Well, this is certainly an interesting variation on the old candy tampering myth.

Ever wondered how this Halloween myth got started? Here's a quick thread.

The first time trick-or-treating apeared in a movie or show was Disney's 1952 short "Trick Or Treat."

It was a relatively new phenomenon at the time. Previously, kids dressed up & messed up people's yards. Now you could bribe kids with treats so they wouldn't give you a trick.
But Donald being stubborn, he decided to give the kids lit firecrackers.

I don't think this is where the myth started, but it's the first example of an adult using trick-or-treating o play a trick on kids.
In 1964, a housewife made prank packages of inedible items to hand out to trick-or-treaters she thought were too old. These held random kitchen items like steel wool, dog biscuits, and ant poison clearly marked as poison.

The poison upset another parent, who had her arrested.
It seems the story was warped in retellings, and parents worried each other with tales of poison candy. Sometimes kids pranked their parents, i.e. "look what I found in my candy!"

Fun Size candy showed up in 1968, presenting a safe alternative to unwrapped treats.
Only one child has ever died of poisoned candy...and it turned out his own father put the cyanide-laced Pixy Stix in his bag! In 1974, he was inspired by the common myth as a way to collect on the life insurance plan he'd taken out.
This is why cyanide found in bottles of Tylenol in September 1982 led to a Halloween panic (and also led to the safety seals we're all used to now). Reporters couldn't help but wonder out loud whether cyanide might show up in candy in a month?
The panic shook up the whole Halloween industry, which invests all year in a single month of profit. The shakeup is a big reason why those old plastic masks went away. https://t.co/Z6h5n12Qeo
I think the biggest danger of mixing recreational drugs with Halloween is that it might bring those masks back.
By which I mean I was completely sober when I worked at a Halloween company and pitched doing adult-sized plastic masks and vinyl jumpsuits, and maybe if they were high they wouldn't have rejected it.

More from Culture

I woke up this morning to hundreds of notifications from this tweet, which is literally just a quote from a book I am giving away tonight.

The level of vitriol in the replies is a new experience for me on here. I love Twitter, but this is the dark side of it.

Thread...


First, this quote is from a book which examines castes and slavery throughout history. Obviously Wilkerson isn’t claiming slavery was invented by America.

She says, “Slavery IN THIS LAND...” wasn’t happenstance. American chattel slavery was purposefully crafted and carried out.

That’s not a “hot take” or a fringe opinion. It’s a fact with which any reputable historian or scholar agrees.

Second, this is a perfect example of how nefarious folks operate here on Twitter...

J*mes Linds*y, P*ter Bogh*ssian and others like them purposefully misrepresent something (or just outright ignore what it actually says as they do in this case) and then feed it to their large, angry following so they will attack.


The attacks are rarely about ideas or beliefs, because purposefully misrepresenting someone’s argument prevents that from happening. Instead, the attacks are directed at the person.

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