Thread: Help Name my American Gothic couple from SpiritHalloween

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Picked up Spirit Halloween's American Gothic zombie farmer and wife two years ago.
This year I decided they needed a name for my haunt use. I just picked up a Valentine's mailbox at Big Lots that I want to creep up and trick out and use for the gothic couple's mailbox with their name on it. I'm kind of bad at name brainstorming so thought I'd throw the question out to you guys for more ideas.

The only names I came up with so far were: 1) Ma and Pa Kettle (older haunters will get the wink to the old 40s-50s B&W movies and TV show or 2) The Clampets (again a wink this time to the 60s TV show, Beverly Hillbillies). Love to hear your thoughts and any suggestions. Thanks.

Oozie and Harryette (Ozzie and Harriet)
Fried and Jugular (Fred and Ginger)
Weirdly and Creepella Gruesome (from the Flintstones)

Honestly there is only one answer in my mind, now most mailboxes just have the last name, and being halloween, you have to go with leave it to beaver - the Cleaver(s) you could keep Ma and Pa, Ma and Pa Cleaver

OMG you guys are so great! I shouldn't be checking back on this yet to give more people a chance to answer but have to say that I love the Gruesomes and the Cleavers!! Maybe I'm going to have to buy more mailboxes...you know for the neighbors...!!!

The Kicken's- Alivin and Stella

The Beeback's- Willy and Sonile

The Pulse's - Jaun And Nada

Originally Posted by Empty_W

Honestly there is only one answer in my mind, now most mailboxes just have the last name, and being halloween, you have to go with leave it to beaver - the Cleaver(s) you could keep Ma and Pa, Ma and Pa Cleaver

Love this one.

Originally Posted by Empty_W

Honestly there is only one answer in my mind, now most mailboxes just have the last name, and being halloween, you have to go with leave it to beaver - the Cleaver(s) you could keep Ma and Pa, Ma and Pa Cleaver

I vote cleavers! you can change out the flag for a big knife!

Hard to beat the cleavers. Very good.

How do you like these props? They look good but they are static and I always figured if I'm gonna pay some bucks for a prop, they at least have to be something I wouldn't make myself- like an animated prop. The gothics just look like something that can be made for cheap so I never invested in them. They do look good though. But at 100 bucks a piece currently.... I'd stuff my own!

Dan

I vote for the Cleavers!!!!

OK I'm declaring the name search for my American Gothic couple over. Ma and Pa Cleaver is the winning name choice for my zombie farmer and wife. The name just fits so perfectly. Can't imagine I'll like anything better, but you guys can still try to dissuade me if you want!

I have a cleaver prop that I bought a few years ago so maybe Ma Cleaver will be prepping a chicken (will need to look for a rubber chicken maybe and creep it up and some white feathers might be a nice addition). Since I have a lot of small tikes in our neighborhood I don't want to have her chopping up a human although it goes with the zombie theme. I might still have some jars of pickled fingers and such in the kitchen however. Big thanks goes out to Empty W for the suggestion!!! Thanks everyone for your suggestions and opinions.

I picked up two more Big Lots mailboxes the other day and plan on at least one more neighbor's name to add to one of those mailboxes (I'm leaning towards Maleficent's suggestion The Gruesomes). The mailboxes will be added to some roadside fencing before you get to the run down shack. The last mailbox will either be another neighbor's name or I'm thinking of making the mailbox an animated sign of some sort. I'm thinking a boney skeleton hand with an index finger that points the way to the Cleavers place. I'd love to make the hand just slide in and out of the mailbox (something simple to do I hope). I'll add some green lighting inside to give it a creepy attention getting appearance. I thought I'd mount the box to some wood and the wood base to some PVC pipe. If I needed I could always run an electrical cord up through the pipe inside the mailbox to power something. Since the boxes are only cardboard I can't pump fog or a mister inside of it. I wanted to keep this scene prop inexpensive otherwise I'd look for a plastic or metal mailbox and go that route. The more I think about this scene the more I like it. I'd love to have some of the mailbox doors slam open and shut for effect. Might try putting a shaking Haunted Hedge prop inside one and see what it does to it.

Shockwave in way of an answer to your post, I LOVE these guys. The clothing on both is perfect, they are pretty tall, easy to pull out of the box and set up, and their faces are by far the best feature in my opinion. I bought them from Spirit during their Day After Halloween Clearance sale for $50 each. I didn't see them in the stores last year (2 stores in my area) however they did turn up in the stores for the Day After Halloween Clearance event. Now I see them listed online so I'm thinking the inventory is getting pretty low. I know what you mean about animated props as opposed to static ones. The half-off price definitely made me jump to buy them. I'm thinking I can always put one of them in a haunted animated rocking chair to add some movement. I also though of putting them on a motorized rotating base (something like those 180 degree rotating Xmas tree stands) to make the zombies turn towards you. One side of her face is decayed so I thought it might be a bit of a scare to have the good side towards you at first and then she turn towards you to show you that she isn't what she seem to be (I can't remember off hand if the farmer's face is also decayed on one side without looking at him). If the wife doesn't get rotated I might try to rig something up if I have time to make her forearm and hand move up and down on a table (to simulate chopping). With the clothing loose as it is there should be plenty of room to hide some mechanics. Another possibility for the farmer would be to put him in a rocker with a newspaper in front of his face and rig his arms to raise and lower so it hides and exposes his head. Or maybe his head could be manipulated to make it look down and then raise up. Lots of possibilities actually for this pair of static props.