Making of "Twik or Tweet"

My youngest has always been a huge fan of Halloween, even before he really understood the concept.  On his first go trick or treating he'd "Twik or Tweet!" just about anything and wait expectantly for candy.  It was absolutely adorable and I you can bet I wrote it down!  The problem was, what to do with it?  It was cute, but needed an ending!  If you thought this comic's punchline was quite Grisley-esk, it's because J came up with the answer!

With the ending in sight, they needed Halloween costumes.  This situation is always a bit weird because I'm Simpsoning things by keeping everyone the same age, but how does that work for yearly events?  Technically I feel like they should always be in the same costumes, but that's no fun! :)  Our family was doing a Mario theme this year with me as Bowsette (a fan made cross of Bowser and Princess Peach), J as Luigi and 6yo as King Boo.  9yo as usual wanted to do his own thing, so he was his own OC -The Alchemist!  That wouldn't quite work for the comic, so I made Vince a Shy Guy.  I wanted to have Cooper as King Boo, but his Halloween bucket would have covered up the face, so I opted for instantly recognizable Mario instead.

I played around a lot with the panel layouts.  I needed to make it obvious Cooper was consistently doing this throughout the night.  I made the Halloween decoration in panel 1 an animal version of one of 6yos fav Spirit Halloween decorations; Mr Dark!  

The bird in panel 3 started out as a woodpecker, but his red coloring was getting muddled with Marios.  Cooler colors would be better to pick him out from Coop and Fran, so I shortened his beak and made him a Blue Jay instead.  I knew I'd get some "That's Mordecai from Regular Show!" comments, but I was fine with that.  What I didn't realize was quite how eerily close I made him with the sweater color and ghost kid! Like, seriously... how weird is this?!  I have never seen this episode!

The last line was going to be "That escalated quickly!", but J said that was too obviously Ron Burgundy!

It's hard with these things because would I be "stealing" a joke, or would Fran just be referencing Anchorman?  J suggested I change it to "That got out of hand fast", which is actually what Ron says next, but isn't as famous.  Still not sure I made the right call on that one, but I don't want people to think I'm a thief!