) weren't uncommon.

Like you said above costumes were bin-liners and treats we almost exclusively fruit, and after collecting them we'd all go the bonfire and try to scare each other with made up stories. It was always 'Help the Halloween party', and never 'trick or treat.'

Just thinking about it now, but does anyone remember the year RTE brought out the 3D glasses and showed all their films that Halloween in the old red and blue 3D?

climaxer

super_furry wrote:

Just think about it now, but does anyone remember the year RTE brought out the 3D glasses and showed all their films that Halloween in the old red and blue 3D?

Yes I had them - for some reason I remember watching the Three Stooges with them on!

The late night RTE horror - Nightmare on Elm Street springs to mind. My cousin actually got a Freddie Crugar (sp?) tattoo!!!

I think the bonfires were mostly the boys thing. I did help carry a pallet or two though. Most of my memories at the bonfire were as a teenager and thats a whole other story....

monkeyfudge

Costumes are no fun unless you make them yourself. I helped my nephew make a Freddy Krueger costume last year. But unfortunetly this year he is going with a store bought Spider-man costume... I made my own Spider-man outfit when I was a kid... but I'm sure it looked pretty lame.. ha...

And I used to say 'Help the Halloween Party!' at the doors.... I don't like this American 'Trick or Treat' thing at all either...

Oh and here for your viewing pleasure is my home-made Mojo Jojo (From the Power Puff Girls) costume from a Holloween party about 2 years back. The party was at NCAD so there lots of really good costumes there.



No one knew who I was supposed to be.... por shame....

aidan_walsh

Gone are the days when RTE would show proper programs for Halloween... I remember one year they had a series of documentaries\traditional stories dramatised running for a couple of nights... Scary stuff, actually, and pretty good...

What do they show now? A week of kiddies specials on "The Den" and a few Christmas episodes of Friends... Pathetic...

I think people have lost the notion of Halloween generally...

fozzle

monkeyfudge, that's a brilliant Mojo-Jo-Jo costume!

Our halloween was pretty much like everyone else's here, except we live in the country so we had our own bonfire and friends from Waterford city and from our local village used come to us. Ah, bin liner costumes, they were great, my mum loved helping us make costumes though so we sometimes had quite complicated ones, like the year one of my sisters was a pumpkin (a hoola-hoop tied hung from her shoulders and an orange sheet over the lot).

All these decorations seem crazy though, we had carved turnips (cos where could you get a pumpkin in the 80s!) and we used to go bobbing for apples and 20 and 50ps. Oooh, and an apple on a string from the celing that you had to eat without using your hands......Ah the good old days![/nostalgia]

monkeyfudge

I remember one game that was pretty fun..

you would have 3 plates

one with ring
one with water
one with dirt

and then one person would put a blindfold on and the plates would be mixed up and they'd place their hand on one of the plates.

the ring meant marraige
the water meant a voyage
and the dirt meant death

Oh and my mother would put 50 PENCE pieces in the Colcannon too.

shellspeare

I remeber making lantans out of jams jars and decoration the outside with crepe paper halloween shapes. We carried them around the streets and the candles always used to come unstuck and had to be pinned back down with hot melted wax.

Crucifix

My best memory is dressing up as a two headed monster with my friend(instead of two kids in two black sacks, two kids in one black sack, innovative stuff for an 8 year old).

SantaHoe

climaxer wrote:

80's child:
Pretty much every child wore a black sack with holes cut out for the sleeves and head. The girls were usually a witch and the boys were dracula.

LOL
Absolutely spot on.
A black bin-liner that rattled when you walk... or a white sheet draped over your head with eye-holes cut out.
Although these days, I'm not sure if the latter would have someone mistake you for a wanna'be KKK member and call the police and have you arrested for incitement to hatred or something :rolleyes:

I agree though, US TV has definitly changed things for us in a very weird way.
Sure we'll be lighting bonfires on 4th of July before you know it.

(even "TV"!! anyone remember when it used to be "telly"??!)

simu

monkeyfudge wrote:

I remember one game that was pretty fun..

you would have 3 plates

one with ring
one with water
one with dirt

and then one person would put a blindfold on and the plates would be mixed up and they'd place their hand on one of the plates.

the ring meant marraige
the water meant a voyage
and the dirt meant death

We used to do that too but I think the water meant you were going to limbo!

We'd also do apple games - have an apple hanging from the ceiling by a piece of rope, a person on both sides with their hands behind their backs and the first person to take a bite out of the apple won. We also did apple-bobbing - put apples in a bowl of water and try to get them out without using your hands.

There used to be way more stuff in the barm brack as well - a stick, a piece of cloth etc and they all meant different things.

Agent Smith

my dad used to go up to nerwy and buy fireworks every year, ton's of them, it was mad, then we used to have a barbque in our back garden and invite the entire street around, then my dad would start lighing the fireworks. it was deadly!
i remember i always dressed up as dracula EVERY year, apart from once, when i dressed up as a gangster. i even had a cig hanging from my lips......

ahh, fun times....


now i just look after the door, giving out sweets and pissing off my neighbours by playing "thriller" really load out all the windows....

(bastards called the cops last year, who told them to stop complaining, ( we have a haunted "passageway in our driveway" with fake cobwebs and a skellington i got from a skip in trinity one day)


sometimes i wish i was 5 again....

billy the squid

Do they still play the halloween games nowadays.

The one where you stuck your head in the basin of water to get the 10p piece and the nuts were thrown on top and left to float so you couldn't see whereabouts the money was at the bottom of the basin.

And the apple on a string where you had the apple hanging down from the ceiling and you had to take a bite out of it.

Do you remember one halloween RTE showed a load of 3D movies. One was a three stoogies one and I think one was a western. Remember sitting in the darkened living room watching the three stooges one.

There were also when you got to stay up till 1am to watch whatever Halloween sequel RTE were showing. They showed Halloween 1 2 and 3 in successive years.

Dont think we ever had a Jack-O-Lantern until around 1988 or 1989.

simu

billy the squid wrote:

Do you remember one halloween RTE showed a load of 3D movies. One was a three stoogies one and I think one was a western. Remember sitting in the darkened living room watching the three stooges one.

Yup, i was just a kid and it was so exciting! They were giving out free 3-d specs in all the supermarkets for it afair.

the_syco

When I was 12;
The older lads got the stuff for the bonfire.

When I was 15-18;
me + mates got the stuff for the bonfire. involved the smaller people.

When I was 20;
the smaller people got teh stuff for the bonfire. I supervised, helped light it (using paper, petrol, etc).

Stuff = tires, from skips, stored in the fields, to be bought out on Holloween day (to prevent nicking from neighbouring estates :mad: )

I used to dress up in the black sack, then I got creative. Got a mask to wear. The masks were thr "big" thing then. For the last 4 holloweens, I'd go to the local nightclub / the Foundry's Holloween Ball in Carlow, dressed in the scream costume, complete with black cape, mask, and plastic knife. Have to get a new costume this year, as the cape is broken from wear 'n tare (mainly tare's tho).

Holloween is good for one thing; people encourage you to burn stuff
:cool:

Belle Ende

Illiterates!

Pigman II

super_furry wrote:

Just thinking about it now, but does anyone remember the year RTE brought out the 3D glasses and showed all their films that Halloween in the old red and blue 3D?

Ah yes I remember! Now that was an 'event' at the time if I recall!

Does anyone know the exact year that happened in or even what the 'horror' film in question was? I remember it being b&w and probably from the early 1950's. It seemed to involve a guilotene and a weird guy with a goatee beard dressed like a magician.

Anyone?

monkeyfudge

It was a Vincent Price film called The House of Wax

Pigman II

Thanks again! You're coming good with all the answers tonight Monkeyfudge.

monkeyfudge

I recorded alot of RTÉ's 3D programming that year so I could enjoy the amazing 3D effects again and again.

I remember that the 3D wasn't really well implemented into the plot of House of Wax, people whould wiggle things in the direction of the camera for no particular reason.

They showed lots of Three Stooges episodes in 3D as well.

sunbeam

We used to make our cornflake box, crepe paper and tinfoil masks at school each year (in the late 70s-mid 80s). Used to carve turnips out in class too.

Kids usually sang a song or did some party piece when they went round to the houses. Any 'tricking' was separate from the 'treating' (though of course we never used that phrase) and usually involved teenagers removing/hiding farmyard gates or garden ornaments. A lot of people used to take off their own gates and put them away to avoid the nuisance of having to go out and look for them the next day.

We had our bonfire competions on St. John's night in June, so after going round to the houses it was back home for all the traditional apple games etc. Do kids even learn about these in school any more?

sanncoo

I really enjoyed this thread! The memories came flooding back and I've now got a stupid grin on my face!

I love Halloween for two reasons!! 1. I loved the costumes etc we spent weeks deciding what we wanted to be. 2. My birthday is 2 days before so my 'party' was usually held on Halloween, party is in inverted comma's cos in those days you didn't invite half the school!!!

I loved the bobbin' for money, or fruit! Grapes were a real treat in those days! Oh! The costumes! The lengths we went to to look different from other kids on the road. One year I found tippex...didn't know what it was for but it was fun drawing 'bones' on the black sack so that miraculously I became a skeleton....

My grandparents got me a Miss Piggy Mask and my brothers Laurel & Hardy Masks....This was in the days when masks were not on every shop shelf six weeks before Halloween. They were put away every year and they were only brought out at Halloween....

Those were the days......the papier mache masks made at school during 'Art' Class!!!

jared almasy

id see all my friends dressing up as vampires and witches etc... and i just wanted to be a little 'different' so id get my mum to wrap me up in a sheet and tie a belt around it, then me being an asylum escapee would do my very accurate 'convulsing' fit at every door and scare the bejaysus out of the person. one year someone dragged me inside, called 999 and gave me all the chocolate i could fit in the sheets. oh the merryment...i stopped that after 3 years, it was just funny after that not scary.

ps.i can still do the convulsing thing, but only in certain circumstances

pps. L125 in DCU isnt the right circumstances

Ruu_Old

i remember the 3d glasses you got in the shops to watch the movies on tv

Pop's Diner

Sorry for digging up this thread off-season and several years later, but does anyone know what year the 3D movies on Rte happened occurred?

candy-gal1

climaxer wrote: »

Just noticing how different Halloween is for the kids nowadays. I'm 29 so pretty much most of the Halloween's I had as a kid were in the early/mid eighties until we felt we're too old to "go around" and wanted to go to the bonfires for a few cans!!

This was the typical Halloween for me when I a kid compared to my daughter who "went around" last year for the last time - she's 11 now and says she's too old.

80's child:
Pretty much every child wore a black sack with holes cut out for the sleeves and head. The girls were usually a witch and the boys were dracula. No-one really wore fancy outfits. We used a regular plastic bag to collect stuff in. We would say "anything for Halloween". Usually our bags were fairly full and heavy - mostly with monkey nuts, bad apples, around IR£1.50 in small change and maybe one 50p if you were really lucky, a slice of brack wrapped in a piece of tissue, a 10p mix bag from the woman in the shop and the rare occasion a snack size bar of chocolate. Go to the bonfires with our parents then home to count the money and play a few games. The games we played were filling a basin with water and my Nanny would put around 4 50p's in the end and then put 10ps in quarters of apples and we would all put on our swimming hats and try and get the money with our teeth. I could go on but won't bore you. Brilliant memories and very little money spent by the parents.

00's child:
Fancy outfit that you buy in the supermarket for around €15 and fancy wigs, face paints, etc.. They are now saying "trick or treat" which I hate (thanks to tv programmes like Sabrina). They have special bags made that you buy for around €1.50 in the shop. Speaking of shops - its almost getting as bad as xmas with the amount of merchandise available. Halloween lights in the windows in my area a lot last year - instead of little santas they were little pumpkins. Next we'll have a Halloween tree! COme to think of it I did see a pumpkin tinsel in one shop. And what they get in their bags is unreal. Last year my daughter got around €12 - a lot of neighbours throw in €1 and €2, very little fruit and lots of sweets. Then back to the house for a party. I'll admit I had a party the last two years for her and invited some of her mates but its costing me more every year. Between the halloween plates, cups, hats, tableclothes, etc. etc. which is what made me think about the difference between both our expectations of Halloween. In one way I love it and we do have a great time but then I think back to when it was a lot simplier and cheaper and it was just as much fun.

Anyway what's you're best memories of Halloween...

lol dont be badmouthing my Sabrina the teenage witch! lol :P:D

Ann22

super_furry wrote: »

Just thinking about it now, but does anyone remember the year RTE brought out the 3D glasses and showed all their films that Halloween in the old red and blue 3D?

I remember in 1988, I think, rte released 3d glasses for a special showing of a double bill on Hallowe'en night. All I remember is the first film was a Western of some kind where there was a lot of desert footage.

Ladytn

We had home made costumes and home made games and bon fires! Halloween is gone so commercial now! I came across this lens fighting the commercial end and taking about games you can play at home! http://www.squidoo.com/diyhalloween

candy-gal1

one of the best halloween movies ever!!!! okay its for kids but so what, im a big kid lol never ever get sick of it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDidHzwYu3E

jenny2hat

I love hocus pocus!!!:pac:

stone roses

"help the halloween party"thats what we use to say, i remember dressing up as a stormtrooper had a mask! but me ma put me in white jeans and white shirt with black marker to colour in the joints on my elbows and legs lol :-)

great days in the 80s you would never see that now the shame!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ann22

Yeah I think it was 88.

I think the glasses were 1 pound each and the proceeds were going to Rehab.

Ann22 wrote: »

I remember in 1988, I think, rte released 3d glasses for a special showing of a double bill on Hallowe'en night. All I remember is the first film was a Western of some kind where there was a lot of desert footage.

rainbowtrout

along with all the other games mentioned we used to also play one which involed pouring out a pile of flour on a plate and sitting a grape on top. You then had to take a knife and slice away a section of the pile without disturbing the grape, first to move the grape got their face stuck in the flour.

All of my halloween costumes consisted of bin liners. I was really jealous of kids on my street that were allowed to be ghosts, we weren't allowed cut holes in bed sheets! And there was the cheap plastic masks from quinnsworth (no tesco back then!), which were uncomfortable to wear and breath in.

All the kids used to compare what they were getting in different houses, some of the neighbours were great for giving out sweets, a few used to give loose popcorn which was horrible by the end of the night when it was mixed in with everything else. Some neighbours were legendary in terms of stingyness on halloween. There was one woman who lived on our road who used to buy a bunch of grapes and give one grape to each child that called at the door, and another one who used to give out one monkey nut per child. It was comical even back then.

Dotsie~tmp

rainbowtrout wrote: »

All of my halloween costumes consisted of bin liners.

Brilliant thx. One of the things I really miss from being young was building the bonfire. It still amazes me the amount we got done as children with no adult assistance OR supervision.

People who moan about Halloween bug me. Have they really become so joyless or is it that they never experienced it as children. The anti social element thats there has always been there. I remember come 10 or 11pm some older teens or adults would always come around drinking and hijack the fire we spent days building then we would just have to go home. I look out the window most bonfire nights wishing I actually had a reason to go over.

I need some kids or something.

briany

I don't really remember Halloween in the 80's but I do remember it in the early 90s and it was pretty much the same thing: bin liners, bad masks and money in the trick (just coppers though) or treat bag and a lot of god awful peanuts which to me is the worst treat you could get. They would usually be sifted from the collection at the end of the night.

Shan75

Halloween used to be great in the 80's with every child in the estate out collecting.As soon as you'd hear somebody was giving out money or sweets you'd race to their house as quickly as possible before the whole place got wind of it and the money/sweet supply dried up.

I remember going to one house and the person said they didn't know it was Halloween and I was stunned, thinking how on earth could anybody not know it was Halloween.Ah happy days.


Like everything else nowadays it is pretty meaningless for children who already have everything they want all year round.Besides the fact we can't allow them roam about the place at nighttime any more.

jupiterjack

Halloween was far better in the 80s, all the different games, if you mentioned such games to the kids now, they would not know what games to play and never heard of such games. We always sang at the houses ,now i ask the kids to sing and they havent a glue.

Ruu

Ruu wrote: »

i remember the 3d glasses you got in the shops to watch the movies on tv

Yeah I remember they were a pound to buy and the proceeds were for rehab, I think, I do remember wearing the glasses and lying on the floor ducking away from the 3 stooges on the box, happy days alright!

darkdubh

I remember when RTE showed Halloween 3 would have been around 88.I might be wrong but I think it was one of the 3D movies along with the Three Stooges. Funnily enough it had no connection to the Halloween movie series.

fred funk }{

Old thread is an old thread indead.

Lawrence1895

fred funk }{ wrote: »

Old thread is an old thread indead.

But interesting to read. When I was a child in Germany, Halloween was not really known, it became more popular in the last 20-25 years.

xzanti

Child of the 80's here too we used to say "Help the Halloween Party"

Also have memories of bringing back a load of fruit and monkey nuts, was very rare to get sweets and money around our way tbh..

Fond memories nonetheless

flanum

heres a clip from rte archives from a school in cavan in 1986 talking about what they get up to...

sorry cant embed it.
http://www.rte.ie/archives/exhibitions/895-halloween/287765-halloween-in-cavan/

The Mulk

darkdubh wrote: »

I remember when RTE showed Halloween 3 would have been around 88.I might be wrong but I think it was one of the 3D movies along with the Three Stooges. Funnily enough it had no connection to the Halloween movie series.

Watched this the other night (Halloween 3: Season of the witch)

"5 more days to Halloween, Halloween, Halloween....Silver Shamrock"

It was quite bad.

zyanya

What? You even got a bonfire and games? That's beautiful! Shame it's no longer like that!

I don't like the way too commercial version of anything (with lotsa Made In China accessories). The best costumes are the ones that were made by someone. Part of the fun is making them.

Here in Mexico, 80's and now, we used a plastic pumpkin shaped container and people give kids sweets. No bonfire or games, although now some people had parties (once, when I was like ten, I threw one).

When I lived in Holland, Halloween was just another day.

When I lived in the USA, I was still living in a basement, with a super Christian (Protestant) family. They all went to a church meeting to discuss about why Halloween is a celebration of the Devil, and I just had dinner with a friend at a Denny's, with plenty of costumed old folks around