Welcome to 2026's 31 Days of Heistoween, a daily dose of spooky icons, spine-tingling oddities, and — most harrowing of all — memes. Check back every day from now through October 31 for each daily entry!
Round about September 1, I feel a stirring, an awakening in my soul. In Texas it's still surface-of-the-sun hot when Labor Day rolls around, but September means October is coming, and Halloween with it. It's time, my heart tells me, to begin Getting Into The Spirit.
Everyone does this differently. Some people put their Halloween decorations out early, some start scary movie marathons, others just go get a Pumpkin Spice Latte and call it a day. For me, though, it all starts with a song. A song about skeletons.
Like so many alt-comedy fans, I am enamored with I Think You Should Leave With Tim Robinson. I love nearly all of its deeply weird sketches, most of which are about the world and society at large trying to just get on with their day while a crazy person persists on being crazy. It's a simple formula, but the character work behind it produces hilarious results, and for me those results peak with "The Day Robert Palins Murdered Me."
The sketch is a simple Walk The Line parody. A band goes in to impress a record executive, the lead singer says "follow my lead" and launches into a classic country tune about a shooting in a Western town. He gets a few bars in, and the bass player (Robinson) decides he wants to make up lyrics too.
Folks, barely a week goes by in this life that I don't sing "IT WAS ALSO THE NIGHT THAT SKELETONS CAME TO LIIIIIIIIIIFE" softly to myself. Why does this bass player want to sing about skeletons? Has he been working on these lyrics for weeks? Was the diversion to making the song about how the skeletons use bones and worms as money always part of the plan? Why do the skeletons need food? I don't know but I am enraptured.
This isn't even technically a Halloween sketch, but over the last few years it's become an indispensable part of the season for me. I own more skeleton decorations than I once did because of it. It signals to my brain that Halloween is here, and the silly song that I used to sing to myself can once again be shared with the world.
Because, after all, they just want another chance at life.
They've never seen so much food as this.
Underground there's half as much food as this.
Come knock on our door tomorrow for even more 31 Days of Heistoween treats.
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