The success of the first Friday the 13th film had the studio eager to get a sequel out quickly. Some thought was given to making this into an anthology series, but it was eventually decided that this movie should feature Jason. That's right, the kid who drowned which caused his mother to seek revenge. The kid whose only appearance in the first film was as a hallucination. Sure, why not?

   From this point on, Jason Voorhees would be the star of the franchise. Even in the one where he was dead, he was still something of a MacGuffin. However, this was a different Jason than the one we're all used to now. This early version of Jason made the most sense, though. Knowing the story of Jason as was told in the first film, and accepting for the moment that he didn't really drown, this portrayal is what I would expect the character to be. The changes to the character were gradual, but noticeable. Even maniacal killers develop and grow as people over time, I guess.

   I was still pretty young when this was released, so I don't recall if it had been revealed that Jason was to be featured or even if there was any speculation to that effect. I do recall that I was aware of this fact when I first watched it on home video, and I was looking forward to seeing Jason in action. Knowing the character that he would become, the series was on part six at the time, I was a bit confused by this early appearance of Jason. For all I knew this could be misdirection, maybe this wasn't Jason. By the end it was clear, however, though some confusion remained. But let's start at the beginning...

   Back in the 1990s sometime, I walked into a record store with some friends. The store was Hyde and Zeke Records in Gainesville, Florida, and as they normally did, they had a record playing on their turntable. The record was simply titled Great Phone Calls. This wasn't a music record, but an album of crank calls someone made, and it was hilarious.

   The most popular crank callers of that era were the Jerky Boys. Their stuff was funny, some of it even hilarious, but at the same time it was rather silly. Great Phone Calls took crank call albums to a whole new level. Instead of a circus full of crazy characters, this record keeps it simple. The characters making the calls are not cartoonish like the Jerky Boys, instead you have a guy who really wants to join your band or a guy who needs a pizza made according to his very specific dietary restrictions. The humor is more confrontational than absurd.

   The creator is not credited on the album, at least not on the original edition, but it has since been revealed to be Gregg Turkington. Gregg is also the man behind comedian Neil Hamburger, a character we find an early version of on this album. Turkington not only gives us an entertaining album of crank calls, this album also serves as a guide to what makes a good crank call. So for reasons not even completely known to myself, I shall now examine each of the phone calls on this album, one by one, and see what makes them great...

     Originally, this article was one of those ranked-worst-to-best things, but that shit is tired. Instead I'm going to go year by year and talk about what makes these good or not so good.

     Hallowicked had its start in 1994 as the Hallowicked Clown Show, put on by the Insane Clown Posse on Halloween night. Every year, ICP gives away an exclusive single, or sometimes an EP, to the show's attendees. This event has been going on for over 25 years now, and in honor of over a quarter century of this event, I will give a critique of all of these releases so far, and I might throw in a little history, too.

     I have never attended one of these events. They usually happen in Detroit while I lived all the way down in Florida. I have to obtain one of these CDs second hand if I want to hear it, so I always get to hear these a little after the fact. These critiques are purely my opinion as to what makes for a "good" Hallowicked song. As an audio engineer, I might get picky about some of the production, but mostly it will be from a listener perspective, or at least that is my intent. Elements that I am looking for include the song actually being Halloween related, the quality of the lyrics, the "wickedness" of the beats, and the overall quality of the song.

    Most of these releases are singles, with each cassette or CD containing only one song. Several of them contain more than one song, usually an ICP song followed by one or two from other Psychopathic artists. A couple of them contain the back catalog of Hallowicked songs up to that point. One is almost a full length album of songs from the Psychopathic roster.

Starting at the beginning...