Deja Boo!

With Hallowe'en 2026 occurring a week from today, I'm (maybe) a little early here in taking a look at the second favorite "holiday" of kids just about everywhere. I've only peeked at old Bazooka promotions for the trick-or-treat crowd once previously (in 2016) so its been a long time coming.  Today we kick off in 1960, with look at the multi-faceted 80 Count Treats Box, which image is provided courtesy of BFF o'the Archive Jeff Shepherd:

That Minnie Pearl wannabe and Sherlock Holmes pretender would stick around for a while; that little girl looks like she just saw something starling, doesn't she? Maybe it was a gh-gh-gh-ghost! But the real surprise was inside, where four 20 count party boxes of Bazooka, with their generic TCG colors pulling double duty, were snugged. Considering Election Day was just around the corner, the timing on the U.S. Presidents cut-out cards makes sense. I'm sure they were shipped and sold in other ways but this is kind of neat to see.

Another surprise lurked though, you had to turn over the box to see it, once again courtesy o'Shep, like every Bazooka image in this post!

The mask is a rare item and no wonder. I'm guessing the idea was the retailer could give it out or have his own kid use it. I'll bet a ton simply got tossed as well.

Here's those darn kids again; I'm not sure these images are an improvement but nonetheless: 

Now, just like Bazooka party boxes, not all Hallowe'en promotions were the same. Here, not only do we still get four boxes of the pink stuff, and in a 25 count configuration, we also get those other darn kids in the mix. That particular pair debuted in 1963 and persisted into the 1970's:

Those are Toppscience experiments on the box bottoms, which date this arrangement to 1967. As these were not the by-by-now-normal package design cards, it's hard to imagine many were saved by the kiddies. Plus you know, science was boring and reminded them of school, right?

This year Hallowe'en falls on the best day of the calendar if you're of trick-or-treating age: Saturday.  It happened to me twice back in the day, first when I was three and again when I was nine; that last one was epic!