Well, it’s happened again: Halloween’s here and you don’t have enough movies or enough time to treat yourself to the perfect horror movie marathon you were hoping for, right? Don’t worry, because I have a wonderful solution: if there aren’t enough movies, TV series! Since 1966, American TV networks (and therefore those in the rest of the world) seem to fight it out to find the best special to air on December 31, bringing scares (and usually quite a few laughs) in a small format. We’ve put together a delightfully spooky mini Halloween marathon for you with the 5 most memorable specials in history!
It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown
As surprising as it may seem, until 1966 it hadn’t occurred to anyone to make a Halloween special and air it on television. CBS did it on October 27, four days before, and starred Snoopy, Charlie Brown, and the rest of the Peanuts gang. The script was by Charles Schulz, of course, and it returned to one of the most iconic storylines from the strips: the arrival of the Great Pumpkin that Linus had been waiting for since 1959 as a running gag that came back year after year.
While every October other strips were doing horror specials (Garfield, for example, had a week in which he revealed he was abandoned and dreaming his own existence), Schulz came back again and again to the Great Pumpkin. All in all, 25 minutes that cost $76,000 in total and to this day remain a masterpiece of animation. It was such a success, in fact, that the audience, frustrated to see Charlie Brown fail to get candy in his “Trick or treat” of his own, sent handfuls of sweets to CBS so they could give them to him. That’s the magic of childhood.
Treehouse of Horror V (The Simpsons)
How do you choose which Simpsons Halloween special to put on this list? Looking at the first 10, it becomes practically impossible. How do you leave out that wonderful parody of The Raven, or Mr. Burns as Dracula, or the monkey’s paw that grants wishes (and which, by the way, inspired Obsession)? But, obviously, one episode has to make the list, and none is as well-rounded as the one that aired in 1994.
It’s hard to resist the parody of The Shining (“No TV and no beer make Homer lose his mind”), Homer traveling to the past and stepping on a mosquito and creating alternative realities left and right, or the members of the school cafeteria eating the children. In this episode, the show’s producers were angry because they tried to force them to tone down the violence, so, in response, they created the bloodiest and most violent Halloween special in their entire history. Pure yellow glory.
Tricks and Treats (Freaks and Geeks)
Honestly, it’s not that the episode is iconic, but the series is, and since its abrupt ending in 2000 practically no one has talked about it, and that’s a shame because this really is “the voice of a generation”, instead of others that called themselves that, like (ahem) Girls. Linda Cardellini, James Franco, Seth Rogen, Jason Segel, John Francis Daley… An incredible launching pad for stars who, on top of that, gave us a Halloween special as unique as the rest of the series.
It was only the third episode, and it already offered a totally different perspective from other specials, with the neighborhood believing Sam and his friends were too old to be going around trick-or-treating. I don’t want a belated sequel to the series, but I do want a time machine to go back to the past and convince them to make, at least, one more season. After everything we’ve been through, we deserve it.
HalloVeen (Brooklyn 9-9)
Although in its last seasons it weakened slightly and now it’s only known as the series with the BackStreet Boys joke, Brooklyn Nine-Nine knew how to do one thing better than any other series: Halloween specials. The whole group, in search of the “Best human/Genius” belt, turned each episode of the period into a feast for the senses, but in particular the one from season 5 managed to make a name for itself.
This time there weren’t just the jokes and the excitement, but it also ended up evolving the characters with a key point in the story of the series. One of the best episodes of the 8 seasons, and so good that it ended the Halloween-special tradition for good. A real gem that works brilliantly, a masterclass in screenwriting for any film student in the world. Finger-licking stuff, and enough to consider yourself the best possible human/genius.
Summerween (Gravity Falls)
How do you make a Halloween special episode in a series that takes place in summer and that already has monsters and teenage terror in every episode? Very easily: by creating a new holiday. Gravity Falls, perhaps the best series in Disney’s history, came up with Summerween in its first season, on the premise that the town loves Halloween so much they celebrate it in summer too. And that was that.
But of course, Alex Hirsch can’t stop at a simple crazy idea, and Summerween multiplies by twenty what anyone might expect from the episode with a monster that forces the children to do “trick or treat” and not stop until they hit the minimum or it will eat them all. Since then, this day has made its way into pop culture, with people celebrating it all across the United States and even novels based on Summerween. Look, things happen.
