Happy Pants Pumpkin Dance

Helloween's video for the song "Halloween". The festive action going on can only be described as the "Happy Pants Pumpkin Dance". Check for the cameos by Klaus Nomi clone and band mascot Mr. Pumpkinhead (what IS his name anyway?). The song was originally 13:19 and was cut down to a little over 5 minutes. Thus the weird "where the hell did this guitar solo come from?" effect. The U.S. version was cut even more The chopped a few frames since the original European version showed a woman's nipple through her sheer dress. Typical of MTV that they can show Steve Tyler of Aerosmith dry humping some dumb model but if some real looking German girl's nipple shows through her dress - forget it!

Also of note the band warns on the LP "anyone caught spelling the song "Halloween" with a 'e' or the band name with an 'a' will be turned into a pumpkin!"

The night this video premiered on "Headbanger's Ball" (sometime in August of '87) I got back from my visiting my cousins in Nevada City. My clothes smelled of the Sierra Foothills red dirt and which mixed with the freshly wafting stench of the cigarettes that came from a letter I just opened. The lettter was from Chrissy, my pen-pal in Connecticut who was a severe metalhead (and worked as a stripper but that's another story). I was simulateously reading through Chrissy's letter with her record collection attached. My mom walked into the room while my eyes were flipping between "Death - Scream Bloody Gore (LP), White Lion - Prey (tape)" and the visuals on the TV.


Mom: "Who's this?"
Me: "It's a band called HE-LL-O-Ween" (Emphasizing it was about "HELL" and therefore unsafe and unparent-friendly) "...they're from Germany."
Mom: "Wow...these bands you're into are from all over the world, huh?"
Me: (Suprised) "Yeah....they are um...this other one they played video of a few minutes ago is from Japan!"

Granted it was the lame-ass E-Z-O but hey at least it was representing the United Brutha & Sistahood of Metahaaaooool!

It was also at this time that I had penpals from Austrailia, Sweden, Newcastle UK (Venom, Raven & Newcastle Ale, oh my!) and some place called New Jersey. I didn't have too many female friends in high school but I had a LOT of them as penpals. Why I did clue in and go visit them is beyond me.