KAVALKADE OF KOSTUMES DEP'T.: All Hallows' Eve roundup: Billy, Dolly, and P.J. are a bum, a witch, and a clown respectively. Sally Forth and Ted Forth are Ted Forth and Sally Forth. Dot and Ditto are a cat and Freddie Kruger. Jughaid is a ghost in a coonskin cap, while his two girl pals are a princess and a devil. Dennis and Joey are "black-belt ninja warriors," albeit ninjas who wear white. Snow ninjas, maybe. Ruthie is a hillbilly; Joe is a generic superhero--mistaken, by a passing cowboy, for "one of them Mexican rasslers!" Diego and Winston are a vampire and a snake. Loretta Lockhorn is Lily Pulitzer or something involving a big hat, while Leroy hasn't gotten dressed yet. Danae and her horse are telemarketers. Marmaduke just puts on his party hat. And Ziggy tries to buy Spider-Man duds, only find them out of stock. "How about some nice Powerpuff Girl underwear?" the saleslady asks. Funny Paper gives the costume contest prize to . . . Joe! El Luchador! The miniature Heath bars are on us.

SUN CROSSWORD "OREO" WATCH: Saturday, 21 Across: "Sandwich cookie."

SALLY FORTH "OREO" WATCH: Sunday, Panel Six: "Double Stuf Oreo cookies?!" Sally asks, inspecting the fruits of Ted's shopping.

BEETLE BAILEY VS. OTTO THE ARMY DOG: Bailey 4, dog 2. A solid win for the private. But Otto continues to enjoy life more. Tuesday, he exits a dog show having gotten the digits of "Best in Show"--Mort Walker lacked the nerve to make it "Best Bitch." On Sunday, by contrast, Beetle is dissatisfied by the chorus girls in the USO show. "I keep noticing that the girl on the end is out of step," he laments.

Wednesday, Spec. Chip Gizmo admires Miss Buxley's new "22-inch flat-panel LCD cinema-display screen," on which she's doing what everyone does. "The cards have never looked so sharp!" Gizmo marvels.

CLASSIC PEANUTS: Wednesday brings a Violet sighting. "I get claustrophobia in elevators," Violet tells Linus and Charlie Brown. She and Linus compare notes on what else brings on claustrophobia. "I get claustrophobia in the world," Chuck says bleakly.

JUMBLE: HE GOT UNHINGED, "PIN" MONEY, ON THE CARPET, "AROUND" HIM, ON THE CARPET, A "BUSY" SIGNAL, A "GHOUL" FRIEND,

GASOLINE ALLEY: The pun pollution reaches Superfund levels as Cygnet informs Clovia that she's going to work for the motor pool "for the Oily Boyd Refinery in the Middle East town of Al Qapone." With Earl Derrick, remember.

HERB & JAMAAL: Monday, the strip radically shifts its premise, as Herb and Jamaal go antiquing together. "The best antique is an old friend," Stephen Bentley writes over an image of the two staring dreamily at each other. Or maybe somebody else wrote it, and Bentley just left off the credit.

ZIGGY: Monday, Ziggy does toilet humor without being dirty. It's toilet humor: "I'll have to run some diagnostics!" the plumber says, kneeling in contemplation of the porcelain bowl.

LUANN: Goth-y minx Crystal shows up at the bookstore with her bald-head cripple kid brother, looking for Zane.

JUMP START: Chubby preschooler Benny self-publishes a diet book.

THE PHANTOM: In the port of Spyglass, the Phantom follows the illegally captured animals to the freighter "Mary Rafferty." "No law in Spyglass," he broods. Aren't you the enforcer of law and order in these parts, big guy? Rather than dealing with the root causes, Mr. Walker contents himself with sneaking aboard the ship.

Sunday, the Phantom spots the floating castaway and hauls him aboard. "I-I am DePaul . . ." the man gasps. "Y-you must help us . . . " "Us??!" the Ghost Who Minds the Details asks. "Over 200 men . . . on island . . . Sinbad stone . . . THE SINBAD STONE!"

ONE BIG HAPPY: Tuesday, Buggy Crispino takes advantage of the holiday season to show up on Ruthie's doorstep, his ever-unseen visage covered by a standard-issue monster mask. First his ankle, now this.

IN THEIR OWN WORDS: Nigella Lawson. Who looks like Gillian Anderson after Art by Vernon Carne is done with her.

THE LOCKHORNS: Saturday, the widescreen TV gets repossessed.

FOR BETTER OR FOR WORSE: Elly has lunch with Anne, who talks about how old age has taken the edge off her philandering husband, whom she stays with but refuses to forgive. It is November in Canada. The trees are bare. For worse.

MOTHER GOOSE & GRIMM: Friday, two vampires check into a hotel . . .

REX MORGAN, M.D.: Hapless patient Elwood explains that he's just in it for the free pharmaceutical samples. Aren't we all?

MARMADUKE: Monday, Marmaduke lies on the front stoop.

WILLY 'N ETHEL: "I can never be kicked out of Leon's Tap again," Willy announces Wednesday. "They finally gave me tenure."

MARY WORTH: Woody tries to go drink for drink with Ian. Maybe after you get tenure, punk.

MARK TRAIL: "Cherry and her father, concerned about Mark, fly to a small town in the Southwest," with their jet plane narrowly dodging the stinger of a 2,000-foot-long scorpion.

Sunday's featured animal: the pugnacious, drug-addled cricket. "In parts of China cricket fighting is so popular that it is often shown on a large TV screen for easier viewing. The bugs fight in their weight class and doping often goes on . . . Marijuana makes the small insects immune to pain." Not to mention delicious!

DOONESBURY: Jeff Redfern shuts himself up in his dorm room to download coed-themed porn. Zipper Harris points out that Jeff is already on a college campus. "Not the same," Jeff says. Yeah. Would that Funny Paper could have cleared its history file and disk cache in the morning.

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