The Little Spirits of Halloween’ [Exclusive]

While AJ LoCascio may claim to not know which film or television series served as his Halloween gateway as a child, the actor is quick to name the movie that helped to shape the main character of his debut children’s book, SPOOPS: The Little Spirits of Halloween. Of course, like any true millennial, one of Disney’s most iconic movies captivated LoCascio. “I just love Dani from Hocus Pocus. She’s one of my favorite characters ever.” He shared as we chatted over Zoom. “You could see, very much so, when I was instructing Laurie [Conley] to draw, I was like, ‘More like Dani from Hocus Pocus.’ You can see a lot of influence from Hocus Pocus in her designs.”

The main character of the 72-page illustrated fable is a young girl named Holly Hollowell who loves Halloween. However, her parents are dentists who are totally against any event that promotes tooth-rotting sweets, which puts a serious damper on her Halloween merriment. At least until the Spoops arrive to deliver the spirit of Halloween. The true spirit of Halloween, which is, of course, not about the candy, but rather the joy of expressing yourself and embracing all things fun and spooky.

“I was obsessed with the stuff,” LoCascio recalled of Halloween as a child. “The orange, and the candy, and the cider, and the pumpkin picking. I was just so drawn to the aesthetic of it.” He made note of a particularly strong memory of getting cupcakes with candy corn on them, “I love candy corn. I know a lot of people hate it. As a kid, I wanted candy corn all the time because I was so obsessed with that buttercream taste. So I associated it with Halloween.”

The youthful innocence of candy corn-covered cupcakes and dressing up like Indiana Jones is ever-present in the playful joy that LoCascio has created with SPOOPS. Long before there was a forthcoming children’s book, “The Spoops” were merely Halloween decorations created for LoCasico’s personal entertainment. Now, the original baker’s dozen of delightfully spooky creations has spawned into a highly sought-after jamboree of autumnal critters that adorn mantles, shelves, and year-round displays around the world. As he explained:

“The thing that I was unconsciously doing with The Spoops was, there’s a soft side to Halloween. There’s a sweet side and a cuteness to Halloween. You go to the Target Halloween section and it’s like, ‘There’s a bird with a hat!’ and it’s like, ‘Okay, yeah, that’s cute.’ But it’s not something that people really talk about. So, for me, there was this sort of desire to pinpoint that. And it’s not just the sweetness, but also the creativity that comes with Halloween.”

The Spoops Remind Us of a Time We All Long For Again

As rushing sorority girls pay homage to chevron patterns and Chuck Taylors on TikTok and Twitter (never X) debates the pros and cons of stomp clap folk music, SPOOPS: The Little Spirits of Halloween reminds us of the glory days when pumpkin spice lattes were a novelty and Hulu was free.

“I was obsessed with several artists on Tumblr that I kept coming across. One of my favorite artists ever was — Pumpkin Rot — who was making these giant, terrifying sculptures.” LoCascio reminisced as we discussed the invention of The Spoops. “I was like, ‘Man, I wish I could do that,’ but I did not have the space to make a thing like that. I was like, ‘Well, I can compromise and make these little creatures for my desk. So that’s how it started. I just started sculpting little things for my desk and for me.” He went on to say:

“I only made two or three of them. And then at some point, I took a photo of them and put them on my Instagram and just kind of forgot about it. But then, once Voltron blew up, people went through my Instagram and started grabbing things and posting it on Tumblr. And that specific picture, people were like, ‘What are these? How do I get these?’ I was like, ‘They’re just things I made.’ At first, I was like, ‘Try to make your own.’ I was trying to encourage people to create their own, and people were not having that. So I wound up teaching myself how to cast in resin and made like 13 of them, I think, at the time, and then sold those. Those sold out really quickly, and I was like, ‘Maybe try 30,’ and then those sold out really fast. And I was like, ‘Maybe I’ll do 100,’ and then those sold out.”

It was then that LoCascio realized, like Dr. Frankenstein, his creations needed a name. “People kept saying they were ‘spoopy.’ Like, ‘Oh, they’re Spoops!’ That just stuck. I think it’s even on my Instagram — the least magical place.” He laughed and quickly donned a series of voices befitting of his illustrious voice acting career to reenact a fictitious scenario. “This is like when people are like, ‘Mom and dad, how did you meet?’ It’s like, ‘Oh, we met through Tinder.’ You know, like it’s not as charming as, like, ‘Well, I saw her go by in a whole strong buggy.’ But it’s the genesis or the creation of the name Spoops. I believe it is up on Instagram still, where someone was like, ‘What are these called?’ And I said, ‘I don’t know, Spoops?’ So it just kind of stuck. It felt appropriate.” Perhaps that’s why The Spoops are so appealing to Halloween aficionados who yearn for the crisp falls of a decade past, when “spoopy” entered the lexicon and better days were just within reach.

It would still take a few more years for the genesis of SPOOPS: The Little Spirits of Halloween, however. LoCascio credits his Voltron co-star Josh Keaton for being one of the first people to help him realize that his sculptures were meant for more than just desk adornment. “Every time I saw him, he’d be like, ‘God, turn Spoops into a book.’ I just ran into him a week ago and told him this. I was like, ‘Dude, when I’m doing press for Spoops now, you come up all the time.’ Josh is a sweetheart, and he’s partially responsible for this. He was one of the people pushing me. I had other friends too, but he’s who I remember the most as being like, ‘You have to do something with this beyond sculptures.’”

As he started to plan out the book, LoCascio took inspiration from one of his own biggest fears as a kid: missing out on Halloween. “I was always afraid I’d sleep through it, or get sick, or something would happen that would prevent me from celebrating Halloween. It was a genuine fear. I don’t remember how it began, but that was the beginning of it in many ways. ‘What would it be like to miss out on Halloween through most of your life, especially when you’re obsessed with it?’ That’s a problem for the Spoops to solve.”

‘SPOOPS’ Presented AJ L oCascio With an Impossible Decision

“It was really hard,” LoCascio admitted when asked about how he decided which of his clever creations would make it onto the pages of his fable. “I mean, God, I don’t know. I think I just, I think in the, in the initial first drafts, I just sort of generically addressed them as Spoops like, ‘And then this Spoop did this and this Spoop did that.’ But then it became apparent that I couldn’t keep holding on to all of them and then expect Laurie to illustrate whatever. So I had to choose, I think 13 is the number.” He was quick to second-guess himself on that final spoopy number.

“No, I don’t know if I stuck to that. Some might come in and out. But I knew I had to sort of go, ‘Okay, what does an owl Spoop do in this situation? Or what does the witch ghost Spoop do?’ Having to attribute specific tasks to each of them forced me to narrow it down. There were some — like the stump Spoop — that I thought would be funny just to have. It’s just a stump, and it doesn’t really do much. I thought it’d be funny to be like, ‘And then there was the stump, they were just happy to be included.’”

He continued, after a brief diversion to show off my very own Spoop (the plague doctor, of course), “It was really just a very painful narrowing down process. I knew the pumpkin was going to be the focal point because that was the first one I had done. The turnip was almost the main character, too. But I remember people being like, ‘I don’t get it.’ I’d be like, ‘Well, turnips were the first jack-o-lanterns.’ I realized that I’d have to explain that throughout the duration of this, and that was just too much. But I do love the turnip, and they do play a role. It was hard. I don’t know. It was honestly very, very hard to reject others, and be like, ‘Sorry, not this time.’”

After LoCascio gave Spoops the classic actor’s letdown, I pressed him about the prospects of a next time. “I have been sort of softly working on some ideas,” he revealed. “But we’ll see if this book is successful. I’d love to do more. There are definitely things that were discarded from the book that I was like, ‘Oh, it’d be nice to do something with this.’ But I don’t know, we’ll see whether there’s a need for it or a want for it. But then I’ll have to panic and come up with more ideas.”

SPOOPS: The Little Spirits of Halloween hits bookstands everywhere on August 12. Pre-order your copy today.