80schildhood

The Girls remember Halloween of Yore...Robbie-Ann's first costume memory, as a toddler: wearing a onesie kitty outfit in her Oma's neighborhood Halloween parade. Amy recalls her first-grade plastic "Cinderella" mask, paired with patent leather shoes and blue socks, and her shocking costume contest loss. Homemade vs. Store-bought costumes. God Bless the non artsy-craftsy moms. Robbie-Ann's faux 'princess' costume, created with her mother's old nightgown and last year's costume cape. The rubber band on the plastic masks, held together with The World's Flimsiest Staple. Robbie-Ann's "Community Center" Halloween, and the bag of dried apricot ears. The Candy. Big ticket items: a full sized Reeses Peanut Butter cup, a full-sized Snickers bar. Robbie-Ann rejects Milky Ways and Three Musketeers - why were there always so many of them? The five pennies taped together. Raisins. Sweet little old ladies who handed out popcorn balls. Robbie-Ann realizes later in life the care and effort it took to tape all those pennies and make those popcorn balls. The Rules: no eating on the road, all candy had to be inspected by Mom and Dad. Trading candy with Cousin Michelle. Smarties: the first candies on the table. Performance-Based candy rewards: a full-sized Snickers bar. SNOW on Halloween?! Amy's candy brokering. The no-name orange and black wrapped nougat candies. Dum-Dums. Bazooka bubble gum pieces. Unwrapped, open random Twizzlers in the bag: thrown out immediately by Mom. Fun-sized candy bars. The poisoned candy urban myth, and why Robbie-Ann's mother would not allow her to eat trick-or-treat apples. Robbie-Ann reports the history of Three Musketeers, and a shocking revelation about the candy bar's origin. The razor in the apple urban legend: was it real? Amy reports on the controversy, and uncovers a horrible story about a child murder in the 70s. Halloween II: the emergency room scene with a kid who bit into a razor blade hidden in an apple. Candy Corn: iconic. Robbie-Ann defends the much-maligned candy and explains how you're supposed to eat it. Jelly beans. The mystery flavor abomination known as the sponge peanut. Tootsie Rolls: problematic. Milk Duds: they taste like they're supposed to be something else.  Pumpkin Carving!! Pumpkin Patch vs. Supermarket Pumpkins. The family carving ritual, with newspapers and roasted pumpkin seeds. Screwing up the teeth and eyebrows. The TV specials: The Great Pumpkin.  Witches Night Out, the 1978 Halloween animated special starring Gilda Radner. Robbie-Ann shares a warm memory from Gramma Helen's kitchen on a cold fall night. The Headless Horseman cartoon. Chilling Thrilling Sounds of the Haunted House record. Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day. The Monster Mash. TV series Halloween "special" episodes. Alice smashes Mrs. Brady's ceramic bust because the boys kept scaring everyone with fake ghosts. 

From Chuck E. Cheese to making your own sundaes at the Red Barn restaurant, the Girls recall the best and worst of birthdays' past.

The Girls remember their childhood fears of the 70s and 80s...Robbie-Ann talks about the origins of her basement phobia, the monster in the 1980s horror classic The Boogens. Amy dissects what exactly makes a monster. Robbie-Ann analyzes the monster in The Boogens, and why the movie is such an 80s horror classic. Amy's fear of the portal to hell: the red light under the escalator at the mall, and her childhood PTSD triggered by the theme from Get Smart. Amy's terrifying real-life attempted child-abduction from a super market by Sweathog kidnappers. A psycho-analysis of the sequence of Amy's childhood terror triggers. Robbie-Ann's psychological trauma incited by watching 70s zombie scary tv movie "Let's Scare Jessica to Death." The Monster Under the Bed: where did this Urban Legend come from? Robbie-Ann's childhood fear of serial killers, inspired by 70s news reports about John Wayne Gacy. Amy's fear of Richard Ramirez, Night Stalker serial killer who terrorized Southern California in the 1980s. Young Amy arms herself with a hammer in case he showed up. Can you help identify the mystery movie that scared Amy so much? The Girls try to identify it from Amy's fuzzy memory of seeing it on tv. Robbie-Ann's theory that humans were waiting to kill her outside, but monsters were trying to kill her in her own house...why? Robbie-Ann's childhood anxiety of something terrible happening to her parents. Bees: terror in the skies. Amy recalling Killer Bees in cartoons. The 70s terror propaganda  of quicksand, falling in manholes, and the Killer Bees headed to America. Robbie-Ann's childhood Super Fear of falling through the winter ice on the quarry of her childhood home. Amy reports exactly what and where quicksand is. Jellyfish: terror in the ocean. Going into basements as an adult.  Aliens: fearworthy or foolish? Robbie-Ann recalls a terrifying mystery movie from the 50s about aliens: can you identify it? Ghosts, vampires and Frankenstein? The Munsters' role in de-terrifying certain Halloween myths. Robbie-Ann's childhood confidence that she could talk some humanoid murderous monsters out of killing her. The Loch Ness Monster. Big Foot. Sharks. Amy reveals she never saw Jaws!