Tricked Out Treats

It's that time of year again. A chill is in the air, and green leaves are slowing turning to shades of red, gold and orange. The stores are filled with bags of mini-candies (did Dr. Evil zap them with a shrink ray or something? When I was a kid, we got full size candy!). And it's that time when Walmart and Target slug it out over who has the best Hot Wheels Halloween cars. Not that avid collectors care. They just buy both. I'm not quite an avid collector, in part because I don't have the money to buy every single release, so I have to discriminate. But first I had to find the Halloween cars in the first place. As soon as images started hitting the internet, I had my eyes open, but I wasn't finding them. I had expected them to show up in the Hot Wheels aisle alongside all the leftover cars from holidays past. No such luck. Finally, I began to wonder if I might find them in the seasonal section of the store. That made more sense, I supposed, but I couldn't seem to find Target's seasonal section. Walmart had theirs right up front, so I did a quick walk through. Sure enough, there they were. I later found Target's 5-packs too, but I had to go to the back corner of the store to do it. Nice placement, guys (sarcasm intended).

So who has the best cars this year? I think the clear winner for 2010 is Target. For example, take the Torpedo Jones car. Walmart's version varies, but is generally meant to be orange with light torquoise metalic and a gray driver. These colors look a bit cheesy in my opinion. I bought it, but wound up selecting one that has so much black added to the engine area that it looks all black. Even the pipework is black on the bottom. This makes for a better contrast with the orange. But there is no help for the gray driver who doesn't look nearly ghost-like enough once you've seen Target's version.

What' the deal? Did Walmart lose a coin toss or something? Why couldn't both stores have used a transparent driver since the cars colors are different? Speaking of which, the dark blue, yellow, slime green and chrome looks much crisper and classier. Well done, Target! From there, the news just gets worse for Walmart. Target's Phantasm is an appropriately eerie transparent slime green. And Walmart's? Well...

Just doesn't have the same impact, does it? Though kudos are in order for picking reasonably attractive colors (even if tropical blue just doesn't say "Halloween" to me) and for placing the cool, extra-large ghost on the hood. The Gov'ner looks cheesy no matter which store it comes from, but at least Target's version is orange with red windows, not the far less Halloween-y green with blue windows.

Target's Cadillac Funny Car is flat black with orange and yellow while Walmart's is purple with green and yellow. Those colors work well for Halloween, but they just don't work as well as those of the Target version. Maybe they could have tried a midnight purple or something. And don't even get me started on the Urban Agent, a Walmart exclusive. I just can't make myself like that car. And then there is Rodzilla, which I wanted desperately to go along with my other creature-inspired cars. I hadn't been around for it's earlier incarnations, and I refused to drop $3 for the color-change version. I had hoped that Walmart would have a version of it in something more impressive than red -- maybe black with red eyes and shiny chrome teeth. But it turned out to be exclusive to Target, and the red, though very plastic-looking, is acceptable. Walmart does hit one home run with the very creepy Low Flow which resembles the Aliens that Sigourney Weaver repeatedly fought crossed with some sort of prehistoric slug from hell. And it's a Walmart exclusive. Well done, Walmart! That said, Walmart's holiday cars run $2 apiece. Target's 5-pack is $5. Victory Target. At that price, you could give out Hot Wheels cars to all the trick or treaters who come to your door and eat all the candy yourself. That's what happens to most of the candy being sold 4 weeks before Halloween anyway, right?