This past week, Fun.com, the North Mankato mega costume rental company, released its newest lineup of Halloween animatronics.
Home Depot, which has become a leading seller of Halloween decor, also presented its large animatronics offering.
Likewise, Menards is beginning to feature Halloween offerings, many of them giant animatronics that move, talk and spew mist.
Many stores will be displaying Halloween merchandise in the next couple of weeks, with some slackers waiting until August to put out decor for a holiday that’s more than two months away.
Animatronics have been around a long time, often first seen in amusement parks in the form of dinosaurs and as scary characters in haunted houses.
The early ones were mechanical devices that were manually operated or run with a simple motor. Later, pneumatics upped the effects, as did hydraulic-operated animatronics.
But it was digital advances that have made animatronics more realistic, scary and affordable.
Fun.com, through its website HalloweenCostumes.com, is the world’s largest online-only costume retailer. Founded in 1992 out of a garage in Mankato with 20 costumes for rent, the business now carries over 10,000 costumes stored in the company’s upper North Mankato warehouse.
Fun.com’s lineup of animatronics includes characters inspired by franchises such as “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” “Ghostbusters” and horror icons like Michael Myers.
They also have a giant Plague Doctor animatronic, animated bloody Buzzhead Butcher, Double Trouble Demon clown, animated Ghostbusters Slimer decoration, Ms. Vanderbones 8-foot pink skeleton, Nightmare Before Christmas Dr. Finkelstein animatronic and a 25-foot colossal inflatable Beetlejuice decoration.
Home Depot is best known for introducing Skelly a few years ago. It’s a 12-foot tall skeleton, which draws attention when placed in the front yard.
The massive skeletons are fun to see around Halloween, but some people leave them in their yards year-round, putting Santa hats and Fourth of July decor on them. I’m not sure the neighbors are excited about the big skeletons being left out as a lawn ornament all year long.
Coming up with new Halloween products is important to retailers. Consumers spent $12.2 billion last year, which was 15% more than the previous year. Spending increases are expected to continue this year and in coming years.
Even our dogs and cats have gotten more attention at Halloween, with American shoppers expected to spend $700 million on pet costumes.
The holiday looks a lot different than it did years ago.
Planning for Halloween used to start a few days before the holiday, not two months before.
Getting a costume was usually a last-minute endeavor and often simply involved going through your closet and picking out some things that might make a costume — red flannel shirt, jeans and an ax from the shed to become Paul Bunyan.
If there were “scary” decorations back then, they were usually some cheap paper cutouts and maybe a white sheet stuffed with straw to make a head to represent a sort-of ghost.
The amount of spending on Halloween today may be a bit excessive. But an 8-foot animatronic clown carrying a bloody head in its hand is hard to beat.
Tim Krohn can be contacted at tkrohn@mankatofreepress.com or 507-720-1300.