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Serious Halloween Question!
First of all, don’t forget – Found and Post Secret will be at the Mad Art Gallery next week! Please come!
Okay - I have always assumed that St. Louis celebrates Halloween the same way as every other US city, but it’s come to my attention that we might be unique in a very fun way. I was wondering if you guys could clear this up.
In St. Louis, when kids go Trick or Treating, they go the door and ask folks, “Trick or treat?”
The grown up says “Trick.” Then the kid has to tell them a joke in order to get a piece of candy.
It’s fun when you’re a kid because you get to feel clever and get rewarded in the process. It’s even more fun when you’re a grown-up because you get treated to gems such as:
How do you mend a broken Jack-o-Lantern?
With a pumpkin patch
Why didn’t the skeleton cross the road?
Because it didn’t have the guts!
Why was the mummy so tense?
Because he was wound up!
During a meeting yesterday, someone remarked that they didn’t tell jokes when they were younger – that this is just a St. Louis thing.
“Then what does the ‘Trick or Treat’ mean?” we asked.
“It’s like, ‘Give me candy or I’ll egg your house,’” he said.
“Oh. So it’s like a threat?”
“Basically.”
I suppose that, grammar wise, it makes more sense your way. But I loved preparing my “set” of jokes when I was younger. And it makes the grown-up side fun, too - I love hearing kids tell me stupid jokes. It never gets old.
So my very long-winded question is:
What is the tradition in your town? Do you guys tell jokes? If you are from STL, find someone who isn’t and ask them for me, please.
Also, what was everybody for Halloween???
Here are some more Halloween jokes!
What do you call someone who poisons breakfast?
A cereal killer!
What do birds give away on Halloween?
Tweets!
What kind of mistakes do ghosts make?
Boo-boos.
Why do witches wear nametags?
So they can tell which witch is which.
And here’s one for Ron, who gave me an Algebra 2 test last week that I failed miserably:
What is the ratio of a pumpkin’s circumference to its diameter?
Pumpkin Pi.
Why does St. Louis have to be the odd-ball all of the time? We tell jokes
for candy, eat breaded ravioli, obsess over high schools, and speak with
the ellogence of a drunk Wisconsonite who desperately wants to sound like
they're from New York.
In little Nazis.
You are correct, the tell a joke for candy thing must be a St. Louis
original. I handed out candy to probably 200 kids down here in Florida,
and I asked the first few for a joke. The kids looked at me like I was
crazy. After getting confused looks from the first ten to fifteen kids, I
gave up asking. It bummed me out, I was looking forward to some Laffy
Taffy quality jokes. I remember buying those cheeseball books full of
Halloween jokes out of Scholastic mail-order just so I would have enough
jokes.
What kind of shoes do amphibians wear?
Open-TOAD.
Ah yes, Canadian halloween trick or treating. Well since I don't have kids,
and me and the hubby got married on halloween, the custom for us is to go
down to niagra falls, and get a honeymoon suite, and supply ourselves with
greenery, and chocolate turtles. We usually buy an "anniversary" gift for
ourselves. Last year it was a hookah, this year it was gutiar Hero 3.
Due to a death in the family, we decided to go to the haloween haunt at
Canada's Wonderland, where this year it was on the brink of raining the
entire time.
No, they do not serve flatty cakes there.
Yeah so far the only city I found that tells jokes besides us is Des
Moines:
Confirmed with my cubby neighbor that there was no joke telling on
Halloween when she was trick or treating back in Mississippi. Get on board
Mississippi, you are missing out.
That URL didn't work, Stephanie.
Weird, it works for me! Some browsers like Safari break up the link. Just
google "telling jokes trick or treating"; it should be the first one.
No joke telling in Florida or Los Angeles. Sigh. I would have loved that.
There are lots of haunted houses in Tallahassee though... and spooky ghost
tours of downtown...
You guys are so awesome with this inside info and Halloween homework!
Here in Jersey, you would say "Trick or Treat". Typically, the person
would give you candy. Sometimes you'd get the silly old man who would tell
you a joke or pull a quarter out from behind your ear. I guess that was
supposed to be a trick. But c'mon...me tell the joke? F that. I'm
already doing the hard work by walking to your damn house. Now give me a
"fun size" butterfinger and do it fast.
I just found this out too. It came up several times last week at Kenrick.
Many of the non-local guys described our tradition as "weird." Whatever,
jerks. Go back to, like, Omaha and stuff.
I should note that this joke-telling/performance-based Trick-Or-Treating
was commonly practiced in both Chesterfield and Wildwood, which are each
about half an hour from St. Louis. I happen to know that it is also common
(or at very least, understood and accepted) in Town & Country, about 15-20
minutes from St. Louis.
Well, I am counting STL county, which Town & Country, Chesterfield and
Wildwood are a part of. If you grew up in West County (which I did but
don't tell anybody, haha), those three spots are super close. Town and
Country was within walking distance from my parent's house.
hey shortcake--haven't checked in for a while and just wanted to say hi and
hope all is well. just read this first post. here we don't do the joke
telling. it's the east coast--we apparently value threats of mayhem more
than creativity. you midwesterners believe in making the kids earn it.
Oh yay, hello! I was wondering what kids did in that part of the country,
but I had no one to ask. Thank you so much for the scoop, and I hope all is
well with you, too!
I know some JeffCo people I can ask.
I found this out this year as well. It is confirmed in Califorina,
Washington State, Florida, Georgia, and Alabama that they do not tell joke.
I called just about everyone I know outside the St Louis area, and they
all thought I was crazy.
Quick Mini Survey:
Talked to my friend from work who trick-or-treated in Collinsville and
O'Fallon (Illinois) areas. NEVER HEARD OF joke-telling for TOT-time.
Collinsville and O'Fallon are not even as far away from St. Louis (proper)
as Wildwood and Chesterfield are, so I am inclined to think that maybe it's
a St. Louis thing, with emphasis on surrounding Missouri-state-counties.
Maybe?
On Halloween Mon and I ran into some kids who asked for candy so I guess
they were trick or treating. We went to 7 11 and i bought them each a twix
bar. They all had lame little plastic pumpkins and the twix bar was by fra
the greatest thing they had received. They couldn't fit any more than 15
twix bars in their plastic pumpkins. Where's the pillow case man, you
gotta score.
Dude Rob (I'm at a PC, too many buttons) that's what I'm saying! St. Louis
COUNTY, which includes Chesterfield and Wildwood. And somewhere in Iowa.
The boy sitting next to me during Wristcutters said they don't tell ToT
jokes in Texas.
Hey Steph, looks like I'm a bit late to the party. To back up Steve
"fibbin' lips" McKiernan, us Jersians don't commonly practice our comedy
routine on the candy route. In the neighborhood I grew up in there were
hundreds of townhouses and apartments we needed to get to before it go too
late so there was no time for joke telling of any sort. For me personally,
it was usually a mumbled "tricrtreat" followed by unenthusiastic candy
distribution. If we were still feeling sassy after trick-or-treating (which
we usually were because our blood was 50% sugar by 8pm) we would either egg
someone's house or throw some smoke bombs near a high-traffic area. Don't
shake your head, i was never the mastermind of these pranks, I'm too big of
a wuss. I was usally running away a good 30 seconds before we threw an egg
or lit the smoke bombs.
I trick or treated in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Tennessee and I never
heard of the joke thing until I lived in St. Louis. It's weird!
I didn't really encounter this tradition in Washington, MO. Only twice in
all of my years of trick-or-treating did people ask for a trick, and I was
at a loss as to what to do.
In Detroit, they have 'Devil's Night', which is where people celebrate one
to three days before Halloween by setting abandoned buildings on fire.
There's usually 500-800 reported fires a year. We were discussing this in
class, and one of my classmates, who is from Detroit, couldn't believe that
her city was the only city that did this.