{"id":4404,"date":"2026-10-25T09:30:45","date_gmt":"2026-10-25T16:30:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.albertzone.com\/halloween\/?p=4404"},"modified":"2026-10-25T20:03:54","modified_gmt":"2026-10-26T03:03:54","slug":"a25-weird-facts-about-the-albertson-halloween-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.albertzone.com\/halloween\/2026\/10\/a25-weird-facts-about-the-albertson-halloween-house\/","title":{"rendered":"A25: Weird Facts about the Albertson Halloween House"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Over the 25 years we have had lots of miraculous, strange, weird and fun stories associated with the Albertson Halloween House. Below are just a few of those.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shark Week!<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In 2010, we did a Finding Nemo theme which involved creating a giant, house-sized Bruce the Shark which trick-or-treaters would have to walk into to get their treats. After posting pictures of it online, the next year’s Shark Week’s website featured us as one of many “Fun Ideas to Celebrate Shark Week.” From that, Good Morning America found out about us and asked if I wanted to build a giant shark for a promotional event they had. We did not end up doing that because, well, it’s a big job to make a giant shark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hidden Contest in This Blog, Never Solved, Contest Still Active, and Real-World Prize Is Still Unclaimed<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Back when we did video games as a theme, I hid an Easter Egg into the blog posts of that year on this site (similar to the contest found in the book Ready Player One, a video game-based story). It led to a series of riddles and if a person discovered that Easter Egg and solved the riddles, they would win a real-life prize (a one-of-a-kind video game item handcrafted by me). That Easter Egg has never been found. The contest is still active and the prize is still available, should someone want to pursue it. Are you bold<\/strong> enough to try? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Judy Garland Impersonator<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The year we did Wizard of Oz I got a phone call from a woman saying she was a Judy Garland (actress who had played Dorothy in the film version of the story) impersonator. I later looked her up and it was true\u2014she had impersonated Judy Garland in her youth. She was now an octogenarian, which is not necessarily a problem. She, however, said that she could make an appearance if we paid an appearance fee and paid for both her travel and hotel accommodations. After I informed her that our Halloween house was more of a ‘backyard circus in the front yard’ and most of the set was made of cardboard, we didn’t hear from her again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Real Quidditch Team \/ Real Magic Wand<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The second time we did a Hogwarts themed house (the big one in 2016), we ended up having a real Quidditch team playing out in the street in front of our house. A few weeks prior to that, I had happened upon them in our local park, practicing with their hoops (they didn’t have their flying brooms with them), so I asked them if they would like to join us at our house on Halloween. I told them they could bring flyers to promote their team. They came, set up their hoops, wore their uniforms and played their Muggle version of Quidditch in the street.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That year one Halloween house visitor surprised us by having a real wand, or at least a wand that shot real sparks and fire. As you can imagine, as we had created a giant cardboard-based set and had tons of people milling around, we were quite surprised.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Slimer<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

For our Ghostbusters year, I was trying to figure out how we might have a Slimer as part of the set. I pondered making one or projecting one, but in the midst of my planning a friend of mine told me that she was friends with the owner of Zonko’s\u2014a local memorabilia shop\u2014and they happened to have a full-sized Slimer. We connected and Slimer joined our display that year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pixar Guy<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The year we did the Pixar theme I was working in the front yard setting things up for Halloween that night when a man came by and looked intently at all the parts of the set. I learned that he was Daniel McCoy<\/strong><\/a>, a long time Pixar employee and software\/renderer developer who has been a part of everything from Toy Story to Inside Out. He said that someone on the Pixar internal chat app had mentioned our house (what?) and he was in the area and wanted to check us out. That led to a great conversation, and later to several lunches where we talked about creativity, the early days of Pixar, and life in general.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Imagineer Help<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Following on from the previous note, we actually had a real Imagineer help out with the house one year. A friend of mine, Ian Shaeffer, who had worked at Imagineering, helped with one of our painting days for our Disneyland themed year. While technically he just helped paint (and didn’t develop advanced animatronics or anything), I still say it counts. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n\n\n\n

100s of Free Glow Necklaces<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In the early days of the Halloween house, San Jose had a Safe From the Start <\/em>community program where they would give lots of glow necklaces to Halloween event locations to pass out to kids to help keep them safe at night. We applied for that program and were a part of it for many years until it closed down. It allowed us to give glow necklaces to 100s of kids in our downtown area for many years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Miraculous Trees<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

For the Jurassic Park year, I created a T-Rex head (just the head, as creating the body would have been too much work) and wanted to have that head emerging from tropical trees. I tried a lot of things to figure out how to get those trees, even trying to make them at one of our painting days. Then, Brian, a friend of mine, saw that his neighbor had extremely tall palm branches (10-12 ft. high) that were quite overgrown. He talked with them and asked if he could trim them for them and they agreed. I looked down my street and saw Brian bringing a jungle’s worth of tall tropical palm branches stuffed into a large rolling recycling can. They were the perfect trees through which a dinosaur head can appear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Costumes for Our Cars<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

A few years we have involved our cars in the Halloween house. For the first Star Wars year, we covered our minivan in cardboard and made it look like the Star Tours ship. We re-used that the next year for our Disneyland theme. For the Pixar year, we created a cardboard sunshade for our other car and painted eyes on it, so that our car looked like it was from the movie Cars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oft-Used Oz Video<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

For the Wizard of Oz year, I created a projection of an Oz head saying menacing things in a deep voice. I put up a tutorial on how to create the Oz throne and mentioned that projection in that post. For some reason, that post has gotten lots of views and about 2-3 times a year for the past many years I get email requests for access to the Oz head video. I share it with everyone who asks and it has been fun having that project continue to have a life after its initial use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those are just some of the stories from our 25 years. If you ask us, we probably have many more. Thanks to everyone who has been a part of this weird, fun, miraculous endeavor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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