10 Hypes of Halloween in the 1990s

The Power Rangers costume panic

In 1994, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers was the show every kid was talking about, and plenty wanted to dress as a Ranger. Ready-made costumes vanished from stores, sending parents to sewing machines and the official Butterick pattern, which became the fastest-selling item in the pattern business. The Green Ranger version called for 23 pieces and six contrasting fabrics, including gold lamé. By Halloween, the streets were full of tiny Rangers—and tired parents who now knew exactly what lamé was.

The Roseanne Halloween episode

Starting with “BOO!” in 1989, Roseanne aired a Halloween special every season through 1996. The Conners’ pranks grew increasingly elaborate: Dan and Jackie once dressed as Marie Antoinette and her severed head, and a young George Clooney showed up at a 1991 Halloween party dressed as a moose. The homemade costumes, messy house and adults having as much fun as the kids made it feel like a real family Halloween, just louder.

Halloweentown

Disney Channel premiered Halloweentown on October 17, 1998. Marnie discovers her family’s connection to witches and a secret town full of monsters, where her grandmother, played by Debbie Reynolds, has been visiting. The film was made for about $4 million after first being presented as a $20–30 million project, but its budget didn’t matter to kids drawn to a pumpkin-headed mayor and skeleton cab driver. It became an October TV favorite, spawned three sequels and made its filming location, Saint Helens, Oregon, a real-life Halloween destination.

The Simpsons’ Treehouse of Horror

The Simpsons aired its first Halloween special on October 25, 1990, opening with Marge warning parents that it was very scary. Kids naturally moved closer to the TV. The episode included a version of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven,” read by James Earl Jones, and launched an October tradition of seeing familiar characters become vampires, zombies or aliens. The graveyard joke tombstones became a fixture too, until the writers ran out and put up one that simply said “Amusing Tombstones.”

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark

Alvin Schwartz’s three-book series, published between 1981 and 1991, brought old folk tales together with Stephen Gammell’s nightmare-like illustrations. The books unsettled kids—and some parents, who tried to have them removed from school libraries. They ended up at the top of the American Library Association’s list of the most challenged books of the 1990s, ahead of Mark Twain, Maya Angelou and John Steinbeck. The controversy only added to the books’ legend.

Are You Afraid of the Dark?

Nickelodeon’s SNICK block brought the Midnight Society to Saturday nights: teenagers gathered around a campfire, tossed “midnight dust” into the flames and introduced a scary story. The dust was actually powdered Coffee-Mate, a detail worth knowing—and a reason not to try it at home. First shown as a Halloween special in 1991, the series became a SNICK fixture in 1992, with tales like “The Tale of Laughing in the Dark” and its clown, Zeebo. It was spooky storytelling that ended before your parents came to check on you.

The Blair Witch Project

In 1999, The Blair Witch Project blurred fiction and reality with a website, fake news reports and a documentary-style TV special that helped sell its story of missing film students. The movie, made for around $60,000, opened in just 27 theaters before spreading to audiences worldwide. Its shaky handheld footage left some moviegoers feeling seasick, while its Halloween costume required little more than a beanie, a flashlight and a friend willing to stand in a corner.

Hocus Pocus

Disney released Hocus Pocus on July 16, 1993—right in the middle of summer. It opened in fourth place, slipped out of the top ten within two weeks and drew harsh reviews, including a one-star rating from Roger Ebert. Its afterlife was a different story: VHS rentals and October TV airings introduced kids to the Sanderson sisters, a talking black cat and a zombie with his mouth sewn shut. What stumbled in July became an October classic.

The Scream mask

The Ghostface mask had a story of its own before it became the face of Scream. A ghost design inspired by a bedsheet costume led to do-it-yourself kits and then mass-produced masks. In 1995, the crew scouting locations for a new horror movie found one in a house; director Wes Craven thought it resembled the famous painting The Scream, and the studio secured the rights. After Scream arrived in 1996, the mask became a familiar sight at Halloween parties—and a way to ask, “What’s your favorite scary movie?”

Goosebumps

R.L. Stine’s first Goosebumps book, Welcome to Dead House, came out in July 1992. Its cliffhanger endings kept kids turning pages, and the books became a playground trading currency. By the mid-1990s, the series was selling around four million copies a month; it expanded into a TV show, games, clothes and even a HorrorLand attraction. Then came a twist: in February 1997, Scholastic set aside $13 million for unsold returns as sales slowed, and its stock fell more than 40 percent that day. The craze had cooled, but more than 150 million books were already in print.