The range launched with Fangs (cheese and onion) and Bones (salt and vinegar) and in late 1974 there was an offer to send away from a free Dracula mask! Yes, by posting off six packets - and especially for the hard of thinking, they deliberately mentioned in the blurb that they had to be empty packets - you'd get a Dracula mask. Or to be exact, a mask of the top hatted Horror Bags version of Dracula who fronted the range.
Now the mask was pretty cool, but this was only the beginning! For many more ghoulish giveaways would follow, and would grow steadily more ambitious. For example, another early give-away was an iron-on T-shirt transfer offer that again featuring our top hatted fiend's features, but later on a similar offer delivered a proper printed shirt - yours for only 4 bags and the princely sum of 69p. And clearly the Horror Bags Dracula was a hit with the kids as he would feature on a great many of these giveaway items.
Far more exciting was the Dracula Hand Puppet offer (4 bags plus 50p). Admittedly it turned out to be neither a marionette or a glove puppet - rather it was the most humble of the puppet family, a sock puppet, but the design was nice and the packet had pictured the puppet so you knew what you were getting. Also in the cheap but fun category, Horror Bags knew that kids loved puzzles, cards and stickers and hence there were a range of smaller giveaways that were simple but packed with ghoulish delights.
His grinning features would adorn a rather nifty bag. This was a drawstring knapsack kind of affair, and was apparently very well made, for quite a few seem to have survived in excellent condition! He would also pop up on a toothbrush, an appropriate but perhaps not terrible exciting item for a range of crisps that included Fangs. The packet tried its best to talk this giveaway up - the brush had a head made by "HALEX" whatever in the name of Cliff that was*, but this one was ultimately probably more appealing to grown-ups than kids. However for 4 empty packets and 25p you couldn't really go wrong.
There was the Horrid Picture Cards set. For sending in just 3 bags, you got a set of six cards each with a suitably spooky picture on the front and a story about Dracula on the back. But the fun thing was that the cards all joined up to make one huge eerie illustration with a massive skull on it! Obviously very cool, for as any school kid will tell you, as massive skulls are always very cool, der brain.
Equally simple but also cunningly elaborate was the Shivers Stickers set - yours for 3 bags and 28p. Now these were not quite your usual paper with gum on the back affairs, for these were designed for sticking in unusual places! There were spooky cobwebs, spiders and staring eyes that stuck on windows, and for even more gruesome fun there were what the adverts termed "Ghastly Gashes" (stop laughing at the back!) and vampire bite puncture holes to stick on yourself in a primitive horror make-up fashion!
Rounding off this do and make section of giveaways was the Horror Bags Fungames Set. Now this was a chunky folder jam-packed with goodies. There were two masks - a Dracula one, doubtless identical to the one given away in the earlier offer, but also a rather fabulous Frankenstein mask too.
There were several sheets featuring stuff to do and make, such as a hanging bat mobile and a set of cards to cut out to making a matching pairs game. And there were quizzes and puzzles too. Admittedly these weren't terribly taxing, the little girl always quickly escaped the Baron for example, but they looked cool.
Best of all though was the Glow-in-the-dark Castle Poster. Now actually this was two posters - one showed a crumbling castle but had lots of doors and windows cut in that you could open. The second poster showed assorted ghosts, ghouls and monsters faffing about. However - and this is the clever bit - you put the castle poster over the monster one, and so when you opened the doors or windows you could see the 'orrible beings that dwelt inside. And hence you had a sort of spooky version of an advent calendar.
Now the glow-in-the-dark bit was perhaps a tad misleading as these posters did not involve the usual phosphorescent or luminous paint, rather you made the windows light up yourself. The pack presented two methods of doing so - firstly you could put the posters together and hanging them in front of a torch or lamp (not hugely practical really), or you could stick the posters onto a window (a more practical option but not so popular with parents who insist on worrying about stupid things like marks on glass rather than the important things in life such as ghosts and monsters glowing).
Anywho, which ever way you did it, it actually worked rather well. I know it sounds lame - and indeed I even thought that when I received this set in the post as a kid - but the clever folks at Horror Bags had ensured the posters were exactly the correct thickness, so that when they were put together, they did block out light. But the second poster was also thin enough on its own so that when you opened the windows and doors of the castle the scenes inside would light up rather nicely. Completely brilliant! Or at least it was for the brief time Mum allowed me to stick it to the window...
Sadly my Fungames kit poster is long gone, but here's another creepy puzzle instead that features a little version of the same castle...
Next time, yet more ghoulish giveaways, looking at the most luxurious of all the Horror Bags tat!
* actually a venerable but now defunct makers of plastic and bakelite items apparently - see here
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