As far back as mid-August, weeks before the Halloween displays went up in Home Depot stores, people were already scouring the internet for leads on Dean the Deathologist, the 6-foot-tall, animatronic skeleton bartender — excuse me, mixologist — with a hipster mustache and old-timey bartender garb that fetches a spendy $149.
“Tried to get Dean multiple times both online and in store with no luck until recently,” wrote one customer in an Aug. 11 review on Home Depot’s website. Needless to say, Dean would be joining their home bar year-round, this person added.
“I FOUND HIM!!!!!!” wrote a triumphant r/halloween Reddit user, also on Aug. 11, three days after someone posted asking if anyone knew of Home Depot locations planning to restock Deans anytime soon. Searching past September online or in stores would prove futile; Dean was long since out of stock by early October when I spoke to Home Depot’s senior merchant of decorative holiday, Lance Allen.
Created by holiday decorations manufacturer Seasonal Visions International, Dean debuted in 2022, the latest in a series of animatronic decorations from the home improvement chain that have gone viral. It all started when Home Depot released Skelly, the $300, 12-foot lawn skeleton in the summer of 2020 — a year in which pandemic-lockdown boredom and unspent disposable income collided to spectacularly up the ante on Halloween decorations.
In fact, spending on Halloween decorations is expected to reach $3.9 billion this year, out of a record $12.2 billion in total Halloween spending, according
