Where Did Trick-Or-Treating Come From?

kind of life hashtag, etcetera. Yeah, And I've told my story before, but I'll just briefly summarize again that my house is after a big curve in the road, and people seem to just stop at that curve in the road. Well, they don't want to come up on old man Bryant's house. You know, the old dead oak tree with the big hole in it that yeah Boo Radley hides figures in its kind of off putting. It's right on your property.

And I think, uh, in my neighborhood too. They close they literally close off, the cops close off two blocks. This's just this big square of streets and that's the official sanctioned no stress area where the parents all just walk around and get drunk and all the kids just run around and don't have to worry about cars. So um, everyone in my neighborhood is congregated there and you're outside of them outside, yeah, which I kind of miss, Like

I like tricker treaters coming to my house. Like I guess I could maybe try, and well, I can move a few houses in which I'm not gonna do. We could casually move the roadblocks of a little further back

to include your house. One of their actual police cars with police officers, and I can't move them, but I could put signs that like you know this way for the best yet and then you like only two more houses right, or like leave a trail of candy because I remember when I first moved to Atlanta, we rented a house that got a lot of Tricker treaters and I loved it. Man, I scared at the heck out

of those kids. Yeah, it was a lot of fun, Like I really got that was my first big adult giving out candy night, Like the first time I've ever been able to do that because you didn't have kids yet, so we weren't out trick or treating and uh yeah, I made a really pumped music out like the psycho theme and scary John Carpenter stuff. I really enjoyed it. Did you like do anything to overtly scare them? Oh? Yes, I wore a I was dressed up as a very scary person, and I would jump out and scare them

over and over and over. Did you really jump out? Good for you? Or I would stand in the like Emily would be giving out candy and I would just be in the darkened house, like eight feet behind her, just standing there motionless. That's always a nice attack. But the point is I sort of feel like we're missing out. Like we certainly enjoyed taking our daughter out, but I really wish we had kids that came by. Yeah, I

wish you did too, too bad. Stupid us right there near the main road, so close yet so far away, so far away, and that's your forever house to huh. Yeah, no trick or treaters ever again for you. I walked in there. But what we could do is, you know, we could go to a friend's house, and that this accounting. You have to jump on their coattails. You can't sit on their couch, you have to take your shoes off

in their house. You can't be comfortable We've long talked to me and my friend Eddie and Allison, you know them, about they have a good backyard. It's about doing like a haunted trail one year that like, if you come trick or treating, you've got to go through the trail first. It sounds like a lot of work. It is, and it would be fun, you know, I mean for the kids who have to go through the trail. Gotta earn you gotta earn that free candy, earned that Reese's pieces.

So we just hit upon like fifteen different themes in this episode, if you'll if you'll agree, I agree. Um, So we're talking about trick or treating here, and if you look at the thing on its face, just the words trick or treat, there seems to be some sort of option here you can do one or the other. There used to be give me a treat or you get a trick, basically was the equation. Yeah, they should just change the name now to just treat night, treat

night right exactly. Um. We aren't sure on where trigger treating came from, but what we do know is that it was originated in America in the twentieth century, and that there was this really like brief golden age where it lived up to his name, trick or treat. There was a there was an offer to not get pranked or tricked, and if you didn't take the people up on the offer, the kids up on the offer by giving him candy, you got pranked. That was the equation.

It was in the name. Everybody knew the score. And then it slowly kind of moved over to what we understand today where the police set up roadblocks and everything is safe these kids these days, and it's just kinda just like you said, just the treat side of the equation. Yeah, I was, of course kidding, but we'll get to it.

There are people that really do decry this new generation of children who just expect handouts and that it leads to the idea of the welfare state and all this other garbage that I have no patience for because it's just a fun thing for kids. Yeah, or do you think they should be earning this stuff? No? No, no, I don't feel that way. I do feel well, I think it will come through loud and clear as we do the episode. Right, Well, we should jump back a

little bit to the origins of Halloween. We've gone over this before in episode's past. But we all know it originally started as a pagan harvest or not just one, but pagan harvest festivals in general among the Celts over in the UK and uh, that evolved into Halloween, but it had nothing to do with trick or treating at the time. No, it wasn't round Again, trick or treating is a pent American invention, that's right. Um. And so with Halloween in particular, you've got all these different components

for the modern Halloween. For trick or treating, you have going from house to how you have getting to said house and asking for a treat, basically sanctioned begging, costume, costume, dressing up, um, got being outside kind of parading around. All of these things find their origin in the Celtic and I think specifically Gaelic um harvest festivals that introduced the dark half of the year, that's right. And in particular there was Salwint, which forever I've always said sam

Haine because that's how it spelled. Now, you said Salen right when we did our Halloween episode, didn't you. Probably, by the way, speaking of Sawin or sam Haine, you realized that I went to New York and saw the Misfits on. How was that colossally amazing? This is the original Misfits, right, the original Misfits, Glenn dan ziggery only Doyle Wolfgang von Frankenstein who actually specifically invited us to this, right, yes, um to this uh this show, and it was that's amazing.

Knock your socks off? Didn't the Damned play as well? The Damned open and then ran sid and then the Misfits just tore the roof off the succer I saw when I saw you were going. I looked up some YouTube clips of this tour and it looked pretty amazing. It was amazing, and I think Glenn Danzig said that was their last one ever and so we got to see it. Yeah, you mean I had a great time. Amazing, So big, big thanks to Doyle Wolfgang von Frankenstein for the invite. The stage set up look great, it was.

It was just a really cool show and they played almost everything. Yeah, yeah, it was just really good. That's fantastic. So anyway back to Swin, Yeah, so, uh, I mean that's a perfect time to mention that show though all

worked out, it did. Um. Hallow's Eve was the night considered when the veil between the living and the dead was the shortest, and so that's when this that's when Halloween formed, right, right, So people would dress up in like modern day Ireland, Scotland, I believe, Wales, yell of and um. They would dress up like demons or fairies or supernatural characters who were um because this veil was so thin between the living and the dead or the supernatural. Um,

they could cross over. These creatures could cross over and communicate. So if you dressed up like them, maybe they would be confused and think you're one of them and leave you alone. That's right. So this now we've got the costume thing going right, that's right. And uh, part of that was the community getting together, uh getting drunk on you know, probably high octane mead, meat and stuff like that. And they would parade through the town. They saw Halloween

parades all over the place. Here in Atlanta we have one of the best and little five Points Halloween parraade. Fantastic, Like when you think about the Halloween parade at your town, like that is centuries millennia old, that tradition is. Yeah, So we have those two things going on, and then the one missing piece is knock knock, Hey, give me candy. But this we have the origins of which came and it's still not Halloween. It took American kids to put

all this stuff together. But the European tradition of souling, which was when kids on hallows E would go from house to house house and pray for the souls of the departed, and in exchange you would get a soul cake. Yeah, which I looked up. They looked pretty good. What is it? Just a little bit good. It looks like a muffin top, like top of the muff into you. It looks really good soul cakes or mumming which is and this sounds fantastic.

I wish kids still had to do this stuff. You would have to perform a short musical number or some kind of performance to get a treat of some kind, maybe a little spear change. Right, So in that sense you have going to house to house and getting something from the owners of the house, like a treat or something like that. That's right, But there was a reason for that, praying for the soul of their departed loved one,

doing a little dance number something like that. The prank part the prank part of the equation that also existed before trick or treating too, and in fact, that was kind of the origin or the biggest tradition of Halloween itself, was pranking. Yeah, and that came from Ireland, Is that right? Yah?

Supposedly in the eighteen eighties they would prank. They would just run around doing pranks, and then they would blame those fairies or demons han sawen um for the mischief that it wasn't us, it was the fairies, right, I mean it sounds that's how it's spelled. Yeah, it's really that's a confounding pronunciation, it is. But there you have it,

that's right. Uh. And then pranks back then, and of course we're pretty low key uh ding dong ditch stuff like that, um moving the neighbor's furniture to the roof. I saw that, like flower pot on the chimney. Sure, but it would also get way way worse than that. Yeah, I looked up Mischief Night. We never did that in Georgia or Devil's Night. It was also called yeah, just the night before Halloween when all these pranks would happen. Um.

Region to region is called different. Apparently in Uh, New Jersey it's Mischief Night, Cabbage Well in Camden, New Jersey's Mischief Night. Other parts of New Jersey call it Cabbage Night. UM Cincinnata calls it Damage Night. That's pretty over. That's a punk band name right there, Damage Night totally, that insurance deductible night other parts. I don't know why Ohio is so highly represented here. Beggar's Night is something else.

They called it in Ohio because there's nothing else to do in Ohio but sit around and wait for that night for Hallow's Eve. Other names Doorbell Night, trick Night, corn Night, tic Tech Night, Goosey Night. And then in Canada, Gate Night or Matt Night if you're in Quebec because mt they would take they would steal the gate off your fence or the mat from your doorstep. And yeah, okay, so they're pretty on the nose, especially Becambage Night. But

Devil's Night in Detroit. Uh, it became legendary over about a twenty year period in the seventies and through the mid nineties. I saw before they finally got a little bit of a UM could put a dent in it by forming Angels Night. Yeah, they kind of re rebranded it, well, not rebranded. The angels were volunteers who would walk around to keep kids from setting everything on fire, okay, because that's what they did on Devil's Night. It was a

night of artis the night of arson. I thought that it ran its course because they burned all the buildings down in Detroit. There was nothing else left. It was a real problem, though. I looked into it and like hundreds of kids, Like in nineteen ninety four, I think there were like three hundred and fifteen kids arrested, uh from Devil's Night fires and other stuff. In the peak of Devil's Night in Detroit, there were eight hundred and ten cases of arson in one night. Amazing in Detroit. Yeah,

they would just set the city on fire. And I'm sure some of these were bags of poop on a doorstep, which I think we can all agree. It is harmless fun, it is unless you're the steppy so overdid any of the stuff? I never rolled the house. Oh you didn't know. I was. I'm so mad. I was so busy being good. Never too late, buddy, I know I should roll a house fork a yard. I don't know what that is. The plastic forks just basically get like two thousand plastic

forks and stick them in the yard. I've never heard of that. We never did that, really chew up a lawnmar I never egged a house because I always heard that really damages paint. But we did have the junior senior egg fight every year. That was kind of fun. Well you go, you got something, We get together in a field and uh the eggs at each other. Aside from wasting a lot of resource with well eggs, yes, but also um toilet paper. You really should roll somebody's

house at least it's great, is it? Yeah? All right, yeah, I'm gonna roll your condo. I remember when I was a kid. Actually my friend and I rolled the neighbor's house, but we had to be in or at least, so we were doing it basically in broad daylight. It was dusk at best, and the cop drove by, which never happened in our neighborhood ever. Never. The cops just weren't needed, right.

It was just I think we talked about in the free Range episode in his Parents episode, you could just do whatever, and um, we had to knock out of the house of the neighbor whose house we just rolled to let us in to hide from the cop, and she went out and told the cop like, it's it's fine, don't worry about it. We roll her house and had to get safe harbor from her. Yeah, and you can't really clean up a roll house, can't you. You can, And if they come tell your parents what you did.

The rain makes it way worse. Yeah, but I mean you can't just right, some of it's inevitably stuck up there. But you can pull it down as as gingerly as you can to get as much as you can. But no, something's going to be left over, all right, I'm gonna roll a house, Okay, just know whose house you're rolling like, you don't want to get shot at her. And I don't see that anymore either, I feel like it. I mean,

I don't live in the suburbs. Maybe it's a little more prone to happen there, but it seems like a lost art very well. Maybe I don't know anybody who rolls. I just assumed it was because we'd outgrown it, you know. Emily called it t being a house. Yeah that's Ohio. Yeah, alright, let's take a break. Were barely talked about this. I think we're one page in good that's great, all right, stuff you should know, stuff you should you shouldn't know. Alright.

So to recap Chuck, we have the costumes in play now, we have being out on Halloween nights sometimes parading drunkenly community. Um, we have going from house to house, and we have the prank factor. That's all of these things are out there floating around, have been out there for centuries, millennia by the time America is born and makes it to

the twentieth century. And at some point some kids said, we think, hey, you know what, we can pull all this together and turn it into something really amazing and peculiar and unique called trick or treating. That's right. You found a great piece, uh from a sociologist named Samira Kawash, great name called gangsters, pranksters and tricker treating ninety to nineteen sixty. And is this that pure period that you were talking about where she thinks that American kids just

created this thing. Yeah, there's two historical views because we don't know where it came from. One historical view and I think this is what co Wash believes to is that it was actually kids who figure this out. Which is great. Who said we can extort adults to not prank them if they give us treats and that it was a genuinely a kid invention of kids they made it up, and um, there's some evidence for that kind

of thing. A lot of like the early newspaper accounts of it kind of called the kids gangsters and say they're extorting people. It's also possible that was like written super tongue in cheek and that that dry. It was kind of dry and lost to the ages. The other historical view is that the kids were out pranking and doing the pranks and it was the adults that introduced treats into the equation to buy them off, Yeah, to keep them from pranking. Uh. Los Angeles possibly as the

point of origin. Um, and this one wealthy kids. I guess that makes sense that this would be the idea of like kids of privilege, you know, like come around, give me stuff. But apparently in Los Angeles, kids in the wealthy parts of town would dress up and their parents would take them around from house to house. And this is, um, this is that pre nineteen thirty period though, Yeah, they think sometime in the twenties. And if you think

about it, that really resembles what we do today. Yeah, But in between that origin and where where we've arrived today, there was this pure period nineteen thirty and nineteen sixties. Some people might even take it a little further beyond that,

where the kids seem to have run the show. And um, there there really was both sides of the equation a trick or a treat, right, But that term actually was in nine seven and an article rights that the first time they found the two words in print together our guess three words. That was in an article about a town uh called Blackie and Albert to Canada. And it seems like all of it was sort of on the

West coast early on. Yeah, and again they think possibly it did originate in Los Angeles, or it may have originated in multiple towns on the West Coast roughly at the same time. But we're thinking twenties because in nineteen nineteen there was a book by Ruth Edna called Ruth and Nickel Ruth endic Kelly called the Book of Halloween, and it didn't mention any kind of trick or treating in there. No, And it's like an exhaustive, comprehensive homemakers

would have been in there for sure. And you gotta think, like poor Ruth and Nickelly' is like, gosh, if I just waited like two years and put this book out, they're gonna come up with something brand new with Halloween. Two years after I come up with this book, I wrote the book on it. Not quite now it's out of date, but they did find mentions of it in newspapers out West Portland, Washington, Reno, Nevada, Nevada, Helena, Montana. And you can kind of track its progress from the

dates and mentions in West these paper articles. Right. Yeah. Um, So there's those two sides. One say that it was kids who came up with it on their own. Um, perhaps they were introduced with the idea of going from house to house to get treats in Los Angeles, but then they said, well, we're also doing these prankings. Maybe we can say, hey, we won't prank you if you

give us a treat. There's that view. The other view again is that, um, it was adults who said, whoa kids, You know, we don't want you setting fires any longer, derailing street cars because every once a while somebody would die, people would get shot at by angry neighbors. Um. Sometimes somebody would be in one of those buildings that they set on fire and they die. People would die in a building that kids set on fire as a Halloween prank.

So for the most part, though, it was this kind of um tolerated as one night a year when the kids basically had power and we're allowed to run the show. UM. So that this idea, this other historical view that adults finally said, hey, you know, we're not gonna just say you can't do prank king. They'll probably be a bad thing.

But why don't we just start having parties on Halloween night while we're out pranking, and they'll be cider and donuts and you can come inside and bob for apples and maybe do that instead of running around pranking the neighborhood. And once you did do that, you went from and this is um samir co washed putting it like you

under the rules of society. You went from this powerful kid who could levy a prank on you if he or she wanted to, to a house guest of the adult who now had you in and had given you donuts and cider. You're really going to set their house on fire as a prank. After that, of course, not, no, you're not going to so. In this sense, trigger treating was something the adults introduced to keep kids from carrying out these pranks. Yeah, and it was by the time

World War two came around. It was a big thing in the nineteen forties. But of course, with the sugar ration ng and just the fact that there was World War Two going on, it put a dent in it for a little while. But it came back um bigger than it ever had been after the war. And I mean seriously, it came very close to dying from World War Two. It was pretty new. It hadn't gained that much traction. There were a lot of cranks and grumps

who were not happy about this kind of thing. I'm curious what else had died in the war and never came back. There's got to be lots of little things. It's a great question. But there were a couple of big pop culture um sort of tent poles that helped Halloween along Charles Schultz's Peanuts. Of course, it wasn't the

Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown yet that. Yeah, but in nineteen fifty one he had a four day um comic strip run around Halloween where the Peanuts gang got already and got their costumes going, and that really brought it to the forefront. Uh. And then Donald Duck Uh. There was a cartoon Donald Duck Tricker Treat a year after that that had Donald working with his nephews or trying to prank his nephews while they were trick or treating and

working with the witch. And then the candy companies get involved. There was also a very famous costume company called ben Cooper Costumes did like the cheap yes plastic mask like a vinyl smot, but they had this really great talent of identifying what was going to be like a culture phenomenon before it ever blew up to get the right cheap but they were also making these things like ten months before, so they really had to have foresight and

they were really good at it. But the fact that you could get cheap, amazing costumes that the little kids all wanted of their favorite characters that definitely helped things along too. Yeah, it was It's hard to overstate like how big of a deal it was to a kid to be the certain whatever they wanted to be. I think it's still that way. I'm sure it is, but now it's a lot easier, I think to buy costumes. I think when you and I were kids, there's a

lot of fashioning costumes. Uh, When you didn't have the ability to be like the in from Alien or you know, it was a lot harder to put together these elaborate costumes. But once you get your heart set on it, you like you had to, you know. So I'm going to tell you my best costume, and you tell me yours. Okay, okay, um, my mom made one from scratch. Clown is a clown costume. But the big kicker was that it was an upside down clown walking on his hands. So my feet were

the clown's hands. His head is like dangling between my legs. I've got his legs sticking up off of my shoulders and I don't remember my head must have been covered up like I was in his butt or something like, right, but I was upside down walking clown. Greatest costume ever? Yeah, you got any pictures somewhere? YEA. Yeah. I did a lot of funny ones, like my brother and I were Han Solo and Luke Skywalker. When I was really little um. But then I got into like I was always wanting

to do like funny characters. I like, like like Ed Grimley one year, the Saturday Night Live character. I did Ed Grimley one year, and I was I don't know if like I was always trying to make people laugh. I never did scary stuff until little kids started coming around and trick or treating me at your house. Yes, and you started just like movie characters. Like even into my adult years, you know, I would try and find some cool movie character, like Hi from Raising Arizona. I

did one year. It's almost a grimly same here. Uh No, not same at all, actually uh. And then one year I did a great actually won a contest in New Jersey one year when I was a hardy Kushner and I like, I shaved my head. I did the whole thing. I had literature. I passed out. Wow, I made the whole the whole deal. You just ended up joining a local chapter for a little while. It was fine, really got into the rule. But I haven't. It's been a few years since I've dressed up here because I just, oh,

that's not true. I haven't been. I haven't been to a Halloween party in probably five years. What were you last year? I was Patrick Bateman from American Psycho, So you were you but with a tie exactly and like a giant inflatable brick cell phone. And you me was a specific Michael Jackson. A moment of Michael Jackson's history where he's holding blanket over the balcon and Momo was blanket. It's on you can see it on Instagram. That's great. You have to check that out, alright. So the candy

company started getting involved. That's where I left off in the costume company. They knew it was gold from them, mars Uh Incorporated. In the early nineteen fifties, We're doing ad campaigns on TV and in newspapers and on the radio and stuff about trick or treat um it became a thing with UNICEF. They had a Trick or Treat for UNICEF campaign back then. I think they still might, you know, you know, I'm talking about the little boxes holds change and they would just give them too little kids.

And while they wrote Trick or Treat, and they'd also asked for change for unisf to help needy kids overseas. And that actually when he really long way to legitimizing trick or treating. Yeah, they're doing a lot in these days. Two for kids, special needs kids, like it's it's taken this long to finally get the word out, like the

blue pumpkins. Have you heard of those? If you trick or treat with a blue pumpkin, that means that you have some sort of special need where you may not be able to walk to a front door and say, trick or treat. I'm dressed as you know Michigan j bullfrog what it would be a great it would be. But did you pull that off of I just made Yeah. Wow, nice. He's been on my mind lately, I guess. But uh so people know like, oh, you've got a blue pumpkin, so I shouldn't say, like, you know, come on, kid,

why don't you tell me what your costume is? And uh, it's good though, like that it's taken It's ironic that it's taken this long to get parents on board to the fact that some kids need, you know, different kinds of treatment. I don't know if ironic is the best word as much as disappointing is. Yeah, you know, you're probably right. Should we take another break? Oh my god? We're gonna have to take three more. Okay, yes we will.

Then stuff you should stuftuff you should you should know alright, So I think basically what we were saying when we left off. And sorry about the nostalgia here everybody, but I mean, come on, you get us in a room. Yeah, around Halloween, it's gonna happen. Um. So, by the early fifties, trigger treating was huge and established and had so if the nineteen sixty was the Heyday, the golden age of trick or treating, um, nineteen fifty to nineteen fifty nine

was the salad days of the Heyday? Right? And when did people start complaining about it the seventies? No, as far back as the twenties, Oh yeah, because those newspaper articles that you can track the progress of Halloween, more often than not they were like old cranks complaining about how they didn't want to have to give tricks or treats or whatever the little kids. Don't you blackmail me? They don't. Yeah, exactly, you know, what are we teaching

our kids? And there's actually, um if you kind of scratch beneath the surface of trick or treating, at first, it appears to be kind of a weird power struggle

between kids and adults, and it definitely is that. But there's also another power struggle going on between adults of two different minds, ones who are like you are overparenting by being upset about this or this is just one night a year, it's good for kids, and other people are saying like this is terrible for kids, well, allowing them to go from house to house to beg is it just a bad idea? It's unsafe is another way

to put it too. So there's like a struggle weirdly over trick or treating, and it has to do with under parenting and over parenting and that conversation about the whole thing. I have seen parents ruined kids experiences, whether it's like a Easter egg hunt or trick or treating. I've seen this in action because they're too involved. Yeah, I mean, that's what it comes down to, is just how involved are you and your kids trick or treating.

For a very brief period, there was very little involvement in kids trick or treating um and a lot of people say that's actually really good for kids. In this other way that we've kind of started to evolve toward is not. Yeah, I don't remember my parents taking me around trick or treating. I'm sure that happened maybe when I was really little, and we certainly would have had to go somewhere else because you know, I've lived on the dirt road, the dirt road with no no neighbors,

um or very few of them. But I just all my memories stem from being like probably ten to fifteen and being completely on my own with my friends ten to fifteen, ten years old. But to fifteen, that's pretty late. What to trick or treat? Oh? Now, we trick or treated up until probably the like the ninth or tenth grade. Well, we'll get to it. But in some places you get to get arrested for that. When did you stop? You'd still trick or treat if they would let you. Uh.

I think I stopped around thirteen. Maybe fifteen was too late. Maybe thirteen or fourteen you're fine enough. Teens, great, go with God. No, but you're you're probably right now that I'll look back. Maybe I went to Halloween parties, but maybe there's kind of an unofficial slash official again in some places, UM cut off after twelve? Really done? Yeah, because their teen you're a teenager now, and that's that's not kids stuff. As we'll see, it's allegedly trick or

treating is a transition from kidhood to adulthood. And by the time you're thirteen, you've you've made in that transition that's in your past. It's sad, but it's I don't know why I'm talking like Christopher walk and all of a sudden, but I am. Yeah, maybe I wasn't going that late, but I definitely remember going by myself at a certain point. But now with my neighborhood is just

the I see mostly parents not involved at all. They're they're they're kind of like if your child is two or three, helping them walk to the door and stuff. But otherwise we're just drinking and the kids are doing their things. So let's talk about this. Then let's skip

towards the end and we'll jump back. Okay, there is um this debate over you know, whether it's better to just kind of cross your fingers and and hope for the best and let your kids go out and trick or treat on their own, whether that's good or whether we need to Um, the world is just too unsafe for that, and we need to much more manage kids trigger treating than just letting them go out on their own. It depends on where you are. That's the big divide.

And one of my personal heroes, the World's Worst Mom, Lenore Scnazzi, who came up with the Free Range Kid's blog and the whole movement. Frankly, she makes this really great point that when we let kids trigger treat, we let them confront danger like on their own, and it's real,

it's just a thin the narrowest margin of danger. I mean, people always talk about like the um, you know, all like the worst things that could happen on Halloween when the kids out of trigger treating, getting hit by a car, getting kidnapped by a stranger, getting like, um, yes, just just stuff that it happens, and it can happen, It's true, but it happens so infrequently that the chain its is are it's not going to happen, and you're actually better

off just letting the kid roll the dice. Because, as Lenora skanas He puts it, when when you go trick or treating, you're transitioning from being a kid to a grown up and you're doing this quite literally. Um, you go with your parents first, and they kind of teach you the rules of the road, like just take one piece of candy, or that house over there has their lights off, so leave them alone. They don't want to

have anything to do with this. And then after that you let them go on their own right, and they kind of take the ball and roll with it. And she says that, Um, that when they're all trick or treating kids dressed like grown ups, they take to the streets night, they encounter the scariest possible locals, which is in goblins, and then yes, they're doing it as scaries as possible time night and the whole thing is dress rehearsal for adulthood, and that like that's the benefit of

trick or treating. I don't quite get that that is the same as adulthood. Like you and I all the time walking around night fighting goblins in a way, right exact where would we have been without trick or treating

to preparis for fighting goblins? But just confronting fears are on their own without their parents managing their world for them so that they can handle themselves, have the confidence to know they can handle themselves and um, and and I guess feel good about having confronted their fears and gotten candy in return. Let's not forget about that now. On the other hand, it's just just take the candies. Fine, Mommy and Daddy made it perfect for you. All you have to do is go get the candy. You're in

a perfect bubble and everything's fine. Yeah. So that's I kind of tend to fall on Leonore Skanazis side on that. Well, should we talk a little bit about the um, you know, whether or not there have been all these real horror stories over the years, and whether or not any of those are true as far as the razor blade in the apple and stuff like that, hypodermic needles and candy. Um, the stuff doesn't happen. No. And the thing to point out, and I know we've talked about it before, is that

it was a an urban legend that came true. Right. Uh, there was one case and this is actually kind of funny if he asked me. In nine there was a dentist in California named WILLIAMS. Shine who uh it, took alo laxative pills and disguised them as candy and give out four and fifty of them jerk two kids, and they were all poop. And I guess so I think a fume did poop. Nobody got injured, though right now you're not gonna get injured from a laxative over poop,

over poop. But this is when I think this real story got out. And then all of a sudden he gets morphed into needles and razor blades or poison or candy laced with heroin and stuff like that. Well that did happen. Well, yeah, but that's the thing, Like the examples that are listed are reverse engineered almost right, right, So there was a little boy in Texas who died from eating a cyanide um laced pixie stick in Texas, and I can't remember what you and um. It turned

out that it was his dad. That his dad was the scum of the earth who had taken taken out insurance policies on his own children and then gave them spiked Halloween candy to make it look like some mad poison or he killed his kids so he could collect insurance and one of his kids did die, but it was it wasn't just some random Halloween poisoner that guy didn't really exist at the time. Yeah, nineteen seventy in Detroit was the heroin incident. Um, this kid overdose, these

kids ate their uncle's stash, is what really happened. And then the uncles like, oh, crap, let me sprinkle the heroin on the candy and cook up the story and maybe cook up some heroin right since I'm cooking, and uh, to try and get out of this. So again, it really happened, but not in the way that you think. Um, the thing that out everybody, So that Williams Shine guy, who I just think is a skull for that because he scared the pants off of America's parents. He basically said, hey, hey,

you know how you're letting your kids run free. Something really bad had happened to him, and I just showed you how. And from the that that next year on, the parents were anxiously involved in Halloween like they never have been before because of Williams Shine. But um, the the thing that really killed Halloween, or at least cementuted.

I think the anxieties in the heads of parents in America is that Thailand all poisoner canceled Halloween two almost drove Ben Cooper costumes out of business, candy sales went down. Trick or treated, well, your parents didn't love you. I think I did too. I don't remember not I would remember not trick or treating one year, because that would have been eleven. That's prime time. Apparently those are the

retirement years. But all of this stuff added a veneer of fear and anxiety on trick or treating for parents, not for kids necessarily, but for parents, and it drew them into what was possibly just a kid run activity

because of fear, probably irrational fear. And now you have to this day, the f d A sending out guidelines around Halloween saying don't let your kids eat any candy until they bring it home, which is just torture, and you have to inspect it and if you see any pinholes or terrors or anything that looks weird, just thrown away. Some hospitals say bring your kids candy and well X ray to see if there's any razor blades or needles in it or something like that. This is the kind

of terror that ironically is overlaid on Halloween. It's like fun terror has actual real terror on top of it, which makes it less fun. We don't inspect candy. Oh you don't you roll the dice? Huh, yeah, that's great. I don't know anyone who does. Really. Oh man was raised like that? You inspected candy? Oh yeah, my parents were serious about it. We never did. I don't now. I just I don't know. Maybe it's that thing of like if you're the because it doesn't happen, right, I'm no,

I'm hardened to hear that. Yeah, because when we did our Free Range Kids episode, I remember thinking, like, what's what's going on now? Like like kids are treated like this, They're not by Halloween candy. It's just not happening, you know. Plus in our neighborhood, with the sanctioned closure, all the candy is, people aren't buying their own candy. It's like the neighborhood buys all the candy and they congregated in these couple of blocks. Yeah, okay, I mean, there could

be a madman living among us. It happens, but that's like being scared to walk out your front door for fear of being murdered, right right, Chuck, You know you just can't live that way. I can't live that way, you know. Umi told me a story about a village like villages in Japan and have like a festival or two every year, like the whole community comes out. It's

like a big deal. And there was one village, a little tiny town where um, this one woman just I guess, went mad and poison the curry that you brought to the village thing and killed a bunch of townspeople. It happens. It does happen. But you're right. You can't not eat the curry just because of the small, small chance that some mad person has poisoned it. Yeah. The way I look at it is if that that's what happens, then that's you know, your numbers up, your numbers up in

your story in the newspaper to scare other people. You get to be immortalized on stuff. You should know. It's trick or treat. Going away, Josh, I don't know, Chuck, I say, no, Okay, that's good. I'm glad to hear that, because again I'm living hashtag condo life. I'm out of the action. Yeah, I mean, there's this the last bit of this article you sent talked about it, um going away potentially, But I just I don't think that's ever

ever going to happen. So what are your arguments for it going away that it might my arguments or is my observations your observations? Um. One of the big ones is that fear among parents that helicopter parenting has not been good for trick or treating. Okay, but but think about that's a real struggle going on right now over parenting versus under parenting, which one is gonna win out? Okay. Another one is there's a perception that that trick or

treating is dying out, which is kind of funny. Yes, because people are moving back into towns and gentrifying those towns, like we talked about in the Historic District episode, Um, and as they're doing that. Trick or treating was never huge in the city, and so people who are raising the suburbs and were used to are moving into the city and there's no trick or treating going on anymore. So I guess trick or treating is dying because that's

what I'm seeing a differ. I beg to differ with that too, Okay, but I mean, you don't live in the city city, you live in a neighborhood. Yeah, But that's all Atlanta is is a bunch of neighborhoods. Okay, you mean I don't live downtown. Maybe these people live in Des Moines. I don't know. No one lives in downtown Atlanta. No, it's true, although it has gotten cooler than it was like a decade ago. But I beg to differ that trick or treating doesn't go on in

the cities. I think I think their apartment buildings in New York where people trick or treat, like, just because it's not the picket fence suburban neighborhood. I think trick or treating goes on everywhere. But this author at my house, Julie Beck, who wrote in The Atlantic, she put it really well that that basically the suburbs and trick or treating just go hand in hand. Sure, like the suburbs

are set up for trick or treating. You've got houses that are close together, super safe, Um yep, where people who live there are just well enough off to to buy enough candy for the whole neighborhood. Yeah. Um, they all have kids. They know each other enough that you're not embarrassed for your kid to go up in trick or treat there. And you know that it's this candy is not going to be poisoned. In the city, you're much um more uh isolated from one another, even though

you're living on top of one another. Yeah, and I think maybe if if we're talking about like UH areas where there are poor kids and where poverty is run rampant, then maybe there's less traditional trick or treating, but there are programs and parties and things they try to do for those kids too. Okay, so those very things may end up being what kills trick or treating that I should say, the purest version of trick or treating. You can also just make the case, well that's what it's

evolving into, and just go with it. I think it will probably be both. But you're talking about the big Halloween parties, community parties, trunk or treating, trunk or treating, or what's it called Halloween, Halloween tailgating, trunk treating. This is the idea that you and we had this at our school. We had the Halloween festival, but that did not replace trick or treating. Okay, this replaces trick or

treating for a lot of children. Yeah, So you go out and get in a big church parking lot essentially, and you have uh, bobbing for apples and the dunk tank. This is different and huh this is a little different than that. Well, I mean I've seen these in person, and uh, okay, but that's a Halloween festival you're talking about. No, No No, I'm talking about instead of trick or treating. It's a big party where they have candy and they

have activities and games and stuff. So are you going from car to car getting candy like the cars or houses? Uh no, not necessarily, but they're giving out candy. I mean, I can you're not talking about trunker treating. It feels very nitpicky to me. No, but it's not. And here's why I'm not talking about Halloween festival though. Okay, that's fine, that's fine, But you're not talking about trunk or treating either.

You mean you walk five ft to a car and they give you candy, then five ft to another and they say, don't play any games, don't bob for apples, or don't do anything else. All you're doing is walking to cars. I'm not saying that they don't have bobbing for apples, but the purpose of trunk or treating is to basically set up a safe ring of cars where

the kids are literally penned in. The kids who used to be the ones who we're running the show are now penned in by the anxious adults cars handing out candy rather than going to houses, walking around a church parking lot for trunk or treating instead of trick or treating. These are not the kids who could pull what the kids in the goonies did were able to pull off because they had freedom and spark. That kids who trunk or treat are being denied that as Let me go

back to my friend Leonora Sknazi. She says, the trunk or treating is just another adult led activity, one that reinforces the community killing idea that kids aren't ever safe outside the home, school or supervised program. And that is most definitely the message that kids get when they're trunk or treating. Yeah, I think that is not going to kill trick or treating or take over trick or treating.

We'll see, Chuck. I hope you're right, because one thing I have not seen since I've lived in Atlanta is any big trunk or treating. Well, that's because you live in Atlanta. All you have to do is go out to the suburbs, and they're everywhere. But the suburbs are made for trick or treating. They're out in the neighborhoods. I gotta end on a quote I ran across a a website, I guess a church website that's talking about

trunk or treating. It's awesome this quote. It says that the scariest part about the night this is a trunk or treating night, isn't the costumes. It's the possibility that you could miss out on the chance to use trunk or treat to build relationships and reach these kids with the gospel. Well yeah, that's the opposite of what Halloween is all about. That's right. Um, you got anything else, it's about arson of it. Sorry, I'm one of those

curmudgeons that turns out. Uh. One more thing. If you like Halloween, go on to our old stuff you should Know website and search Halloween and creepy and you're gonna find some amazing slide shows we put together over the year. Remember that one of my favorite is um cute and cruddy Halloween costumes, vintage Halloween costumes that are really creepy. Best Jack lanards, all sorts of great stuff. Remember those days where we account page views and get excited about that. Yeah,

this one felt like a bit of a tirade? Yeah was it? I don't think so? Okay, Kim, Well, if you want to know more about Halloween, get out there and trick your treat. And since I said that as time for listener, ma'am. Uh this is follow up on Paraphelia's that we wanted to read for the last few weeks. Just now get into it. Hey guys, a long time listener, first time writer. I've had this episode pop up a

few times. It's just been on my mind. I'm an r N with M s N and background and have background in neuro physiology who enjoys studying abnormal psych I understand you were doing a show on psychological term on a psychological term, but you may have ended up painting wrong ideas onto certain practices, specifically S and M and cross dressing. Um. From when I have come to note, it's extremely rare that people practice these primarily for sexual gratification.

Of course, these practices are adult in nature, but most regard it as an emotional practice or exploration of self. For example, Uh, shabari or rope bondage takes hundreds of hours of practice to perform, and those that partake describe a meditation like state as a result, though most would say it's s and M. Most cross dressers describe the long process of becoming female as cathartic and self affirming,

although be it uh temporary. Simplifying cross dressers to those who walk around in high heels to reach completion, well, imagine saying that about a trans woman. Of course, if you were doing these practices for sexual gratification, all the power to you. I suggest you look into keenk culture as an episode. It's where a wide range of people congregate and share their interest in a commun any that has founded off respect and consent their meetups and presentations

on practices so that others can learn proper technique. The most that practice would like to keep their privacy. And that is from Anonymous. Thanks a lot, Anonymous, that was a good correction email. That's right. If you want to get in touch with us like Anonymous did to set us straight, we love that kind of thing. You can join us at stuff you Should Know dot com and check out our social links there and you can send us an email to stuff podcast at i heeart radio

dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeart Radios. How stuff works for more podcasts for my heart Radio because at the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,