Pope Facts: Halloween

• Halloween used to officially be called "All Souls' Day", but the Church changed it to Halloween in 1973 because too many people were putting the apostrophe in the wrong place.
• Halloween is a day to pray for all of the deceased, except Milton Berle. I'm really not sure why Uncle Milty is left out, but then again I really have yet to get my mind around transubstansiation either, so who am I to talk.
• On Halloween it is customary to give candy to children, just like it is on Easter and Christmas...In many ways God is like a grandparent, coming over and getting the kids all riled up and full of sugar and then leaving before it is time to try to get them to go to bed.
• On Halloween we put on masks and take what is not ours, just like Patrick Swayze in "Point Break".
• "I am a F-B-I agent!!!!!"
• "It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown" is a complete affront to and bastardization of the theological basis for the feast of all souls. Linus is going to burn in the 6th Circle of Hell with the rest of the heretics.
• The Six Circle of Hell is the "City of Dis", aka EPCOT.
• I'm not sure how the cross-promotion between Peanuts and Disney will work, but I'm sure it'll be a nice money maker for everyone involved. Maybe we'll even be able to order a Happy Meal with a Tortured Soul of Linus toy inside at participating McDonald's.
• For Halloween as a kid I usually just threw on a baseball or soccer jersey and went as a baseball or soccer player ... I was fine prostituting my appearence for candy, but I was kind of lazy.
• In Irish mythology people dressed up as the scariest thing they could think of today in order to scare away evil spirits...if you see anyone dressed up as like a princess or a bunny or some such cutesy nonsense don't give them any candy, they aren't helping and don't deserve to be rewarded.
• A good everyday rule of thumb for kids is: "Don't take candy from strangers." This rule doesn't apply on Halloween, though, because all the psychopaths take the day off for their annual picnic.
• In Mexico Halloween is called The Day of the Dead and the customs are very different. I won't get into the details here, suffice it to say Mexico is gonna have some blood-shot eyes, reak of funny smelling smoke and is going to be looking to trade bootlegs with Honduras and Nicaragua today.
• The Irish began carving up pumpkins on Halloween centuries ago. There's no real religious or mythological significance to it, the Irish just hate pumpkins. And understandable so. Look at them over there staring at me, all orange and gourdy...God I hate pumpkins!
• When I was a kid there was a big scare one Halloween about some crazy people putting razor blades inside of chocolate bars. As you can imagine this cause quite a bit of panic amongst some parents, but on the bright side, it was the inspiration for the Blow-Pop (they just replaced the chocolate with a lolipop, and the razor with gum...because gum is less dangerous than a razor blade...especially for kids...but its the same basic idea... something inside of something else....and you eat it...just a different outcome...blowing bubbles instead of dying...which most parents prefered...even though the noise of bubbles can get annoying after awhile...but parents prefered that to dead children...at least that's what the Charms Corporation's market research found)
• Some modern day Wiccans are offend by Halloween, saying that it cast them in an unduly negative light and mocks their beliefs. But really, who cares.