The Verge56%

Home Depot’s viral 12-foot skeleton now talks 82%

By Andrew Liszewski99%

7/15/2026, 5:00:00 AM

BS Summary: This article contains 18 faulty reasoning types, including Optimism Bias, Framing Effect, and Appeal to Emotion, with Attempt to Sell a Product or Service as the most egregious example at 100% saturation with 296 hits. Analysis detected 1,182 faulty-reasoning hits from 296 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 73.8% and a BS Rank of 82% (3,956 of 21,887 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 81.90% of the article peer group.

The Home Depot is once again upgrading its 12-foot-tall skeleton to help keep the viral piece of Halloween decor popular as spooky season creeps closer. 
Skelly is borrowing some of the tech introduced in the smaller 6.5-foot Ultra Skelly last year, including letting you speak through the skeleton’s moving mouth using a mobile app. 
The new version of Skelly will be available online starting tomorrow for $379 and in Home Depot’s stores later this summer, along with a new collection of Halloween characters. 
Skelly now includes 20 different animations for its LCD eyes. 
Skelly was last upgraded two years ago with eight different animations for its animated LCD eyes, but the new version bumps that to 20 different options selectable through the app, including animations for celebrating holidays other than Halloween. 
The app can also be used to customize Skelly’s head and mouth movements, record up to 30 custom sounds or phrases, and speak through the skeleton in real time over Bluetooth so you can interact with trick-or-treaters from afar. 
If you don’t need those new features, Home Depot is also bringing back the simpler version of Skelly at its original $299 price. 
The upgraded Skelly is part of a larger collection of new Halloween creatures and animatronics debuting this year. 
There’s also an 11-foot mummy with sounds and motion-activated LED lighting effects, glowing trees with creepy faces for creating a haunted forest on your lawn, an 8-foot zombie velociraptor with LED eyes, and a 3-piece collection of Gremlins with animated movements and sounds. 
If you’re looking for decor that specifically interacts with kids, there’s a new animated zombie parrot that uses an interactive voice system with 20 prerecorded phrases to create unique responses to yes or no questions. 
Article reasoning-pattern comparisonThis article: 8.4%Andrew Liszewski: 2.1%The Verge: 3.6%Confirmation Bias8.4%This article: 22.6%Andrew Liszewski: 8.9%The Verge: 1.3%Anchoring Bias22.6%This article: 25.3%Andrew Liszewski: 6.3%The Verge: 3.8%Availability Heuristic25.3%This article: 15.9%Andrew Liszewski: 4.0%The Verge: 1.3%Representativeness Heuristic15.9%This article: 0.0%Andrew Liszewski: 0.0%The Verge: 0.7%Hindsight Bias0.0%This article: 3.4%Andrew Liszewski: 0.8%The Verge: 1.7%Overconfidence Bias3.4%This article: 35.8%Andrew Liszewski: 11.1%The Verge: 6.2%Framing Effect35.8%This article: 7.8%Andrew Liszewski: 1.9%The Verge: 0.9%Loss Aversion7.8%This article: 7.8%Andrew Liszewski: 1.9%The Verge: 0.5%Status Quo Bias7.8%This article: 0.0%Andrew Liszewski: 0.0%The Verge: 0.4%Sunk Cost Effect0.0%This article: 54.7%Andrew Liszewski: 13.7%The Verge: 4.0%Optimism Bias54.7%This article: 0.0%Andrew Liszewski: 0.0%The Verge: 2.4%Pessimism Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Andrew Liszewski: 0.0%The Verge: 9.7%Negativity Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Andrew Liszewski: 0.0%The Verge: 1.5%Self-Serving Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Andrew Liszewski: 0.0%The Verge: 0.8%Fundamental Attribution Error0.0%This article: 0.0%Andrew Liszewski: 0.0%The Verge: 0.2%Actor-Observer Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Andrew Liszewski: 0.0%The Verge: 0.6%In-Group Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Andrew Liszewski: 0.0%The Verge: 0.4%Out-Group Homogeneity Bias0.0%This article: 15.5%Andrew Liszewski: 3.9%The Verge: 2.8%Halo Effect15.5%This article: 0.0%Andrew Liszewski: 0.0%The Verge: 0.2%Horn Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Andrew Liszewski: 0.0%The Verge: 0.0%Dunning-Kruger Effect0.0%This article: 22.6%Andrew Liszewski: 5.7%The Verge: 1.8%Recency Bias22.6%This article: 0.0%Andrew Liszewski: 0.0%The Verge: 0.4%Primacy Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Andrew Liszewski: 0.0%The Verge: 0.1%Blind-Spot Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Andrew Liszewski: 0.0%The Verge: 1.1%Ad Hominem0.0%This article: 0.0%Andrew Liszewski: 0.0%The Verge: 0.3%Straw Man0.0%This article: 0.0%Andrew Liszewski: 0.0%The Verge: 4.0%Appeal to Authority0.0%This article: 7.8%Andrew Liszewski: 1.9%The Verge: 1.6%False Dilemma7.8%This article: 0.0%Andrew Liszewski: 0.0%The Verge: 1.2%Slippery Slope0.0%This article: 0.0%Andrew Liszewski: 0.0%The Verge: 0.2%Circular Reasoning0.0%This article: 0.0%Andrew Liszewski: 0.0%The Verge: 6.8%Hasty Generalization0.0%This article: 0.0%Andrew Liszewski: 0.0%The Verge: 0.2%Red Herring0.0%This article: 0.0%Andrew Liszewski: 0.0%The Verge: 0.7%Bandwagon0.0%This article: 27.7%Andrew Liszewski: 6.9%The Verge: 4.2%Appeal to Emotion27.7%This article: 8.4%Andrew Liszewski: 2.1%The Verge: 1.1%Begging the Question8.4%This article: 0.0%Andrew Liszewski: 0.0%The Verge: 2.3%Post Hoc (False Cause)0.0%This article: 0.0%Andrew Liszewski: 0.0%The Verge: 0.2%Tu Quoque0.0%This article: 0.0%Andrew Liszewski: 0.0%The Verge: 0.8%Burden of Proof0.0%This article: 0.0%Andrew Liszewski: 0.0%The Verge: 0.3%Appeal to Nature0.0%This article: 0.0%Andrew Liszewski: 0.0%The Verge: 0.3%Composition/Division0.0%This article: 0.0%Andrew Liszewski: 0.0%The Verge: 3.6%Anecdotal0.0%This article: 0.0%Andrew Liszewski: 0.0%The Verge: 0.1%No True Scotsman0.0%This article: 11.8%Andrew Liszewski: 3.0%The Verge: 2.2%Ambiguity (Equivocation)11.8%This article: 0.0%Andrew Liszewski: 0.0%The Verge: 0.0%Gambler’s Fallacy0.0%This article: 12.8%Andrew Liszewski: 3.2%The Verge: 0.1%Middle Ground12.8%This article: 0.0%Andrew Liszewski: 0.0%The Verge: 0.1%Personal Incredulity0.0%This article: 0.0%Andrew Liszewski: 0.0%The Verge: 0.2%Special Pleading0.0%This article: 0.0%Andrew Liszewski: 0.0%The Verge: 0.2%Genetic Fallacy0.0%This article: 0.0%Andrew Liszewski: 0.0%The Verge: 2.6%Unattributed Quote0.0%This article: 0.0%Andrew Liszewski: 0.0%The Verge: 1.4%Quote-first Misdirection0.0%This article: 10.8%Andrew Liszewski: 2.7%The Verge: 10.8%Biased Writer Voice10.8%This article: 0.0%Andrew Liszewski: 0.0%The Verge: 1.1%Indoctrination0.0%This article: 0.0%Andrew Liszewski: 0.0%The Verge: 1.6%Politically Left Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Andrew Liszewski: 0.0%The Verge: 0.1%Politically Right Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 100.0%Andrew Liszewski: 73.8%The Verge: 4.2%Attempt to Sell a Product or S…100.0%

296 words analyzed.

Speakers

1speaker26%attributed speech219writer words
Voice mapSelect a segment to jump to its words
Writer's voice • 7 words • 100.0% coverageHome Depot • 25 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 29 words • 100.0% coverageHome Depot • 29 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 10 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 38 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 39 words • 100.0% coverageHome Depot • 23 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 18 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 43 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 35 words • 100.0% coverage
Selected voice

Home Depot

100%flagged-word coverage
77 attributed words100% of attributed speech100% writer coverage
0%50.0%100.0%Attempt to Sell a Product +0.0 ptsWriter: 100.0%Home Depot: 100.0%100.0%Biased Writer Voice+29.3 ptsWriter: 3.2%Home Depot: 32.5%32.5%

Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.

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Analysis

Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.