Spooky Jeepers!

Its almost halloweeeeeen!!!! In this post I will try to capture and write about the unique family-friendly spooky media, toys, and entertainment from the 60s and 70s. Youtuber Cinemology 101 called it the Spooky Jeepers which I thought was perfect!

So…. What is the spooky jeepers? It’s a niche genre of movies that encompasses spooky stuff with laughs. It’s every halloween episode of every family sitcom, it’s fun scary toys, it’s vintage halloween decorations, it’s halloween books for kids, and more. Spooky Jeepers is anything that mixes kid fun and spookiness. Think Scooby Doo, the Weebles Haunted House, or one of my favorite movies: The Ghost and Mr. Chicken! Cinemology 101 on Youtube has a great video talking about the Spooky Jeepers and this movie.

I used this genre a lot when my kids were growing up. I love all things scary, but I wasn’t going to scar my kids for life (on purpose anyway) with horror movies, so I found family-friendly spooky fun, previewed it myself, and then let my children experience it when I thought it was appropriate for their age and temperament. Often I consulted guides such as “The Best Old Movies for Families” by Ty Burr (this is an excellent book that I cannot recommend highly enough). Mr. Burr did the same thing with his daughters- matching movies with their temperaments, ages, and stages in mind.

Another thing I did was watch the oldie TV shows on stations like MeTV and Antenna TV on Halloween with our kids. This stems from watching Nick at Nite as a kid. These stations always showed the Halloween episodes of shows like MASH, Donna Reed, Andy Griffith, etc. They aren’t too scary and safe for most school-age kids.

Lastly,
I’m going to leave you with some lists of spooky jeepers toys, fun, books, movies, and TV shows! Hooray!

Vintage Toys and Kid Stuff

The Weebles Haunted House (of course!)
Avon’s Gilroy the Ghost (glow-in-the-dark rubber finger puppet with chapstick inside)
Not Vintage-Playmobil has a great line of Scooby Doo toys
Creepy Crawlers Kits
Mighty Man & Monster Maker rubbing plates (make your own creations)
Remco Universal Monsters action figures
also there are lots of spooky board games from this era too!
Im putting this here too- vintage bulletin board decorations like haunted houses and skeletons. If you search for Beistle on Amazon you will find a wonderful company that still makes them!
Vintage Annalee Halloween decorations

Books

Pumpkin Moonshine by Tasha Tudor ( sooo sweet-for the youngest little ones)
Miss Nelson is Missing, Miss Nelson is Back, and Miss Nelson has a Field Day all by James Marshall and Harry Allard (voted favorite books. Every. Single. Year.)
What’s Under My Bed? by James Stevenson (my students love that when Grandpa is telling of a scary night at his grandparents house you see him as a boy in the pictures and he has a mustache!)
The Spooky Old Tree by Stan and Jan Berenstain
Haunted House by Jan Pienkowski (watch out- this wonderful pop-up book will be well loved! I think I’m on my 6th copy!)
Teacher from the Black Lagoon by Mike Thaler
A Dark, Dark Tale by Ruth Brown (a repetitive story of exploring an old castle with a black cat- read it in a spooky voice for all the shivers!)
Arthur Goes to Camp & Arthur’s Halloween by Marc Brown (sweet and fun- but I do not recommend later books or the TV show- they both went woke)
A Newberry Halloween- this compendium of chapters from Newberry authors has such delights as a Beverly Cleary Ramona Quimby story (The Baddest Witch in the World) to a Moffat Family story that my students love (The Ghost in the Attic) to a favorite of mine for older kids by Madeline L’Engle (Poor Little Saturday).
My favorite book, Gone-Away Lake by Elizabeth Enright is a bit spooky and has a scary chapter called The Villa Caprice. Its sequel, Return to Gone-Away has another spooky chapter, The Night of the Full Moon- both excellent by themselves!

Movies

Of course all the Universal Monster Movies 🙂
Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein
The Margaret Rutherford Miss Marple movies
The Ghost and Mr. Chicken
The older Scooby-Doo movies & specials
Young Frankenstein (watch out- LOADS of double entendres here but your kids probably won’t get them)
Candleshoe
The Amazing Mr. Blunden (more Christmas but that holiday can be spooky too- in the UK it was traditional to tell ghost stories on Christmas Eve!)
The Goonies (please be aware that there is cussing in this movie and it might be better for older kids but it is a GREAT movie!)
Return to Oz (pretty scary – definitely for olders)
Watcher in the Woods
Escape from Witch Mountain
Return to Witch Mountain
Child of Glass (available on Youtube, a Disney TV movie)
Wallace & Gromit Specials plus the full-length movie- The Curse of the Where-Rabbit

TV Shows

Of course, The Twilight Zone- but this is for older kids
Scooby-Doo, the OG lol
The Donna Reed Show-The Chinese Horse 1963
The Andy Griffith Show- The Haunted House (this episode became The Ghost and Mr. Chicken!) 1963
Mash- Trick or Treatment 1982
Laverne and Shirley- Ghost Story 1983
The Cosby Show- Halloween 1985, Cliff’s Mistake 1987
Hardy Boys / Nancy Drew Mysteries- The Haunted House, Meet Dracula
Happy Days~ Haunted 1974
The Dick VanDyke Show- The Ghost of A. Chantz 1964, The Burglar, It May Look Like a Walnut
The Brady Bunch- Fright Night 1972
The Lucy Show- Lucy and the Monsters 1965
Dennis the Menace- Haunted House 1961, Dennis and the Homing Pigeons
My Three Sons- The Ghost Next Door 1962
Designing Women- The Slumber Party 1986, Mr. Bailey 1989, Nightmare from Heehaw 1989, Charlene Buys a House 1990
Little House on the Prairie- The Halloween Dream 1979, Monster of Walnut Grove 1976

There you have it friends! I’ll try to keep this list updated if I think of something else! Have a great fall!

With Creepy Jeepers to you from Kansas Street,

-Jaime