markb
Typesetter
Posts: 80
|
Post by markb on Oct 1, 2012 11:09:30 GMT -5
It's October and Halloween is coming up -- I am positive this has been raised before but what the heck -- anybody want to talk Halloween episodes? From what I remember there weren't any really. Maybe it was because Halloween wasn't such a big event as it is now. Anyway, I did go back and look and found a couple that might fall into this category -- the one where Elizabeth found a poltergeist (which is kind of a bad episode in my view) and then the stranger episode where there is somebody wandering around Waltons's Mountain. There is also the episode where they fool around with the Ouji board. Any others that you liked?
Happy Halloween and hope to hear from you all soon. You're a wonderful group.
|
|
|
Post by bobbystrom on Oct 1, 2012 12:14:24 GMT -5
Oh i loved the ouji board episode!! Yeah i agree, the Elizabeth one was weird, but i did enjoy it! Can't think of any others! Weird as i thought halloween was big in America. Mind you, being church goers, they probably wouldn't agree with it??
|
|
|
Post by JeriJet on Oct 1, 2012 12:28:42 GMT -5
I does seem rather odd that they didn't have a real Halloween episode, especially when the kids were younger. Wish I still had Mom around to ask about trick-or-treating in rural areas..... maybe kids didn't do it because you had to go so far afield to "hit" many houses.....
But, there should at least have been something done in school, I think.... a costume party with orange and black cupcakes !! And, student-made decorations..... Also, perhaps the Depression stopped that kind of stuff -- so little money available for fun stuff .......
|
|
|
Post by carol on Oct 1, 2012 13:05:45 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by carol on Oct 1, 2012 13:12:54 GMT -5
I found these snippets on various websites
|
|
|
Post by JeriJet on Oct 1, 2012 15:42:25 GMT -5
Carol -- thanks for these.....
It's interesting that your third snippet directly says "the first blooms of Halloween in the 1930's" ...... huh. Wonder what they really mean by that.
I have an old photo of my dad at about two (1917) costumed as a girl, with the caption "Douglas as Helen" (he eventually married a woman named Helen !!) but I don't if this was necessarily for Halloween.... probably not, maybe some sort of baby competition during the summer.
You're spurring me on to do some googling of my own !
|
|
|
Post by vintagekym on Oct 1, 2012 17:57:29 GMT -5
Seems like I remember one of the kids saying about Halloween, maybe one of them asked about an object and I am thinking they said Jim Bob used it for a Halloween costume?
I know on Little House they did a Halloween show, and I remember thinking wow Pa and Ma were not the least bit worried that Mary and Laura were going out and walk to town in the pitch dark of All Hallows Eve...LOL
I did a feature story on a lady a few years back grew who up in Rural Fleming County in the early 1940s and she said they went trick or treating and walked to the farm neighbors houses where they were treated with popcorn balls, fudge, and apples and various other homemade treats and candies. I can't remember if she said they dressed in costume or not.
I have seen some vintage photos from the 20's of kids in Halloween costume.
|
|
|
Post by Rhonda on Oct 1, 2012 18:37:03 GMT -5
In The Bequest (I think that's the title of the ep) the kids are at Ike's window shopping. They are looking for ways to spend the $3 that Grandma said she was going to give each of them. I think it was Erin and Elizabeth that are looking at a halloween costume or maybe it was just Erin with a halloween mask.
|
|
|
Post by carol on Oct 1, 2012 18:56:56 GMT -5
Remember Little House On The Prairie TV show was mostly fictitious. Laura never mentions halloween in her books.
|
|
|
Post by JeriJet on Oct 1, 2012 19:21:29 GMT -5
Just realized you started this thread, markb -- I should have known! Welcome back.....
Carol, I did a bit more research and learned that although the practice of celebrating Halloween was brought to America by Europeans mostly in the 1800s, it had come under disfavor because of vandalism and so was discouraged in many areas for a while (from about 1900 on...) . I also found this snippet which provides an interesting timeframe relating to the Waltons:
" The earliest known print of the words “Trick or Treat” did not occur until 1934, when a Portland, Oregon newspaper ran an article about how Halloween pranks kept local police officers on their toes. There would be sporadic instances of the phrase “Trick or Treat” used in the media during the 1930s, eventually making its way onto Halloween cards. But the practice we see today, children dressed in costume, going house to house saying “Trick or Treat” did not really come about until the mid 1940s. Today, those original vintage Halloween cards depicting the “Trick or Treat” words are collector’s items."
So, I guess it makes some sense that the Walton kids didn't participate to any extent. And, now, I also remember that in my family we were not permitted to use the phrase "Trick or Treat" -- instead, we had to ask "Anything for Halloween?" at each neighbor's door. {This would have been from the mid 40's and on into the 50's....)
Fun stuff to research.....
|
|
|
Post by travis on Oct 3, 2012 22:41:08 GMT -5
Great research Jeri! My grandparents were teenagers in the 30's in rural Virginia and HallOween was not Recognized.
|
|
|
Post by weezer29 on Oct 4, 2012 11:26:11 GMT -5
My dad, who is 92, said his early memories of Halloween were more like the movie "Meet Me In St. Louis". The neighborhood kids would get together, have a bonfire, scare the neighbors and such. He said there was never door to door stuff to get candy.
|
|
|
Post by ForeverWaltons on Oct 4, 2012 12:35:35 GMT -5
My grandparents were born in 1890, 1903, 1923 & 1927. I was told that usually for Halloween you would either go move someone's outhouse or go cow tipping (that's when a cow is asleep standing up & you push it to tip it over). Tipping cows over sounds a little mean to me but they said the kids thought it was a riot.
|
|
|
Post by carol on Oct 4, 2012 15:27:02 GMT -5
The animal rights people would have a field day with the cow tippers today!
|
|
|
Post by wmfan/waltonsportwriter on Oct 4, 2012 17:32:58 GMT -5
Maybe the Changeling had some Halloweenish, supernatural type stuff
|
|