(Image credit: Oscar Carrero)
Once upon a time, it was enough to place a carved pumpkin or a small plastic skeleton by the door. Halloween yard displays have now become artworks, with homeowners spending time and big bucks to outshine the neighbors and achieve viral fame. Skeletons are the perfect prop for a creative display, because they can be posed like living people doing everyday things- or very odd things. The Dinote family of Stone Oak, a neighborhood in San Antonio, changes their skeleton display every day! Above, you see the Dinote's skeleton family recreating the Milk Crate Challenge, with the expected disastrous results. See more of them at KSAT.
(Image credit: Ronni Newton)
One way to go viral with a Halloween display is to re-enact a timely event that everyone will recognize. Matt Warshauer of West Hartford, Connecticut, put up a display with dozens of skeletons climbing the front of the Capitol Building in Washington, recreating the scene of the January 6 riot. The display is complete with Capitol Police (also skeletons) and the Q Shaman on top with his buffalo hat. Warshauer has been putting up elaborate Halloween displays for 22 years now.
(Image source: redditor TexB22)
After the past year and a half, we are all familiar with Zoom meetings, especially for remote work purposes. This skeleton display is more of a "Doom meeting," designed to provoke both laughter and terror. It was spotted in front of Cooper Chiropractic in Wayland, Massachusetts.
(Image credit: Alan Perkins)
That giant 12-foot skeleton looks puny compared to the size of the one trying to bust out of Alan Perkins' house! He's been working on the display since mid-September. Those giant hands and arm bones are carved out of foam, and connected by ligaments made of PVS pipe. See how he made them at Mashable. The display will be complete when he attaches the skull bursting out of the roof!
Update: the skull is now on the roof!
(Image credit: Deana Tyson)
These skeletons are going for a wild ride in the afterlife! Deana Tyson said she was just "using up stuff that has found its home in my garage." That includes lawn flamingos, skeletons, and a hobby horse. Resourcefulness indeed breeds creativity. See more pictures of the display at Facebook.
This skeleton has an upset stomach. Maybe he had too much punch at the Halloween party! Alex Croy of Perrin, Texas, rigged up a life-size skeleton to a water hose, producing a sick fountain. For the video, they tinted the water red, but it could be any color. Croy is participating in a cabin decoration competition leading up to Halloween, when he plans to use the skeleton as a drink dispenser.
Another skeleton has a water source rigged up for a traffic prank. Spotted in the wild, this one had water coming from a different part of what was once its body.
(Image source: redditor zNNS)
It's an older meme, but it checks out. The poor guy just couldn't bring himself to gnaw on candy apples, so he starved to death. You have to wonder if this is a commentary on the treats the neighbors are giving out. Note the bloody handprints on the window and door of the house behind him.
(Image source: redditor TWANGnBANG)
Yuengling’s Brewery in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, has their skeletons doing a keg stand just outside the door. They upstage the crowd of drunk pumpkins below them.
This vignette is relevant to anyone who has undergone a COVID test. Jordan Varner has been busy posing skeletons in different positions every day to bring laughter to the neighborhood.
You can see all of this year's skeleton displays so far at Varner's Instagram gallery.
