This guy loves all things Halloween

From X-entertainment, 'I knew something felt off about this year's Halloween season. Cynics might say that it's because I started celebrating it in early September, but I do that every year, and it's never felt "off" before. Truth is, it's about soda. Plain and simple. Soda. A few months ago, word spread that Pepsi wouldn't be revamping its "Mountain Dew Pitch Black" brand for a third year, quietly annihilating the souls of millions who'd come to rely on Pitch Black as a seasonal icon just as important as the jack o' lantern.

Two years ago, Pepsi made a splash with a pair of special holiday beverages meant to tie in with 2004's Halloween and Christmas seasons. Christmas got Pepsi Holiday Spice, which was essentially regular Pepsi with liquefied gingerbread men inside. I didn't like drinking it, but was glad it existed.

More personally affecting was their contribution to the Halloween season. The original Mountain Dew Pitch Black was an incredible way to turn something as mundane as drinking soda into a true Halloween hat-tip. Keep it mind, Pepsi didn't slap bat graphics on the labels or anything; Pitch Black's connection was more subtle. The "black grape" upgrade to Mountain Dew was as dark in color as its name suggested, and it seemed just eerie enough to christen as the official beverage for everyone obsessed with blood, guts and candy.

The original Pitch Black performed well enough to warrant a sequel in 2005 -- Mountain Dew Pitch Black II, which shared its elder brother's menacing packaging, but modified the formula with a big blast of sour flavoring. People seemed to like the sourer flavor well enough, but the drink was grossly mismarketed. Pepsi erroneously peddled Pitch Black II in a "YO DORM KIDDZZZ U GOTS TO GET-A-LOAD O' DIS" fashion, either confusing or alienating the rest of us to the point where every sip was tainted with thoughts of beer pong and "shocker" hand gestures.

Whether you want to blame public apathy or bad marketing, Pitch Black II was not a success. There would be no Pitch Black III. The thought of that depressed the hell out of me, because as hard as Jones Soda tries with their Halloween assortments, it's just not the same as seeing one of the soda industry's cornerstones admit that they're down with the devil.

I'd like to think that our collective grape tears caused a miracle, because lo and behold, Mountain Dew Pitch Black is BACK.

Sort of.

Target department stores have been a hot topic over on the blog lately, not because Target was the setting for 95% of the terrible 1991 film Career Opportunities, but because the place is truly the world's Halloween Headquarters. Target makes sure they have everything, with as much Halloween stuff exclusive to their stores as junk you can find everywhere else. Every department store gets a Halloween section, but Target's are the only ones that guarantee purchases pretty much every time a Halloween nut enters one. Much of what you've already seen during X-E's Halloween coverage came from Target, and much of what you will continue to see during X-E's Halloween coverage came from Target. I feel like they should be paying me.

I'm there like, every other day during the Halloween season. While we have a nearby and recently-opened Target store, I usually drive twenty minutes into Jersey, where the store is bigger, cleaner and not filled with people I may or may not have gone to high school with. It's the closest thing to a "night out" that me and the woman get on weekdays, and yeah, she's pissed about that.

Department store eateries have become a thing of the past for me, because they've grown to be so well-lit that I can't stand dining in them. If I'm going to down tacos or pizza or some other form of shaped grease, I don't want to feel like I'm on a runway. Still, on Wednesday of last week, we zipped there right after work without having dinner first, and if there was any hope of dinner, it was going to come from Target's in-store restaurant, which had a clever name that I guess wasn't clever enough for me to remember.

The restaurant had one kitchen, but still managed to be a Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and Generic Hot Dog Vendor all rolled into one. We opted for the Chihuahua, because department store Taco Bells tend to use shells three times larger than regular Taco Bells, and it's too much of a mindfuck to resist. Even when they're handing you the tray, the staff gives you a look and a wink that clearly says, "Boy, your mind is going to be blown when you see how big our taco shells are." I mean holy shit.

So, we're sitting there eating, shamelessly moving to different tables to avoid families that decided to seat their screaming children next to us, and I'm feeling kind of full and kind of tired, and I was kind of wondering if it was normal to rush home from work to go buy rubber skeletons from a department store one state over. By the time I got around to determining that I was eating taco shells large enough to translate ancient texts onto in dragon's blood, I think I was a little on the sad side. Then I looked up, and I wasn't sad anymore. I will forever look up much more often. Check it one time...

ICEE machines always catch my eye. I hadn't had an ICEE in years, but as a kid, the only department store in town was K-Mart, and so long as I got an ICEE out of it, I didn't mind having to wait around for my mother to choose new pillowcases. I still think ICEEs are the best of all slush drinks -- better than Slurpees, better than Slush Puppies and better than those bootleg fruity sludges your local pizza joint pushes whenever the boss confuses himself with an entrepreneur.

This particular machine lacked the typical spinning giant prop ICEE cup on top, but it had something so much better than that. It had something so much blacker than that. It had something so much Mountainer Dewer Pitcher Blacker than that.

Yes, it's true, Mountain Dew Pitch Black is BACK...in ICEE Freeze form. It's not the same as getting a Pitch Black III in cans and bottles, but I will absolutely TAKE IT.

How this happened, I don't know, but I'd like to believe that Pepsi went to ICEE and said, "Look dudes, we're fucking with a small but loyal fanbase by kicking the Pitch Black brand in the river like so many Blair Witch maps, and we need some help on a consolatory level." They probably wouldn't have worded it just like that, only because Pepsi's campaign pitchmen are known for the ol' Short Intense Sentence trick. "Three words. Pitch Black Freeze. Three more. We both TRIUMPH!"

Since ICEE is fronted by a rather take-it-as-it-comes polar bear who prefers snowsurfing to laboring over business decisions, the company went for it, and we now have the closest thing to a 2006 Mountain Dew Pitch Black that we'll ever get.'