THE DEAD AND THE RED

Here we have plastic skull and devil heads which were originally stuck atop containers of candy and sold to children. Man could not conceive of a more effective way to trivialize the concepts of death and evil.

To be accurate, the products in the photo were probably made from candy topper molds, but these were sold together and marketed as knick knacks to hang from your hot rod's rear view mirror. Here's an artist's rendering as it appeared in a 1967 comic book ad...


And here's a look at the twosome from a 1959 novelty supply catalog...


But the nifty thing about this diabolic pair is that the little horned guy was the basis for one of the coolest props from one of the coolest shows in television history...


A Twilight Zone episode called Nick of Time centered around an eerily accurate coin-operated fortune teller known as The Mystic Seer. The bewitching mechanism lures a fresh faced Willam Shatner into a maddening obsession...

The winking imp gave the machine a real sense of personality, and the rubber head easily bested Shatner's acting. From what I've read, the Twilight Zone prop guys sculpted their own latex head based on a Halloween candy dispenser. If you've heard enough and find yourself anxious to build your own Mystic Seer, then simply follow these instructions.