Balls, finger puppets and other small toys
Full-color Finger Puppets (2002)
  Sold every year at a variety of stores, these all come together and have very nicely detailed paint jobs for toys of this sort. I esspecially like the mummy, with its protruding tongue. Crappier versions of these guys can sometimes be found seperate, in bins at party favor stores.
Transparent Dollar-Store Puppets (2003)
  These are pretty boring, except for the cool pink skeleton.
"Bag of Creatures" Puppets (2003)
  These came from Michael's craft store in a bag of "50 halloween creatures" (most of them were spider rings). They're not painted very well and are made of a stiffer plastic than most. The skeleton is once again the coolest. He wears a tie.
"Halloween Playing Set" (2002)
  These antique-looking things come in blister packs of six and are a much rarer dollar store find. I've only seen them twice. The second time I found them the green and purple guys above had swapped colors.
Finger Puppet Skull (2002)
  I don't even remember where I got this. It was probably in with some bag of other miscellaneous junk. It's a little over three inches tall and has holes in the back for your fingers and thumb.
Graveyard Balls (2001)
  These are sold every year at Party City. They have various skeleton parts at the center with random photo backgrounds of tombstones or even, sometimes, people at a funeral. I've always wondered if any of them were actually asked to be photographed at a dead friend's hearing for a rubber bounce ball.
Spring Jumper Thingies
  Do these toys even have an official name? You can find these everywhere. I like the bleeding skulls the best. The completely different pumpkins came from the same bag.
Monster Squirters (2002)
  Around an inch tall, made of hollow rubber to spit water from their mouths. I don't see these often, and only these three varieties. They're really nicely made, and I'm not sure which one I like best. Probably the charred skull..
Rubber Skeletons
  Really common. I'm sure you've all seen these. They make nice little "victims" for other toys and decorations, like the glow-in-the-dark anglerfish here.
Hollow Rubber Skulls
  Some Star Wars figures modeling these useless little things, sold in packs of five at dollar stores in bright, stupid colors and sometimes even transparent.
"Halloween" Paddle Balls (2001)
  Yes, this was actually packaged as a halloween toy. All the company did was change the ball into an eye. I love them.
HALLOWEEN Paddle Balls (2003)
  As of 2003, the happy horror paddles have been replaced with something far more acceptable, but nowhere near as funny...I'm sad.
Monster Balls (2002)
The package says it all.
Bone Hands (2003)
  Severed, two inch long skeleton hands sold in bags at Wal-mart. The left ones have holes and the right ones have pegs so you can stick them together for some reason.
Really old Bendies (2003)
  Found these laying in a box at a dollar store. They're stiff, dirty looking and most of them have wires jutting out. Pretty sweet.
Glowing Monster Head Balls (2003)
  They glow, they bounce and they have scary faces. Nothing else to say really. There was another design that was just some guy with sunglasses for some reason. I can't tell what the grey is supposed to be around the middle one's jaw. Deformed flesh? It looks cool, anyway.
Pulsating Eyes Reaper Keychain (2001)
  These came in many styles including a single skull, a vampire, frankenstein's monster and so forth. They have sticky eyes that protrude when squeezed, but like all sticky toys they eventually start to decay and secrete nasty oily gunk so I had to pull his out. Life is tough.
Pocket Creatures
  Okay, so these technically aren't halloween because I got these from a vending machine in the summer several years ago  (tons of them, but mostly duplicates of the fourth one) but they're certainly spooky, and I've seen poorly-painted ones for sale as halloween party favors anyway. They're all supposed to have backs that hook into a shirt pocket, but I cut those off most of them. I was a bit younger at the time and didn't care as much about having stuff intact, although they ARE pretty cool as lone, useless monsters anyway. My favorite is the mummy, of which I only have one. This is another item I'll gladly buy more of if anyone out there has some.

 

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