These look like they were done with a Tim Burton style. And some of them, especially Julia Hoffman's, looks more like the 2012 movie version of the character than the classic version.

That sounds about when I see things in the stores, except for the May for Back to School.  May, the old year is still ending - I don't think they ever start that soon!

Oddly enough that is when we would get school supplies in, but we wouldn't usually put them out until about mid-June, which is when the schools in my area actually let out for the summer. What's really funny about all of this is that most people never shop early, they always wait until the last minute for things so most of this seasonal stuff will just sit there and warm the shelves until the week or two before it needs to be bought.

Nevertheless, this weekend is go time for me regarding Halloween. I am going all out and putting up those decorations! I've waited long enough!

During my recent rewatch earlier this year, I started from the release of Barnabas. I very rarely have watched the first 200 or so episodes all the way through because I've always found them kind of boring overall. I even struggle to get through early Barnabas, when he kidnaps Maggie, because it is so repetitive.

Anyhow, I decided after finishing episode 1245 to go back and watch the first couple of episodes, starting with episode 1. I was surprised to enjoy it as much as I did. I had forgotten how atmospheric it is and how it really sets up everything that is to come later in terms of gothic tone. Obviously we have seen the iconic shots of a Vicki on the train repetitively at this point, with multiple remakes having occurred. But something about the original always gets me.

I was also surprised to recognize Elizabeth Wilson as the director of Vicki's foundling home. I had no idea this was who played her, and she was easily recognizable from one of my favorite movies of the early 90s--The Addams Family.

The push for Christmas has certainly changed over the years, that's for sure! I spent about 12 years in retail during my early career, and by the time I left this was the schedule for seasonal merch:

January 1 - Valentine's must be set.
February 15 - Easter is stocked.
March/April - Summer patio, beach, grilling (earlier if Easter is earlier)
May - Back to school
September - Halloween
October - Christmas, as Halloween sells down
December - Valentine's as Christmas sells down.

When I tell you that the timeline is completely unreasonable and next to impossible a lot of the time, I'm not exaggerating. In fact, the above time frames were when we had to have a complete stock of product on the sales floor. But often we were receiving product much earlier, i.e. Christmas may have arrived starting in early August.

But, Halloween was always my favorite and it pained me to see less and less of it each year.

The "seasons" refer to how DS is listed on Amazon. It lists 26 seasons of "Dark Shadows", each season representing 1 DVD collection of the show--there were 26 of these released beginning with Barnabas' arrival through the end of the show.

Amazon has a similar set up for DS: The Beginning, with one season representing each DVD collection of the show.

The stores I visited had some Halloween things, but their selection was extremely limited and I could tell that they were still working on receiving and stocking these items. Typically we have a Spirit Halloween store nearby but the space it occupies caught on fire last year so the nearest store is about 45 minutes away, at least. I did happen upon a Halloween City (an extension of Party City I'm guessing) and even their selection was pretty poor last weekend. They had plenty of space for merchandise but no product to fill it!

I can tell you that from a retail standpoint, Halloween has been focused on less and less each year even though it is a $9 billion holiday. It used to be that Halloween would pack seasonal departments just as much as Christmas would in the stores. But that is not really the case these days. Also, Halloween is considered a "last minute" holiday due to the consumer usually waiting until the end of the month to buy candy, décor, and costumes in a hurry before the big day arrives. It was not unusual for us to have a ton of Halloween stuff left on 10/29, only to look like we were going out of business by the evening hours of 10/31.

That is a very intriguing collector's focus you have there, Gerard. A far cry from something a simple as coin/money collecting, which is something else I am interested in. Though I must admit I don't actively look to purchase things for my collection because buying money is expensive!