I don’t know whose idea it was (probably mine) to host each of our school-aged daughters’ annual Halloween parties on the same night. In previous years, we had held them on separate evenings so that each could invite 15-20 of their friends over to the house for some old-school Halloween fun with costumes, games, food and crafts. 

But for whatever reason, that year we decided to have both parties on the same night, totaling about 40 kids at our house- all at once! It really was two separate parties. Twenty guests for each of our two daughters. 

My wife and I had scheduled the activities so that each of us was in charge of certain events, and the groups of kids just rotated from one activity to the next according to our timeline. 

Everything was going great, until my “Polyjuice Potion” activity in the basement ran short, and I couldn’t send the kids up to the third floor to my wife yet, because the activity she was running with her group of kids hadn’t ended yet.

I was desperate to entertain everyone before they got out of control, so I grabbed a broken, old, “for decoration only” guitar from the corner, and improvised a song so simple and lyrically inept that I can’t believe it actually worked!

I led the kids around the room in a free style circle dance while we all sang this brand new, spontaneous Halloween song until it was time for them to head upstairs.

The song was an instant hit at the party and an instant joke in my house. We brought it back every year, and many years later (2023) I decided to make a “serious” recording of it, in the same basement where it was born out of desperation years ago.

The song is called “It’s Halloween”, and just for fun, it’s available on most streaming platforms under the name of my musical alter ego, Jimmy Schnitzel.  

Why Jimmy Schnitzel?

I loved doing dumb stunts and making up goofy songs for my kids when they were growing up, and I love that they still remember them and even sing them sometimes. Jimmy Schnitzel was the name I used for myself whenever I was doing ridiculous stuff to make the kids laugh, so it seems only natural to release these nonsense songs under his name. There are probably close to two dozens short tunes that qualify as Schnitzel material, but right now only two have been recorded- “It’s Halloween”, and the even more ridiculous Thanksgiving song, “Eat Yer Turkey.”

But wait- one holiday at a time! Since Halloween is coming soon, I hope you’ll give “It’s Halloween” a listen, and won’t judge me too seriously or confuse my more serious musical efforts with those of a Dad trying to make his kids laugh.

Visit Five O’Clock Shadow for more of Todd’s writing, and check out his musical projects at toddfulginiti.com.