Halloween Horror Nights

History
Halloween Horror Nights is an annual event celebrating Halloween. It is held every year at Universal Studios in Hollywood, California and Orlando, Florida. Held in the evenings, Halloween Horror Nights takes place after regular park hours and is hosted throughout late September and the entire month of October. The event includes live shows, haunted houses, "scare zones" and film screenings. Each year, Halloween Horror Nights advertizes itself under a specific theme such as classic horror, movie maniacs, etc. The first Halloween Horror Nights was held in 1991 under the name "Fright Nights" and was held in a single haunted house in the main park at Universal Studios. In later years, as the event grew in size, scope and popularity, the venue changed to Universal's Islands of Adventure park beginning in 2002.

As described on the official website:

"On select nights in September and October, Universal Studios Florida theme park is transformed into a nightmarish labyrinth of haunted houses, outrageous live shows and electrifying scare zones while an army of mutants, monsters and maniacs roam the darkened studio streets."

Halloween Horror Nights has amassed a number of icons, six of which were original creations by the Universal Design team. These icons were characters with elaborate back stories that involved the event's theme, houses, or scarezones. Predominantly they have been used for promotional materials and merchandising. The first unofficial icon was the Cryptkeeper, from TV's Tales from the Crypt, a series popular at the time of his first event appearance: The Cryptkeeper returned the next year, but didn't return after as the series had been canceled. After the Cryptkeeper came four years of the event without an icon, until the design team created one for the tenth year.