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I’m a pretty big dork when it comes to finding out shit I never knew.
If you don’t listen to either of them, you’re really missing out.
Not only are they entertaining as fuck.
But the fellas do an unreal job of dissecting obscure topics and conveying useful information in an interesting way.
As is the Halloween story.
I got to wondering how trick-or-treating became a thing, so I did some digging.
Totally unbeknownst to me, it had some pretty dark and twisted roots.
It was not the friendly little kids dressing up as Dora, the Explorer, that we know today.
The Celtic calendar began its new year on November 1st.
That way if an actual demon crossed their path they wouldn’t think they were living.
They would also leave food out for the dead as distractions and gifts.
In exchange, they would offer to pray for the souls of their neighbors' recently departed loved ones.
Instead of demons and animals, they encouraged people to dress up as angels and saints (lame).
The following day they dubbed “All Souls Day”, a time for honoring the dead.
Poor people continued to go door to door, begging for food and money.
Shit started to get nuts when the Irish and Scottish began emigrating to America in the mid-19th century.
By the 1920s, the treats had become an afterthought and the children only cared about playing pranks.
Things escalated when the Great Depression hit, and Halloween tricks devolved into straight-up vandalism and violence.
Turns out kids were little fuckin pricks back then too.
Halloween became some dangerous that some cities considered outlawing it and making it illegal altogether.
St. Louis, for one.
Boys ran through city streets splattering people with bags of flour or black stockings filled with ashes.
This shit is nightmare fuel.
Look how fucked up some of these costumes were.
These were Arlington Heights kids that the newspaper was calling readers to take up arms against keep in mind.
Morton says that by 1933, the holiday had become so destructive that cities were considering banning it.
Theres not a lot of money during the Great Depression so people pooled their resources and staged house-to-house parties.
This starts to morph into kids getting dressed up and going house to house trick-or-treating.
When the war ended and the baby boom hit, trick-or-treating made a comeback.
In the northeast, this night became known as “Mischief Night”.
Except for New Jersey.
Those weirdos called it “Goosey Night”.
and passed on the eggs and toilet paper for straight-up torching buildings.
Detroit responded by instituting dawn-to-dusk curfews for unaccompanied youths under 18 and mobilizing a city watch.
Somewhere along the line it morphed from that into dressing as slutty as legally possible.
Happy Halloween, everybody.
Here’s a few more pleasant images to get those nightmarish ones out of your memory.
