The time has come… well, for most, the time is almost here. For me, however, what I like to call “Halloween season” occurs just at the stroke of midnight of September 1st and lasts around mid-November or something. This is mainly because I am perpetually thirsty for as much Halloween goodness as I can handle and want to milk this season for all it’s worth. If chain stores can have Halloween decorations six months in advance, I’m allowed to have three months!
This time, though, I invite you all to join me in my spooky fun times. for the past couple years or so, I’ve been involving myself in watching holiday television specials. It all started back in the final rung of 2016, wherein I amused myself with watching as many Christmas specials as possible (looking back, this was probably to distract myself from other unpleasant things happening around that time). This resulted in my Top 13 Animated Christmas TV Specials, which I revisited again in 2017 and will do so once again at the end of this year. Last year, though, I also watched a bunch of Halloween TV specials – mostly animated, but some live-action as well – although I didn’t write about any of them for some reason.
And that’s where things will change. Starting at the dawn of September, I will attempt to watch as many Halloween-oriented specials as I can get my eyeballs on. This includes made-for-TV movies, Halloween episodes of live-action/animated shows, one-off holiday specials… basically anything with at least a dash of the holiday in its narrative. Additionally, I want to write about as many of these as humanly possible. If a TV show has multiple Halloween-themed episodes to its name, I’ll collect them all into one post per show. Otherwise, each special will have its own post. Although one-a-day is ideal for me, realistically this might not be possible… so I’ll just churn them out as I go.
And as with the aforementioned Christmas post, I’ll more than likely compile a list of my favorites. I dare not spoil anything from this point forward – I hope you all enjoy this little journey with me!
HALLOWEEN TV PARTY: 2018 (posts will be listed below as they come)
- Gravity Falls – “Summerween” & “Little Gift Shop of Horrors”
- Mystery Magical Special (1986)
- Friends – “The One with the Halloween Party”
- “Ed, Edd n Eddy’s Boo Haw Haw” (2005) & “Garfield’s Halloween Adventure” (1985)
- 3 episodes of The Amazing World of Gumball
- The Worst Witch (1986) and The Halloween That Almost Wasn’t (1979)
- The Pumpkin Who Couldn’t Smile (1979)
- The New Misadventures of Ichabod Crane (1979)
- 3 episodes of Rugrats
- Invader Zim – “Halloween Spectacular of Spooky Doom”
- Claymation Comedy of Horrors (1991)
- Halloween specials from Davey and Goliath, Dave the Barbarian, Even Stevens, Beavis and Butt-Head, and Cow & Chicken
- Glee – “The Rocky Horror Glee Show”
- Bugs Bunny’s Howl-oween Special (1977)
- “A Disney Halloween” (1983)
- Casper’s Halloween Special (1979)
- The Last Halloween (1991)
- Halloweentown (1998)
- Halloween episodes of Hey Arnold!, Pinky and the Brain, The Ren & Stimpy Show, Rocko’s Modern Life, and Doug
Films Like Dreams, Etc. 