Paul Frees’ Ghost Host is scary and Lori Petty’s Tank Girl is tough, but neither one of them is any match for one ventriloquist’s dummy. Those things are just plain creepy.

My father dresses me as Kaiser Wilhelm II. I have little say in this, as I am three at the time. My expression at least resembles the Kaiser’s when he finds out he’s lost the war.

Over an insanely funky beat, good ol’ Charlie Brown throws down his paper bag full of stratum, elbows his way through his posse and steps up: “I gotta rock.” After this, no one will ever diss him again, not even Lucy.

For most people coming up with a single costume for Halloween is stressful, but imagine coming up with a whole week’s worth. That’s the challenge of working at the Archie McPhee store in Seattle.

As I sit to write I shiver, my legs wobble, shake and quiver/So frightened, but must deliver an account of what occurred tonight/Oh! Things went altogether wrong, what began with a laughing throng…

There isn’t a corner of Las Vegas that isn’t crawling with tourists or light brighter than ten milion Christmases — except for this strip of largely dessicated motels.

The situation is bad. There are skeletons and invading Martians moving about at will, and the hippos refuse to stop them until they’ve finished their pumpkin break. Why are we paying these hungry, hungry hippos?

First off, big fan, huge fan. That whole cat playing a keyboard thing is dynamite. I mean you expect a cat to be doing a lot of things — catching birds or pooping in a box – but playing keyboard? Crazy!

The Cola Wars of the ’80s and ’90s really brought about a lot of competitive creativity between Pepsi and Coke. Let’s wallow in the agony of their failures.

I love stories written in the speculative fiction genre — “The Yiddish Policeman’s Union,” “The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle” and so on. In fact, I love the genre so much that for the past few years I’ve labored to resist the temptation to write it.