NPR.

This is the indicator from Planet Money I'm Whalen Wong and a very happy Halloween.

It is a big holiday for the kids, adults too, and of course the retail company Spirit Halloween.

Every year it's known for taking over abandoned stores and struggling shopping centers around

the country with its Halloween pop-ups.

Our friends at NPR's it's been a minute just did an excellent episode about how the

company came to be.

So we are bringing that to you today.

It's part capitalist success story, part cultural narrative, and a history of how one store

became a kind of grim reaper for American retailers.

After the break, it's been a minute's host Brittany Luce and Planet Money's Kenny

come below tell the tale of Spirit Halloween.

So the story starts with a man named Joe Marver, sometime in the early 80s, and he was the

owner of this struggling store in the Bay Area.

It was a dress store called Spirit Women's Discount Apparel.

Spirit Women's Discount Dress Apparel.

Just Spirit Women's Discount Apparel.

Oh sorry.

I'm so sorry I messed up that confusing series of words.

Yes.

I wouldn't say that the name of the store was optimized, but just you wait, his lung is

going to change.

...