Halloween, Why We Like Scares, Giant Pumpkin, Clowns

Halloween Trends Guest: Trisha Lombardo, PR Manager for Spirit Halloween How many trips to the Halloween store have you made already? The National Retail Federation estimates Americans will spend an average of $83 a person this year on costumes, candy, decorations and cards. That’s by far the biggest spending figure since the National Retail Federation started surveying people about their Halloween plans 11 years ago. We take this holiday very seriously, it seems. And it’s obviously big business, which explains why, about 20 years ago, we started seeing stores dedicated exclusively to Halloween pop up in empty warehouses or big-box retail spaces around the middle of September.  The ubiquity of these pop-up Halloween shops helps explain why you’re bound to see some trends in the parade of people coming to your door tonight.  What Scares Us, Why, and Why Do We Like It? Guest: Margee Kerr, PhD, Scare Specialist, Social Science Faculty, Robert Morris University, The University of Pittsburgh, and Chatham University Some people really love the spooky side of Halloween – the ghoulish costumes and haunted houses. Others are not. Why is it that some love the rush of a good fright and others don’t?  Growing a Giant Pumpkin Guest: Ed Dennis, award-winning Giant Pumpkin Farmer Pumpkins are big this time of year. And I mean big. The winner in this year’s Utah Giant Pumpkin contest weighed in at 1, 491 pounds. That’s three quarters of a ton. These vegetable weigh-off events are quite the experience. You’ll see tomatoes the size of a baby, watermelons heavier than a full-grown man, and Gourds taller than a basketball player. But, the pumpkins are the true stars.  Why Clowns Give Us the Creeps Guest: Frank McAndrew, PhD, Knox College, Professor of Psychology  Somewhere in America over the next 24 hours, there will be a creepy clown sighting. There’s been a rash of them across the country in the last month, tailor-made for Halloween. What is it about clowns that creeps out so many people? Believe it or not, someone has actually studied the science of creepiness.  Inferno and Jack Reacher Guest: Shawn O’Neill, Movie Reviewer  A literary take on the dark side is in theaters now. Inferno stars Tom Hanks as Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon in this latest from the Da Vinci Code series.   Frankenstein Organs Guest: Mike Alder, Director of the Office Technology Transfer; Lon Cook, PhD, Professor of Chemical Engineering, BYU We all know the story of Dr. Frankenstein and his monster. But is creating life from death scientifically possible? One chemical engineering professor, here at BYU, is working on creating functioning organs from stem cells in his laboratory.