HALLOWEEN HOWL

The Manitoba Children's Museum will have spook-tacular activities starting Friday. (LINDA BERNETTE / FREE PRESS)

Children's Museum, 45 Forks Market Rd. First program Friday, 6:30 p.m. $20 per person at childrensmuseum.com

YOU don't see enough mad scientists anymore. Even in the 1990s, it seems weekend TV in October was lousy with Frankensteins, Frank-N-Furter, Hydes, Moreaus and Doc Browns.

Maybe scientific inventors no longer spook us the way they used to, or maybe be our fears have moved on to tech bros in our Black Mirror era of AI empires.

In any case, there's a fun, refreshing vapour of mad science to the Children's Museum's family-friendly Halloween Howl program this year, which starts Friday and runs five times between then and Halloween afternoon. (Check the website for full details about dates and times.)

They're advertising "spook-tacular" STEM activities, courtesy of the University of Winnipeg's Let's Talk Science, and sciency stuff like homemade oobleck, a sensory station and a collaborative glow-in-the-dark mural. Halloween need not be educational — there's all night for trick-or-treating — but why not have our candy and eat it too?

Halloween Howl also features DJ Mama Cutsworth and animal friends from Wildlife Haven Rehabilitation Centre. Costumes are optional, but this might be a good time to dig up that green gunk-splattered lab coat and prop coke bottle glasses for your youngest.

— Conrad Sweatman