And what better way to look at our history than to break down some of the things we’re thankful for!

We’re thankful for pop culture – TV and movies (and our media spin on them):

» Harry Potter and the media muggles

» The Twilight saga characters and their media matches

» Gossip Girl cast matched with their media mates

» The Mad Men (and women) of Morning Joe

» Saturday Night Live‘s great news spoofs

» And the Saturday Night Live-inspired “Real Biker Chicks”

We’re thankful for those times when we can be service-y:

» Halloween costumes ripped from the headlines

» Ways to get over (or not get over) a fear of flying

We’re thankful for Oprah:

» Outrageous Sarah Palin stories Oprah will have to address (she went 0 for 10)

» Best Oprah moments

We’re thankful for those we’ve lost:

» “Summer of Death”

And we’re thankful for the future:

» 25 bloggers you need to know

But mainly, we’re thankful for…you our readers. Happy Thanksgiving!

SLIDESHOW: Vampires & Zombies!…including this hormone-and-blood-drenched slideshow featuring bloodsucking studs, nubile young vampiresses and strapping zombie sidekicks in all their hot, flesh-decaying undead glory.

OMG OMG Robert Pattinson Is So Hot: Well, he is — as this poll of “The Best Twilight Magazine Cover E-vah” conclusively proves. BTW if you need more Robert Pattinson and Twilight coverage, our pals at Gossip Cop have that beat pretty thoroughly covered.

Harry Potter and the Media Muggles: This was an early Mediaite multi-post (as you can tell by the fact that we have all this content spread across just three pages — what were we thinking?) — but it remains one of my faves. For anyone who loves Harry Potter (as I ferociously do) and delights in the old “separated at birth” game, this is ridiculous fun (Graydon Carter as Lucius Malfoy! Malcolm Gladwell as Professor Trelawney! It still cracks me up). If you missed it the first time it’s definitely worth a look now. The pictures are uncannily good.

Eyeborg: “The Age of the Post-Human is Coming Soon” Rob Spence is our Cyborg Columnist. I’ll say it again: We have a Cyborg Columnist. For Hallowe’en, if he wants to dress up as a CYBORG, he just wears what he wants. Why? BECAUSE HE’S A CYBORG! Read his adventures in cyborg-dom here, at his EYEBORG tag page. Badass. p.s. We could very well also have a Cylon columnist, because according to SyFy president Dave Howe apparently you can’t tell the difference between them and humans. Oh well THAT should help. Thanks a lot, Dave Howe.

To Bloodcopy and Back: Remember the whole Gawker Bloodcopy hoo-ha? Wow that seems like ages ago.

Dr. Horrible: Here at Mediaite we LOVE Dr. Horrible. With our freeze-rays we would stop the world, if we could, so everyone could be in their Michael Jackson and Billy Mays and Slutty Everything costumes forever and ever. But we can’t, so tomorrow when you’re sad it’s all over and feeling vaguely ill from eating so much candy corn, check out our Dr. Horrible tag page to watch clips (or the whole thing here) and swoon over Neil Patrick Harris and Nathan Fillion. Also please patronize our “The Hammer Is My Penis” tag. It’s the little things.

Chopper Chicks in Zombietown: Far be it from me to extend the dominance of our REAL BIKER CHICKS post on our “Most Popular” list (it’s the Shamu of Mediaite!), but how could I possibly exclude Chopper Chicks in Zombietown? “They’re bad! They’re beautiful! They’re 8 broads on the rag!” WHAT IS NOT TO LOVE? We should also include She-Devils on Wheels in this round up, too, because they’ll mess you up pretty good.

Glenn Beck’s Powerful Vagina: This is Mediaite’s signature monster: VAGINA GLENNTATA. Honestly, this dress looks like a poster for a horror movie — even without Glenn Beck’s face! But actually, there’s a whole backstory to this, and it actually makes sense if only you read it (don’t worry, it’s all conveniently laid out for you under our “Powerful Vaginas” tag). The upshot is, it IS a scary monster, and as a matter of fact I was going to wear this for Hallowe’en this year until I remembered that the dress was $125. What-ever.

Geraldo vs. Stossel’s “Ultimate Mustache” Battle: Wait, those mustaches aren’t Hallowe’en costumes? Oops, my bad.

The Goth Women of the View, feat. Bill O’Reilly As A Vampire: You can’t make this shizz up. Check out the first few moments of the clip — at first I thought Baba Wawa was Cher…in the “If I Could Turn Back Time” video. Well done, Babs!

The Best of The Shining: What do you do on Hallowe’en when Lester Holt steals your Slutty Susan Boyle costume right out from under you? Do the next best thing: Spend a few hours collecting clips from The Shining and pretending that you’re not at all freaked out. Oh and that helps a lot when you’re alone in the deserted office on Hallowe’en Night. What am I, an idiot? I might as well be the babysitter going to take a shower. Sheesh.

Mediaite Presents: Hallowe’en Costumes Ripped From The Headlines: And now we come full circle, to the Mediaite Suggested Hallowe’en Costumes, which no doubt guided your festive choices, dear reader (we’re betting there will be photos of this eventually). I myself can’t wait to play Hallowe’en Bingo with Balloon Boy costumes (touché on this one).

Mediaite’s Glenn Beck Tag Page: Be afraid. Be very afraid.

That’s it! Have a happy Hallowe’en, everyone! Wait a second, how did that giant Megan Fox picture get in there? Ooops. See below.

It’s not hard to figure out the motivation behind the vampire zeitgeist — with Barack Obama in office and a times-are-a-changin’ vibe as the aughts draw to a close, bloodsuckers represent the Other in a swiftly changing planet. True Blood‘s vamps are Alan Ball’s thinly-veiled metaphor for gay rights. (A “God Hates Fangs” church sign drives the point in with a stake in the opener.) Twilight‘s Edward Cullen is a hero to abstinent teens (and their moms), making scary-sexy palatable for the Rick Warren set. The soon-to-be-developed Anita Blake series casts vampires as misunderstood outcasts fighting for “Preternatural Rights” – a continuation of Laurell K. Hamilton’s bestselling novels (IFC will premiere the show this fall.) To sum it up, vamps are outsiders – and America has a lot of outsiders these days.

But with Halloween around the corner and tween’s fake fangs starting to look a little forced, what spooky creature will next inhabit the popular imagination?

I’ve got a theory, summed up in one word: BRAAAAAIIIINNNS!

Zombies have returned to the popular imagination for a while now, with Simon Pegg’s breakout Shaun of the Dead reuniting the brain-eating genre. Next up is Woody Harrelson’ s Zombieland, which has “cult sleeper/teenage boy-fest” written all over it.

But that’s not all: days after the Zombieland premiere, Random House is backing The Zombie Survival Guide: Recorded Attacks, a graphic novel/zombie primer by Max Brooks (itself a sequel to his original 2003 guide) that will prepare us all from the brain fetishists.

Zombies are also infiltrating YA lit, a sure sign of future teen movie supremacy. There’s Generation Dead: Kiss of Life, about a high school girl named Phoebe dating a zombie version of Edward Cullen, and You Are So Undead to Me about a cheerleader who finds out she’s a beacon for the “living-impaired.” There’s even an early 2009 offering, Zombie Queen of Newbury High, about about a high school prom queen who mind controls her student body into voting for her. And there’s a potential werewolf contender in Bitches, which is hilariously pitched as “Werewolf ‘Sex & The City” and in development by FOX.

Meanwhile, the blockbuster to watch is Quirk Books’ Pride and Prejudice and Zombies it’s already the subject of a multi-studio bidding war. Or will ABC’s lizard-people remake, V, be the supernatural dark horse, putting aliens back in the popular psyche?

I don’t know, but one thing’s for sure: in a recession-addled media culture, the escapism of the fantastic isn’t going away any time soon. Shooting zombies is way more fun than covering the latest foreclosure story.

SLIDESHOW: VAMPIRES & ZOMBIES!: Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart, Megan Fox, Evan Rachel Wood, and more!

Jessica Gold Haralson is a writer and a gamer who writes about various topics, including entertainment, pop culture, and new media. She probably spends more time than is necessary playing World of Warcraft.