YOUNGSTOWN — For nearly an hour, ghosts replaced galaxies, scarecrows and skeletons replaced stars, pumpkins replaced planets, Frankenstein replaced families of constellations and candy replaced celestial activity.

“I liked the way they catered it to young kids,” Don Weldon of Canfield, said, referring to “Night-Lite,” a mild, non-frightening Halloween-themed program geared toward young children that was playing Saturday afternoon in Youngstown State University’s Ward Beecher Planetarium.

For Weldon, the 50-minute funfest was a family affair, because enjoying it with him were his wife, Lisa Weldon, and two grandchildren, Gabriella, 2, and Eliana, 4.

For the show, the two girls were dressed for the holidays, but their costumes for today, as they go trick-or-treating, will be Elsa and Anna, two main characters from the 2013 Disney film, “Frozen.”

“I liked 911,” Eliana said about a scene in “Night-Lite” in which a cellphone displays those numbers. “It’s for an emergency.”

Eliana added that she was a little scared of the enlarged 3-D Frankenstein fixture that at one point took up a large chunk of the overhead dome, but that she also closed her eyes, which lowered her level of fright.

For her part, Gabriella was attracted to the scenes that prominently showed cascading candy appearing to come from outer space, as well as Casper the Friendly Ghost.

“It was fun, just good entertainment for the kids,” Lisa said about the production. “They played a lot of Halloween songs we knew as kids that we would sing and clap to.”

Among them were the famous Ray Parker Jr. hit “Ghostbusters,” the 1977 song “Godzilla” by Blue Oyster Cult, “The Monster Mash” and a remake of The Strangeloves’ 1965 hit ,”I Want Candy.”

At one point in the show, several children and adults — most of whom wore Halloween costumes that included Sesame Street characters — left their seats to dance to “The Time Warp,” a tune from the 1975 cult musical comedy / horror film “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.”

Each year, one or two songs are changed in “Night-Lite,” which debuted at the planetarium around 1976, Tiffany Wolbrecht, planetarium lecturer, noted. Added to this year’s run was the popular Warren Zevon song, “Werewolves of London,” she said.

“We like to add songs that are interactive and get the audience in the spirit,” she added.

Wolbrecht, along with Curt Spivey, planetarium engineer and producer, created many of the show’s special effects. In addition, some YSU students worked on various aspects of the artwork, as well as certain costumes, she continued.

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