Category Archives: Horror Nostalgia

Remembering That Freaky-Ass Episode of ‘The Wacky Adventures of Ronald McDonald’

Image June 3, 2018 fridaythecurteenth Leave a comment

Ah, McDonald’s. The chicken nuggets are endless, the playgrounds are bitchin’, and the McFlurry machine has been broken since 1995. Despite that one glaring flaw, Mickie D’s is a pretty solid fast food joint. However, the franchise’s greatest accomplishment is one that time has forgotten. That pesky time.

That accomplishment, for those who still don’t know, is The Wacky Adventures of Ronald McDonald. Produced by Klasky Csupo, the company known for shows such as The Rugrats and The Wild Thornberrys, the separately-released direct-to-video series focused on Ronald McDonald, the other McDonald’s mascots, and their young human friends while they experienced wondrous, moral-teaching adventures.

None of those adventures were greater, though than “Scared Silly,” the series’ very first episode. Released to VHS in October of 1998, the 40-minute episode could be purchased at your local McDonald’s for less than $4, and unless your guardians were total squares, they spotted you the cash.

Now, I’m not going to sit here in my holey sweatpants and tell you that “Scared Silly” is greater than classic haunted house films like Poltergeist and The Changeling, but I’m not going to deny it either.

scared silly 2 — Just look at that freaky shit.

The episode follows the baggy jumpsuit-wearing Ronald McDonald and his friends while they go camping in the Far-Flung Forest. There are songs, there are jokes, and there is cheer all around. Like any great horror film, though, that happiness is quickly suffocated by a sense of doom when a thunderstorm strikes and forces the group to take shelter in an old haunted house.

While there, the McBuddies (A name I just gave them that should’ve totally been trademarked) encounter a holographic head named Franklin, who forces them to partake in a challenging riddle game if they ever want to leave the spooky house again. One by one, the friends begin to disappear as they fail to correctly solve each riddle.

I won’t spoil the ending for you, but I promise that it’s satisfying.

If your interest in The Wacky Adventures of Ronald McDonald has been renewed, or if you have a child you want to shamelessly frighten in a family-friendly sort of way, the episode has been uploaded to YouTube and can be viewed below.

Stay spooky, my friends.

Horror Nostalgia

Horror Hotlines: Did You Save Michael’s Victim Via the 1-900 Halloween 5 Number?

Image April 23, 2018 Patti PaulterGeist 3 Comments

Oh, man. You just gotta love those taunting yet glorious 1-900 numbers nestled in between your favorite programming that would cost you your left nut if you dared to dial and rack up a $500 phone bill for some unsuspecting parental units. I love to refer to it as, the forbidden fruit of our youth.

Thanks to the slasher-boom in the ’80s that reared horror to not only appeal to adults but young kids as well with Saturday morning cartoons featuring the likes of The Cryptkeeper and Toxie from The Toxic Avenger, it was inevitable to see 1-900 horror hotlines popping up all over the place trying to lure kids in while going in bone-dry raping your dad’s wallet. Unfortunately for me, I had already felt the unholy wrath of the seven layers of Hell for previously causing a $280 phone bill for that damn beautiful 1-900 FRED hotline that aired through EVERY COMMERCIAL BREAK in Freddy’s Nightmares. You have to admit, however, that it is sure as shit gave you an odd sense of living dangerously while no doubt sprouting a few strands of pectoral hair on your chest if you actually mustered up the balls to call the “$2.99 a minute and $0.99 for each additional minute” retro hotlines. You felt about as bulky as Myers seemed to look in Halloween 5. And of course, even that film had a promo hotline for you to attempt a sneaky listen on that wonderful rotary phone.

Ah, 1989; the year a relentlessly angry Michael Myers took his revenge for the fifth time. Directly following the events of Halloween 4, one of my personal favorites of the franchise, Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers never fully lived up to its predecessor with that awkward storyline of a little traumatized and halfway through the film, mute Jamie’s psychic connection to Uncle Boogeyman. An aging Dr. Loomis is screaming at the kid for what seems like the entire duration of the film, and the good doctor’s intentions have turned obsessive and maddening at this point in the franchise. Also, let us never forget about the confusing as fuck Man in Black bullshit that doesn’t get an explanation until a full movie later.

For some reason or another, I just can’t HATE this movie. Could it have something to do with the fact I dragged my parents to take me to see this movie on Christmas Day in 1989 at my local, old-fashioned brick-built movie theater? Maybe. Nostalgia fuels a lot of passion in me(obviously). But given all the flaws I see in this movie now as an adult, I did love it as a child, so you can’t just crush down those initial feelings. I also remember this installment had a HUGE set of promos prior to its release back in 1989, one of them being a goddamn Halloween 5 hotline. And I can’t even begin to tell you how many times I begged my parents to call it. But alas and per above, I was forever banned from calling any of these fun hotlines, so I never got to hear this one. However, per a lucky family member, here’s what I was told what happened once you dialed:

Dialing 1-900-860-0700 prompted you to guide a potential victim of Michael’s to safety while making you feel like a damn horror hero. The hotline itself aired directly after the end of television promos for the film. The voice on the other end would give you a variety of places that could be found in said film, like the Tower Farm or the Children’s Clinic, to send Michael’s prey for safety. However, any of these Haddonfield hot spots could just be a death trap so you could be very easily sending this character to the hack ‘n’ slash hotel. In which case, I think would have been more fun anyway.

Do you remember this little diddy and did you ever call it? If so, and you have a story, please comment below and share! Shout out to Dinosaur Dracula for uploading this diddy to YouTube for the rest of us to bask in all its cheesy glory!

Horror Nostalgia

The Rare “Child’s Play” VHS Screener Footage From 1989

Image April 21, 2018 Patti PaulterGeist 1 Comment

The ’80s were a grand decade for the little plastic nightmare known as Chucky and I think it’s fair to say, this era belonged exclusively to the slasher. From Freddy, Jason, to Michael, the 1980’s coined the word slasher and turned it into an unstoppable phenomenon. Between brilliant marketing from all those inducing ass-whoopings from calling 1-900 numbers to every kid on your block dressed up as Freddy; sporting a plastic garbage bag Ben Cooper costume on Halloween. The era of the slasher was a glorious time to be alive for horror fans. And in 1988, a small but fierce force entered into that iconic fraternity of slasher legends in the form of what looked like, a My Buddy doll from the seventh layer of Hell.

When Child’s Play opened in theaters back ’88, no one expected the pint-sized Good Guy to launch the kind of fanfare Chucky brought to the horror game. The movie made on a less than stellar budget of only $9 million ended up pulling in almost four times that amount worldwide upon its theatrical release and ended up spawning seven sequels over the past 30 years, including an upcoming Child’s Play series in the works!

Back in the glory days of the Polaroid cassette videotape, studios such as MGM would send out promotional VHS screeners of new releases to mom and pop video stores in an effort to get that movie lined up on their shop shelves. On a side-note, I remember the first time seeing Chucky’s face at my local one-stop rental shop Action Video and my seven-year-old self, fresh off a viewing of Dolls, was immediately impulsed to rent the little sucker. Not knowing a thing about it, and so glad I did.

Anyway, these VHS screeners sent out apparently also contained some extra promotional material intended to fancy up the marketing. In this case, a six and half minute promo of a stiff as fuck Chucky salesman breaking into a rap about his movie and the cheese is so delicious my friends. Also, you gotta appreciate the gangster aspect of good ole’ Chucky taunting both Freddy and Jason in this promo.