Thread: The Sounds of Halloween

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After reading this thread, I too felt compelled to register and comment. Here's my story: In the late 80's, I had a friend whose dad worked for Russ Berrie toys/novelties. His dad would bring home toys, freebies and stuff, among which (I was told) was this awesome spooky sounds cassette. I liked it so much, I had my friend dub it onto another cassette for me back in the day. This was my first Halloween album ever. I used that tape for ambience in the window wells outside my house every Halloween for years after. A few years ago, I had a tech savvy friend transfer the dubbed cassette over to mp3 and clean up the audio. It's obviously not the best recording, but it was decent considering it came from a dubbed cassette. It's still one of my favorite mixed sounds albums. Ever since I discovered the Scar Stuff blog about 3 years ago (while searching for the sheet music for Denning and Lande's H A double L O W double E N Spells Halloween, which I sang in grade school), I have been trying to find out what the title of the old Halloween cassette that I treasured. Since it only contained a sounds track and some lame covers of popular Halloween songs, Google wasn't very helpful. My best recollection was that the album came from Russ Berrie, but I couldn't find any evidence of this. I never even saw the album cover. On a tip from Prof. Grewbeard at Magic Carpet Burn, I started looking yesterday for albums that contain a cover of Thriller, which are comparitively and surprisingly few. At some point, I started seeing some mentions of a Hallmark Halloween album. That seemed a likely candidate. Hallmark must fiercely defend its copyrights, because I couldn't find so much as a track listing of that album. I checked Scar Stuff to no avail and then Halloweiner's defunct old Mostly Ghostly blaag. Lo and behold, I found the cover of Hallmark Presents The Sounds of Halloween. Halloweiner mentioned the Halloween Forum in the description under the album art. So I came here. I had to do some digging to find links that still work, but on page 8 of this thread, I finally found a link to the files. The mystery is solved. I finally found information on my favorite Halloween album ever. Thank you everyone for your contributions, especially Halloweiner. I'm still not sure if Russ Berrie ever distributed this album of if there's no connection at all to the companies, but the search is over. I know it's not "vintage" but the 80's were to me probably what the 70's were to many of you. I think the spooky sounds track of this album holds up to best of Halloween albums from yesteryear and today. For one thing, it was intended to be used for trick-or-treaters specifically rather than just the generic party sounds. I have children now (which allows me to go trick-or-treating again!!!) and have played this album for them while carving pumpkins. To me this is what music "sharing" is all about. If Hallmark isn't going to allow us to buy this album on CD or mp3, then I have no problem downloading it from you generous folks. Sorry for the length of the post. I hope it was interesting. Happy Halloween!!!

I'm glad I could help you find it Vatermann. I'm glad you had the time to do the research that I don't have right now. I had totally forgotten that I had even shared it here. BTW - I opened your access at my Yuku place.

Morbius -

I just listened to that Track 44. That tune is the theme to a Horror Movie, but I can't place a title in my mind for nothing. I know I've heard it a million times on various different Halloween Sounds pages. Dontcha hate it when you can't remember something like that?

Originally Posted by Halloweiner

Here's the DL links for the 3 Hallmark tapes that I have. Not all 3 were mine, but I don't recall who the other 2 belonged to. Thanks to them for sharing however.

Hallmark Halloween Sounds 1986 & Hallmark Howl-O-Ween Download Link

Hallmark Halloween Sounds 1989 Download Link

Ha-ha, I think that was my greatest contribution to Halloween!

(Page 3 and 5 - Howl-O-Ween and the 1986 Hallmark Halloween Sounds)

I'm so glad you have a home to permanently share them. I still get requests to repost them and I always send them your way.

Thanks Johnny. You don't happen to recognize Track 44 do you? I know it's a Movie Theme, but I still can't recall which one.

JohnnyD97, you are a HALLOWEEN GOD!!! My mother bought this tape for me and my(now deceased) younger brother when we were just kids back in the '80's. As I was exploring all of the threads on the forum(and I do mean ALL, I'm a perfectionist who refuses to leave any stone unturned when it comes to Halloween) I stumbled across the thread and was amazed to find that I wasn't the only one with fond memories of this tape. We used to play this over and over, driving my mother crazy both in the house and in the car. Hearing this has brought back TONS of happy childhood memories and good memories of my little brother. YOU ARE AWESOME!!!