New Kooky Spooky Countdown Brings Safe, Scary Fun to Young Podcast Listeners

Three award-winning, family-favorite children’s podcasts - Grimm, Grimmer, Grimmest (Pinna), Unspookable (Soundsington Media), and Dorktales Storytime - are teaming up this October for the Kooky Spooky Countdown, a seasonal, screen-free listening event for families and classrooms everywhere. Participants are challenged to listen to 13 “spooky-ish” podcast episodes to earn rewards, including exclusive congratulatory videos from all three podcast hosts.

The challenge celebrates October’s festivities with safe thrills, playful storytelling, and engaging experiences. It launches on October 2nd and runs until October 31, 2025. Families and classrooms can download the challenge materials at https://jonincharacter.com/kooky-spooky-countdown/.

How It Works

The countdown challenges participants to listen to 13 curated playfully spooky episodes across all three podcasts, mark their progress on a printable tracker, and celebrate their accomplishments with an official certificate, award cards, exclusive host video messages, and a special crossover finale episode featuring Unspookable’s Elise Parisian interview with New York Times bestselling author Adam Gidwitz.

Why It Matters

The Kooky Spooky Countdown Challenge brings the best in family-friendly podcasts together for a seasonal, audio-only experience. It also highlights the educational benefits of podcasts: improving listening skills, strengthening social-emotional growth, and inspiring curiosity about cultural heritage and folklore.

Pull Quotes

"The Kooky Spooky Countdown gives families and classrooms a safe way to explore scary stories, learn about their history and discover the joy of learning that podcasts can bring.”

• Nate DuFort, Founder and Executive Producer of Soundsington Media (Unspookable)

“In scary times throughout history, we have relied on gathering together as a family or a community and listening to tales that tested our courage and showed us a path through the darkness and back to the light. Podcasts are the new oral tradition, and listening with your family is the new campfire. (Though actual campfires are great too.)”

• Adam Gidwitz, Creator and Host of Grimm, Grimmer, Grimmest

"Stories have always been central to spooky traditions. By joining forces, young listeners can share in the magic of each of our podcasts’ storytelling styles.”

• Jonathan Cormur, Co-creator and Host of Dorktales Storytime

About the Podcasts

• Grimm, Grimmer, Grimmest (Pinna)
  It’s Grimm fairy tales like you’ve never heard before! On every episode of Pinna Original Grimm, Grimmer, Grimmest, bestselling author Adam Gidwitz retells a classic fairy tale to a group of inquisitive kids, who anticipate plot twists, crack jokes, and share their own perspectives on these very Grimm stories.

• Unspookable (Soundsington Media)
  Unspookable is a family-friendly podcast that explores the history, brain science, and real-world influences behind spooky stories, myths, and urban legends. Host Elise Parisian takes the scare out of spooky stories by digging into the real history behind them, the cool facts, and why people keep telling them.

• Dorktales Storytime
  Be the hero of your own story with Dorktales Storytime, a podcast for kids and their pop culture loving grownups. Hosts Jonathan Cormur and Mr. Reginald T. Hedgehog share reimagined fairytales and fables with SEL themes, stories of hidden heroes, and wildly imaginative folklore.