Ernie Lost His Head: KIDULT's Pumpkin-Slasher Bert & Ernie Lands a TPC Top 5 Nomination

Ernie Lost His Head: KIDULT's Pumpkin-Slasher Bert & Ernie Lands a TPC Top 5 Nomination

Sesame Street was never supposed to look like this. Stevan Nikolic — KIDULT (@kidult_1983) — turned Bert & Ernie into a Halloween slasher scene, and ToyPic Community (@toypic_community) put it in front of the whole community: featured on October 6 and entered into TPC's weekly Top 5 contest.

KIDULT's Halloween Bert and Ernie horror toy photo — pumpkin-headed Ernie with a cleaver holding Bert's head, nominated for ToyPic Community Top 5. Photo: @kidult_1983

Photo: @kidult_1983

The Shot

This is a horror movie still that escaped from a children's show. Ernie's striped-shirt body stands in moody low light with a glowing jack-o'-lantern where his head should be — the pumpkin lit from inside, a real practical glow bleeding out through the carved grin. In one hand, a bloody cleaver. In the other, held up like a trophy, Bert's severed head.

The staging is what sells it. Ernie's own head sits blurred in the foreground, soft and out of focus, while the monster behind it stays sharp — a depth trick that puts the innocence in front of you and the horror in command of the frame. Practical smoke curls through the scene instead of a digital haze, and the low light does the rest. No gore for gore's sake: it's composition, patience, and one perfectly carved pumpkin. Pure Halloween toy photography craft from @kidult_1983.

The Nomination

On October 6, 2026, ToyPic Community (@toypic_community) featured the photo and entered it into the weekly TPC Top 5 contest, nominated by @tpc_plus. The format was simple and brutal: 1 Like = 1 Vote, with the Top 5 announced on Friday, October 9. At last check, the TPC post stood at 137 likes and 40 comments — a Halloween Sesame Street nightmare holding its own against the best toy photographers in the community.

Go see it and drop a like: the original TPC post. Every like on that post was a vote in the contest, and the shot earns every single one of them.

'Get Poppin (feat. KIDULT)' official cover art: Deadpool and April O'Neil in a rooftop scene.
His featured single: 'Get Poppin (feat. KIDULT)' — the official cover. Cover art — Epic Toy Sound.

KIDULT's Run With Epic Toy Sound

October has been KIDULT's month on the music side too. He is the featured artist on Epic Toy Sound's "Get Poppin", released October 16, 2026 — "Get Poppin (feat. KIDULT)" is available at Toys and Beats as a digital download, built for toy photographers, editors and creators who want a track they are allowed to use. The same week, his Punisher Horror Collab was spotlighted right here in this series. A Top 5 nomination on the photo side and a featured release on the audio side, in the same run — that is the model working exactly the way it is supposed to: the photographers are the artists.

More spotlights, drops and downloads land daily at toysandbeats.com.

Music credit: produced by Ronnie Desiderio (@myboyronnied) of Epic Toy Sound / Zillion Records.