Recent circumstances conspired to take away my TCM but grant me a month of Netflix access. So, at the recommendation of Friend Ken, I started at the top:

104/2536. KPop Demon Hunters (2025)
If you wondered why Google reported that 6 of the top 10 Halloween costumes for 2025 were characters from this movie, the answer is simple: it's good. Very good. So good, in fact, I cannot believe that Sony and Netflix didn't negotiate a more traditional box office release. The creators learned all the right lessons from George Lucas's usual box of tricks, taking inspiration from a bunch of long pre-existing concepts and designs, blending them into a story of good versus evil in a lived-in world, and pouring the results into a time-tested, character-first dramatic format that is comfortable and rewarding to viewers. For extra Star Wars vibes: like Fox in '77, Netflix seemed totally unprepared for the flood of demands for kids' merchandise. History may not repeat itself, but it sure as hell stutters.

As amazing as John Williams is, what Star Wars does not have is pop songs. It's no accident that the Kpop soundtrack has had a very catchy (and plot advancing) song from the fictional Huntr/x at the top of the Billboard global charts for 15 weeks and counting. A song, I'll point out, that has a one-word title:

Golden

Kudos to all involved; I hope you like printing money. (Count me in for a Derpy Tiger Funko Pop! figure, if ya'll can ever actually get them to market.)

More to come.

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I'm so happy with how our Halloween dog portraits turned out, let's keep looking at pictures! You probably won't be as impressed with this next set, but they represent some of the graphic design work I've done in the past year for a local vintage toy store that I think turned out well.

To be clear, I do not mean to take create any of the art: those all belong to their original copyright holders for those toys. I just laid everything out to create some attractive 4- and 8-foot in-store store displays. For what it's worth, this is the kind of work that is increasingly being turned over to generative AI. My days are numbered.

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Happy Halloween from Henry, Louis, and Audrey (and her mom)!

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"LIMITED EDITION! UGA BOBBLEHEAD SERIES," yells the headline in my inbox. The picture of 3 bulldog bobbleheads is accompanied by the number $300, which seems a bit expensive for three bobbleheads. The good news is that the fine print assures me that if I buy a whole bundle of 11, I can save $30!

That email, from "Georgia Athletics" (which spends most of its time begging for more money) links to the website for the National Bobblehead Hall of Fame*, and, as it turns out, they aren't offering me a bundle of 11 of the same bobblehead, but 11 different bobbleheads, one for each of the 11 Uga bulldog mascots of the Georgia football team over the past 70 years. Oops. I probably should have realized that. Maybe my reading comprehension skills could use some polishing.

That breaks down to buying 10 bobbleheads for $30 each and getting one free. That's not the worst deal, but does anyone really need 11 bobbleheads of white bulldogs wearing read sweaters? Only a couple of the Ugas are differentiable at a glance: Uga IX, "Russ," has a brown ear and rump, and Ugas I and II had narrower faces. And how much demand is there for a bobblehead of Uga VIII, who I'm sure was a great dog but didn't survive a whole football season before dying of cancer?

I'm inclined to ask "who really needs bobblehead dolls, anyway?" But I'll restrain myself. I've never kvetched about PEZ dispensers (because I like them), so I'm in no position to rain on the parade of any UGA fan who wants an entire kennel of nodding Ugas. It's your $300, spend it however you want to.

Besides, not bitching about bobbleheads frees up my time for complaining about my neighbors who have already set out their Halloween decorations six weeks early. Apparently, Halloween is no longer a holiday; it's a whole season! Arrrrgh!

*Hall of Fame and Museum, specifically "a one-of-a-kind museum with the world’s largest collection of bobbleheads from all genres and periods" with a mission statement that "seeks to provide access to the world’s largest collection of Bobbleheads, to advance an understanding of the historical role Bobbleheads play in American culture, and to celebrate the fun and quirky side of collecting." And also, it seems, to sell, sell, sell. Want bobblehead dolls of the Golden Girls, a jackalope, or Rio de Janeiro's Christ the Redeemer statue? They've got 'em!

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McFarlane Toys recently announced a new line of Batman cowl replicas. The "replica" in the name is important, because these cowls have never been worn by the actual Batman.

My topmost bookshelf currently showcases a Golden Age Superman statue, a battery-powered Star Trek TOS starship Enterprise, a Judge Dredd badge with my name on it, V.I.N.cent, Captain Carrot, and Booster Gold inaction figures and a life-size Batman Begins Halloween pail. The red-headed stepchild there is the Halloween pail. I'm not a big fan of the Batman Begins version of Batman, and it would be nice to replace the piercing gaze of that blue-eyed plastic pail with something less horrifying.

The new McFarlane cowls represent the 1966 television Batman, the 1989 movie Batman, and the 1993 comic book Batman. I like the idea of them, but I cannot bring myself to order one. For one thing, as I mentioned, they are stiff plastic replicas. More importantly, they are only 1:3 scale.

As everyone knows, the average American's head is about 9.5 inches high. (Batman is slightly larger than the average American, so assume his head is closer to 10 inches tall, not counting the pointy ears.) That means that a 1:3 scale cowl would only fit a 3-inch tall head! The packaging says they're about 7 inches tall with stand and pointy ears. If I put a 3-inch hood on my shelf, I'm worried it won't look so much like a Batman tribute as something I stole it from a racist Smurf.

So for the time being, I guess I'm sticking with plastic Christian Bale. On the bright side, his head can hold several bags of Halloween candy, and that's not nothing.

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Today Mom declared that she had finally tired of our single Halloween decoration, so I moved it outside into the seasonally-appropriate shamrock patch.

Rot in peace, uncarved 2023 pumpkin.

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The day before Halloween, my mother's boyfriend fell out of a deer stand. He would insist I call it a "deer lodge," but you probably don't know what that is, and I don't want you thinking that it was anything like an Elk Lodge. There's one of those down the street, and I can attest that they are comparatively painless to fall out of.

The "lodge" was 20 feet up in a tree, and he broke both shoulder blades, six ribs, eight vertebrae, and his pelvis. He's alive and expected to recover, but that's still a lot of hurt. He's a pretty smart guy, a former Eagle Scout, with plenty of experience in deer "lodges," so it's surprising that something like this would happen to him.

I told this to friend Randy, and he said, and I quote, "Your blog must be getting to them for them to strike so close to home."

As usual, Randy's right.

I suspect Mom's boyfriend has spent his last night in a deer "lodge," but that doesn't mean that you've won, deer. The war is not over. This attack against my friends and family will be avenged!

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Callback!

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