History/Folklore
Originating from Irish folklore about a man named Stingy Jack, these classic Halloween decorations were originally carved out of turnips rather than pumpkins.
What are Jack-o'-Lanterns?
In the spooky classic movie Beetlejuice, what word do you have to say three times to summon the chaotic ghost?
What is Beetlejuice?!
This costume is known for being the most popular Halloween costume of all time.
What is a witch?
A standard Snickers bar layers its milk chocolate over three precise components: nougat, peanuts, and this gooey topping.
What is caramel?
This dark-colored animal is associated with Halloween because superstition often links them to witchcraft.
What is a black cat?
In the 1940s, the emergence of the "sexy" Halloween costume trend was heavily influenced by the mass production and wartime popularity of these specific types of celebrity photos.
What are pin-up photos?
In the very first Halloween heist episode of this New York-set sitcom, a police detective sets out to steal his Captain Medal of Valor.
What is Brooklyn Nine-Nine?
To save on production costs for the 1978 indie film Halloween, Michael Myers’ mask was actually a $2 store-bought mask of this sci-fi icon, painted white.
Who is William Shatner/Captain Kirk?
This fall game was originally a for fortune telling game to predict who a woman would marry, with each apple representing a different suitor.
What is bobbing for apples?
While humans are born with 270 bones at birth, some ultimately fuse together leaving adults with this many bones in their body.
What is 206?
Derived from Old English, this historic five-letter word meaning a female sorcerer or wise woman gave us our modern word "witch".
What is Wicce? (Pronounced "witch-uh" or "witch-aye.")
Directed by F. W. Murnau, this 1922 German Expressionist masterpiece features a terrifying vampire named Count Orlok instead of Dracula.
What is Nosferatu?
In 1930s America, the J. Halpern Company revolutionized the retail holiday market by securing the first-ever corporate licenses to mass-produce costumes of this iconic cartoon mouse.
Who is Mickey Mouse?
Normal M & Ms are known to have these six colors.
What are red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and brown?
In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the iconic "Double, double toil and trouble" incantation is spoken at the beginning of Act IV by a specific group consisting of exactly this many witches.
What is three?
(The line is "when shall we three meet again?")
In Celtic tradition, the precursor to Halloween is this seasonal festival marking the end of the harvest and the beginning of the "dark half" of the year.
What is Samhain? (pronounced "Saw-win" depending on the region in Ireland)
In a classic case of commercial pop-culture history, this spooky parlor board game actually patented and hit the market in 1891—six years before Bram Stoker published Dracula.
What is a Ouija board?
This costume is known to be the most popular for cats and dogs.
What is a pumpkin?
(N.B. - 2nd place is hot dog)
According to Guinness World Records, the heaviest pumpkin ever recorded weighed an astonishing 2,749 pounds and was grown in this Midwestern U.S. state.
What is Minnesota?
In 1921, this Midwest city was the first to organize a city-wide Halloween celebration in the United States.
What is Anoka, Minnesota?
Long before modern trick-or-treating, medieval Europeans practiced this custom on All Souls' Day, swapping prayers for the dead in exchange for spiced "soul cakes."
What is "souling?"
This eccentric shock-rocker, famous for stage antics like guillotines and live snakes, made a memorable cameo as himself in the 1992 comedy Wayne's World, where he gives a backstage history lesson on Milwaukee.
Who is Alice Cooper?
To make the villain in A Nightmare on Elm Street visually unsettling, Wes Craven gave him this specific two-color clothing item because those two precise colors are highly difficult for the human eye to process together.
What is a red and green striped sweater?
When it was first invented by the Wunderle Candy Company in the 1880s, candy corn was marketed under this highly unappetizing name.
What is chicken feed?
Sightings of this winged, red-eyed creature in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, peaked between 1966 and 1967 before the tragic collapse of the Silver Bridge.
What is Mothman?