Halloween Facts

The mask used by Michael Myers in the original 'Halloween' was actually a Captain Kirk mask painted white.

About 20-29% of American pet owners dress their pets in Halloween costumes, making it a multi-billion dollar industry.

Originally, Jack-O-Lanterns were made from turnips.

In 2012, a squirrel in Fareham, UK got its head trapped in a decorative Halloween skull and scared the crap out of the neighbours.

Colorado farmer Nick Venetucci began handing free pumpkins to children from his truck in the 1950s. Soon school buses were pulling up to his farm, and every child went home with one. Over about 50 years he gave away more than a million. Local schoolchildren collected pennies to pay for a bronze statue of him. Children on field trips to the farm still go home with a free pumpkin every October.

The Ghostbusters firehouse is real. Ladder 8 has answered calls from it in Tribeca since 1903. In 2011 the city put it on a list of 20 fire companies to close, the neighborhood rallied, and it stayed open. One firefighter says about 20 people a day ask him if it is a real firehouse while he stands there in uniform. It is, and the truck still goes out.

In the mid-2000s, a Wisconsin dentist began paying kids a dollar a pound for their leftover Halloween candy. His own children told him it was a terrible idea. He sent the candy to troops overseas, and thousands of dentists across the country joined in. One military charity alone has shipped nearly 600,000 pounds of donated candy. Dental offices still collect it every November.