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DAVID BERTOLINO has been described as a combination of Walt Disney and Stephen King. Throw in PT Barnum and you’re getting closer.  A producer, writer, and entrepreneur, he is first and foremost a showman. Bertolino was already a legend in the costume industry when he single-handedly transformed Halloween from a night of trick-or-treating into a season like Christmas. As a teen, he worked in his family’s iconic Little Jack Horner Joke and Magic Shop in downtown Boston. 

 

He then ​left Little Jack Horner to start his own business supplying “head shops” with the totems of 60s and 70s pop culture, returned to open a wholesale Halloween and costume division. As sales manager of Rubie’s Costumes, the largest Halloween costume and accessories maker and its upscale division, Charades. He was given the unofficial title of “Hauntrepreneur.” 

 

For a dozen years, Bertolino ran and was spokesman for Spookyworld, appearing in hundreds of newspapers and magazine articles, including the Boston Globe, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today, and radio and television interviews on shows including The Today Show, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, and Entertainment Tonight.

 

David Bertolino has pioneered the Halloween megastore concept, written and produced off-Broadway plays in New York and Los Angeles, and with his wife, Cindy, now runs a mini-backlot for film and video shoots. He is also the subject of the exciting documentary Spooktacular!, set for release in 2025.