Dark Horse Halloween Countdown: Top 5 Halloween Specials

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Dark Horse Halloween Countdown: Top 5 Halloween Specials

10/28/2010 12:41pm

Dark Horse Digital Art Technician Ryan Hill was raised on sugary breakfast cereals and saturday morning cartoons. Seriously, this is a man who knows every episode of Robotech by heart. This is the guy who watched the original Transformers movie every day for a year to win a bet. So when we wanted to do a list of the Top 5 Halloween TV Specials, we knew we found our man. Ryan, school these fools!

Look… it’s the rule. You’re done trick or treating, you come back home, de-costume, pajama-up, get to select some prime pieces of candy and watch one of the (now) ga-frillion Halloween special on TV. It’s just how it’s done. Holiday Specials are how our generation (and ones since) learned the true meaning of (insert holiday here). The Art of the Halloween special particularly stands-out in that a good one is just a little scarier than you’d think while still being approachable. You’ve got your teen years for your horror movie fests and your adult years for all those costumes mom doesn’t want you looking at in the Party City mailer, but you start off with the specials. And as you grow a little older you realize the great ones can even transcend the holiday and just become part of the culture. Here are five of those.

5.) Mr. Boogedy (1986)

While being a number of things (amongst them the launch-pad of David Faustino’s career) Mr. Boogedy was notable in that it was Disney actually letting family entertainment get a little scary. Probably the most terrifying creation to come out of the mouse-house since the Horned King the year prior… Mr Boogedy was a disfigured colonial ghost who wore a dark cloak went around shooting lightning at people like the Emperor in Jedi. He was a closest a kids film had ever come (at the time) to the troupe of a terrifying supernatural threat ala Freddy or Jason, and had a monster design somewhat reflective of that aesthetic. And while the movies tone was overall slapstick, there are a lot of adults now who never anticipated as kids loosing a little sleep over a Wonderful World of Disney movie. Heck they’d probably still jump a bit if someone shouted “Boogedy-Boo” at them.

4.) Mad Monster Party (1967)

If you don’t include a Rankin-Bass holiday special on your top five Holiday Specials list then you’re not even in the top 100,000 of holiday special list writers. While not as famous as R&B’s Christmas fare, Mad Moster Party was actually a theatrical film failure that found a cult following in TV re-airings. Staring the unseperable comedy duo of Boris Karloff and Phyllis Diller with a script by the legendary Harvey Kurtzman, Mad Monster Party really shined in it’s “everyone and the kitchen sink” monster inclusion. Dracula and all the classic Moster-Squaders are there but so are the Hunchback of Notre Dame, Jekyll and Hyde and even King Kong (named “It” in the movie due to rights issues). Throw in some innuendo for the adults and an ending where most of the monsters get wiped out and you have a film that deserves to stand higher alongside its Christmas holiday brethren.

3.) Garfield’s Halloween Adventure (Garfield In Disguise) (1985)

It’s hard to argue that Garfield ever had a cool period before the “sellout” phase. But it existed for a little while. Before the infinite TV cartoons, the two movies that have left a 4 hour Garfield shaped hole in people’s brains, and the comic strip that’s lumbered forward like a starving zombie for, what, like a century now… there were the Garfield Holiday Specials. The best among them was Garfield in Diguise. The jokes worked. It was relatively Jon-free and more about Garfield actually bonding with Odie. It had the Pirate Song and the “Candy, Candy Candy” chant. It was actually somewhat scary for an animated special and created a sense of danger for Garfield and Odie. It’s aired on Halloween every year since the dawn of time and its just kind of cool. I know. It’s Garfield being cool. That’s scary enough for a 100 Halloween specials.

2.) The Simpsons: Treehouse of Horror (1990-?)

Ok, so this is kind of unfair in that its not a single special but 21 (and counting) of them. But it’s telling that for a number of people who claim to not watch the Simpsons as often (since the “heyday”), the annual Treehouse of Horror special is still appointment television. The anthology “Tales from the Crypt” format lets the Simpsons writing staff abandon the already almost non-existent shackles of continuity and “reality” in the Simpsons universe and just go straight to the crazy, weird, culture referenced awesome stuff. And it’s where they tend to shine the most. “Treehouse” is an institution within an institution. It’s not Halloween in America without the joy of a new installment.

1.) It’s The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown (1966) Do I even need to write about this? It’s the first Halloween special ever. It’s the best Halloween Special ever. It’s not really even a separate or “extra” thing that’s associated with Halloween. It IS Halloween. The Great Pumpkin himself has been confused as an ACTUAL part of the Holiday for years. If any part of you loves, enjoys, or celebrates Halloween in any way and you haven’t seen this then I’m scared of YOU.

And there you have it folks. What are your favorite Halloween specials? Leave us a comment below!

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Dark Horse Halloween Countdown: Top 5 Halloween Specials

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Dark Horse Halloween Countdown: Top 5 Halloween Specials

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