Shades of the Luminous Spooks
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Picture from ebay seller
the-ideal-life-company. |
There was a terrifically spooky promotion in 1986 for Heinz Haunted House pasta shapes, complete with
TV commercial (including a suit of armour and ghostly portrait!), glow-in-the-dark stickers (more comical than scary), a haunted house 'theatre' for the stickers and a comic advert ('Scare your friends silly with Heinz Haunted House'). Pictures
here and
here.
Not sure how I managed to miss this promotion until now - it really was quite good. The stickers show a good range of Halloween subjects, plus mice (not rats!), and unusually, toadstools and a pixie! Naturally, I'm comparing it with the 'gold standard' of the Luminous Spooks and it would have been even better IMO if the interior of the haunted house had been depicted as well in the 'theatre', along with some stickers for said suit of armour and portrait (and clock and Tudor lady, of course). Still, I was pleased to see owls there, owls being noticeable by their absence from the Luminous Spooks!
I'm including the badge shown at the top, as it has a nicely atmospheric haunted house/castle exterior, even though it wasn't associated with the 1986 promotion, as far as I can tell. (It was however a freebie in at least two comics (Battle Action Force; Eagle and Tiger) in May 1985).
