Another one of our favorites is the annual showing of The Simpsons Halloween Specials entitled Treehouse of Horror. The first Simpsons Halloween special was aired October 25th 1990 and is arguably still one of the best episodes. The next 9 years everyone got to enjoy a new Treehouse of Horror right before or on Halloween, but then things changed. Fox started airing the episodes after Halloween. Why? Well, according to the Wikipedia page on the subject, Fox’s contract with Major League Baseball’s world series takes precedent over the airing of the newest Treehouse of Horror before Halloween. So now we are stuck with a rerun of last years episode before, or on the 31st and the newest episode is aired after Halloween. The next episode is Treehouse of Horror XVII (17) and is set to air on November 5th 2006 with guest stars Richard Lewis, Dr. Phil McGraw and Fran Drescher.

If you are like us and need your fix of Simpsons Halloween Specials before Halloween rolls around you can purchase the Treehouse of Horror DVD. I want to give you fair warning though that this is only episodes V, VI, VII and XII (5,6,7 & 12). Yes it is disappointing, but when you need a fix, you need it. As of this writing there isn’t a DVD out there with more or all the Halloween episodes. The lowest price we found is from eCampus (less than at Amazon) and if you haven’t ordered from them before don’t worry, they are good. We’ve ordered from them numerous times and they have consistently low prices, fast shipping, and good service. The DVD includes one of our personal favorite episodes “The Shinning” as well as “Nightmare Cafeteria,” “Nightmare on Evergreen Terrace,” “House of Whacks,” and more.

For those of you who can’t get enough Simpsons Halloween Specials you can construct a Simpsons Halloween Village, with spooky sounds and lights. These are definitely collectibles as they are hand-cast and hand painted with great attention to detail. Enjoy the figurines of classic Treehouse of Horror characters like a Witchy Marge Simpson, a Bart-headed fly, Devilish Flanders, Count Burns, as well as buildings of The Simpsons family home, and the Kwik-E-Mart. All these and more are available exclusively from CollectionsToday.

It may be a little early for some of you, but we’ve got a couple spooky listening suggestions to put you in the Halloween mood. Music and broadcasts with a creepy, horror theme to them are part of a small but growing genre. Rue Morgue Radio claims to be “the world’s original all horror broadcast”, and at just over 2 years old it appears to still be leading the way. From their parent company, Rue Morgue Magazine (around since Halloween 1997), RMR features music, film and other art with a horror theme. Every Friday you’ll hear music from the likes of the Misfits, Barnes & Barnes, Alice Cooper, and Midnight Syndicate and interviews with notable horror movie makers and writers. There are also excerpts and trailers from movies (both new and old), and reviews of horror movies from a duo called The Caustic Critics. Like any podcast, some episodes are much better than others, but it’s an overall excellent broadcast that we tune into every week.

One of the bands featured several times on RMR is Creature Feature, a 2 piece band from Ventura, California that makes us squirm with delight! The first thought that popped into our heads as “The Greatest Show Unearthed” began playing was an easy, if incomplete, comparison. Creature Feature sounds like the soundtrack to a Tim Burton movie. Their lyrics read like one of his poems, and the mood and tone are of the same casual insanity. But beyond the lack of pretense and seemingly perfect aptitude for all things macabe, Creature Feature posesses a greater flexability. Of the 4 songs available on their MySpace page (their website is in the works), we hear promises of dark fun with a price, light-hearted nursery rhyme style obituaries, a tense zompocalypse narration, and a first person kidnapping plot with some genuinly creepy moments. Needless to say, we’re in love. Creature Feature will be playing in October in San Diego and we’re planning on doing a blog post about the show, so tune in next month for more on Curtis Rx and Erik X, aka Creature Feature.