Spirit Halloween fires back at ‘SNL’ in cheeky way

Jack Aylmer

“We don’t see a dead end town. We don’t see an abandoned K-Mart. We see a Spirit. A Spirit Halloween.”

This past weekend, Saturday Night Live took a cheeky shot at Spirit Halloween, the spooky retailer that may have created the idea of a month-long pop-up.

“And costumes of famous characters, tweaked just enough to avoid a lawsuit.”

But spirit had jokes of its own playing off the popular meme referenced in the parody.

The official X account of Spirit Halloween did a quote post of the Sketch with the caption “We are great at raising things back from the dead.”

In the image there’s a costume package that reads “Irrelevant 50-year-old TV show,” which includes: “Dated references, Unknown Cast Members, and shrinking ratings.”

“Welcome to the Carnevil”

Spirit Halloween stores open at the end of the summer and take over spaces in “strip centers and malls across North America.”

Stores started opening at the end of August, and this year, the company says there will be a total 1,525 Spirit Halloween stores featuring a special carnival theme.

Halloween spending is expected to reach a total of $11.6 billion this year according to the National Retail Federation.

Candy accounts for $3.5 billion of that while Costumes and Decorations, Spirit’s bread and butter, account for $3.8 billion each.

Spirit is taking a big chunk of that too. Spirit raked in $1.1 billion in revenue in 2023 according to employment recruiters Zippia.

The store is owned and operated by Spencers, an equally puzzling mall staple that sells everything from lava lamps to lewd t-shirts, which brings in a reported $4.3 billion in revenue annually.

SNL just premiered it’s 50th season amid a contentious presidential election while this will be Spirit Halloween’s 41st season taking over empty circuit city locations.