Mike Warnke "A Christian Perspective On Halloween" (1979)

Here's a weird LP from the late 70's; a vinyl pressing of a syndicated Christian radio show loaded with complete & utter misinformation about the history of Halloween, as told by comedian & discredited "Ex-Satanist" Mike Warnke. If you can make it through the whole thing (there's a lengthy stretch of lame comedy thrown into the middle section) you'll find some prime material for sound bites, and a bizarre almost alternate-universe vision of American culture as seen through the eyes of the (still-active) Warnke.

If you're actually looking for a more historically accurate history of Halloween (in particular the tracing of its development as a socialized ritual in America), an unlikely source provides some of the better info I've found: Ben Truwe's "Halloween Catalog Collection" from Talky Tina Press. As you might guess it's primarily a compendium of vintage catalog pages from Halloween novelty sellers, but as Mark B. Ledenback notes on the back cover, it also "includes some ground-breaking research on the history of Halloween as observed in the United States", complete with vintage newspaper accounts of mischief & merrymaking from the first half of the 20th century. If you're looking for more detail (the history section in Truwe's book is all within the under 20 page intro), David J. Skal's "Death Makes A Holiday" or Lesley Pratt Bannatyne's "Halloween: An American Holiday, an American History" probably aren't bad places to start.


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