Thank you, thank you, thank you for spending your Halloween season with me! It means so much to me you don't even know. I hope you've had as much fun with this blog as I've had. And be sure to check out the other great blogs of the Countdown to Halloween. Many thanks once again to Dex and Naila Moon for keeping this great tradition alive, especially to Naila (Michelle), who is stepping down as the prime showrunner after this year. Thanks again, Michelle!
Tonight is of course the finale, which is trick or treating. Please make sure you give out great candy or have great costumes, because no one wants to experience the "Trick or Treat Blues!"
Be safe, be healthy, and once again, Happy Halloween!
Hello one and all! It's almost over! We have but two days left of the Halloween season (although I think November 1st and 2nd are Halloweenish enough to celebrate).
Today's post is a bit of a sad one. We lost two TV comedy greats this weekend, Richard Moll of Night Court and Matthew Perry of Friends. I have two offerings in their honor.
The Last Halloween is a 1991 TV special about adorable aliens who befriend two young Earth children as the aliens search for candy. Richard Moll plays a henchman to a villainess (Rhea Perlman) out to destroy the local candy factory. It's intended for young children, but it's wholesome fun.
Next is a fun clip from a famous Halloween episode of Friends. Here, Chandler, already humiliated by having to wear a pink bunny costume given to him by Monica, is doubly humiliated by seeing Joey's costume--as Chandler! 😂
These two great actors will be sorely missed, but at least we have their outstanding work to enjoy forever.
See you tomorrow for the grand finale of the Countdown to Halloween! Thanks!
Here we are at the end of Week 4 of the Countdown to Halloween! This is the last weekend before the big night, so let's soak in as much candy-fueled joy as we can these last few days!
This weekend I present to you a long program, but I hope you will find it entertaining. This is the 1979 short-lived TV series The Curse of Dracula. This was in fact a series within a series.
In February of 1979, NBC debuted an anthology called Cliffhangers. The series consisted of three different series under the Cliffhangers umbrella title, similarly to what they did with the NBC Wheel of Mystery (Columbo, McMillan & Wife, McCloud). Each week the Cliffhangers series would present an episode of one of the three adventure series: this Dracula series, Stop Susan Williams, and The Secret Empire. The Curse of Dracula was the highest rated of the three series.
But not highly rated enough. All three Cliffhangers series were canceled later than season, but a follow up movie, The World of Dracula, aired in 1986. Maybe I'll save that one for next year. :)
Here, edited into one giant block, is the entire Curse of Dracula. I've embedded it below, but you will probably prefer watching it directly on YouTube here.
Today I offer an especially awesome treat! Brace yourselves!
Today I offer a solid hour of 1980s Halloween TV greatness. Today I present the 8pm to 9pm programming block from CBS on October 30, 1985. What makes this hour so special? Because it contains two Halloween heavyweights.
The 8 to 8:30pm program is the debut of Garfield's Halloween Adventure! Yes, this is the very first time the special aired. It's becomes highly revered by GenXers and millenials in recent years, so this is a big deal!
But that's not all.
In the 8:30 to 9pm slot--It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.
I KNOW, RIGHT???
And if that wasn't enough--the hour includes commercials.
HOLY HALLOWEEN!
Sit down in a comfortable chair, take a deep breath, relax and---enjoy!
You can watch this awesomeness embedded below and directly on Dailymotion here.
And we are at Week 4 of the Countdown to Halloween 2023! This is the last full week of the season, so it's crunch time. If you've been holding off on certain activities because the time didn't feel "Halloweeny" enough, stop procrastinating NOW!
Today I present a Halloween episode of The Real Ghostbusters, "The Halloween Door." Of course, every episode of The Real Ghostbusters is Halloweeny, but this time it's right there in the title. According to the description on the Official Ghostbusters YouTube page, "Crowley is the chairman of Citizens United Againt Halloween. When the Ghostbusters refuse to join forces with him, Crowley by mistake opens the Halloween Door and breaks the underworld's ancient contract of imprisonment."
In short, a ton of ghosts are released to the world by some stick in the mud. You know, basically the plot of every Ghostbusters story that's ever existed. But as a diehard Ghostbusters fan, I ain't complainin'!
Today we put Week 3 of the Countdown to Halloween to rest with the 1992 BBC production Ghostwatch.
This is an original production that aired on Halloween night 1992 in the UK, and although it was presented as a "live" presentation, it was produced and recorded weeks earlier. The program is a scripted feature structured as a live documentary into the supposedly haunted house in a fictional town in England inhabited by a woman and her two daughters. Several people are included in the "investigation," including parapsychologists, journalists, etc. Scary stuff ensues.
The program proved to be quite controversial in the UK, spawning many irate calls to the BBC. It was shown in the UK only that one time, but it has aired in other countries since.
Today I have what might be an unusual pick for the Countdown to Halloween on the surface, but I think it works just fine. For this blog, anyway.
Love, American Style was a TV comedy anthology series (I don't know of many comedy anthologies!) that aired in the early 70s on ABC. Each half-hour episode featured one or two stories of people falling in, out, or around (?) love. The series was light as a feather, and even spun off one of its episodes into a very successful series of its own---Happy Days!
In this episode, an engaged couple, played by Frank Sutton (Gomer Pyle, USMC) and Ruth Buzzi (Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In), run out of gas along a highway during a thunderstorm and reluctantly spend the night in a seemingly abandoned cabin. The couple sleep in separate rooms at Buzzi's insistence, as the couple are not yet married, much to Sutton's chagrin. However, the cabin seems to have a mind of its own, disturbing the couple's sleep. Creepy for them, laughter for us!
The episode is only 15 minutes long, so you can watch it in no time, and at the end, a very special someone (something?) appears, a someone I try to fit into the Countdown every single year if possible. The best part, I didn't even know this about the episode when I selected it!
Welcome to Week 3 of the Countdown to Halloween. We're only two weeks away from the big night, so there's no wasting any time. Do your spooky stuff now!
Today I feature a witchy cartoon from the classic duo of Tom and Jerry. After upsetting his current owner with the mess he made in another chase with Jerry, Tom tries living with a woman who turns out to be a witch. Will Tom make the adjustment OK, or will he be a scaredy cat?
It's Friday, we made it! And because you worked so hard this week, you deserve a treat instead of a trick. And my treat for you this weekend is a second Halloween episode of the 1980s action series The Fall Guy!
I featured the first Halloween episode of this series during last year's Countdown, and was surprised to learn earlier this month that there was a second one. Not only that, like the first episode, this episode also features everyone's favorite Mistress of the Dark, Elvira!
The episode title is "October the 32nd," a play on the previous season's Halloween episode title "October the 31st," and the plot is...well, who cares what the plot is. It's Elvira on The Fall Guy, that's the plot!
It's Hump Day this week at the Countdown to Halloween, and you're probably already looking forward to the weekend. But we still have a few days ahead of us until then, and you may need a pick-me-up. I hope this feature will do the trick!
Today I present the short silent film The Haunted House, starring old school comedy great Buster Keaton. In it, Keaton plays a bank teller who is framed for robbery by thieves who are working with an unscrupulous bank manager. When the police are in pursuit of Keaton, he seeks shelter in an abandoned house which just so happens to be the real thieves hideout. The thieves have rigged the house to appear haunted to passersby to prevent from being found out. When Keaton arrives, he is treated to the gang's spooky sinisterness.
Silent films may not be for everyone, but please give this one a try. I laughed out loud several times at Keaton's inventiveness. This movie is a lot of fun!
Welcome to Week 2 of the Countdown to Halloween! Please be sure to check out all of the great sites participating in the event by clicking on the main site here.
I'm starting off the week with this fun clip from the Canadian comedy sketch series SCTV. It stars Joe Flaherty as Count Floyd hosting the horror movie series Monster Chiller Horror Theatre. His feature this particular segment is "Dr. Tongue's House of Cats," starring John Candy as the titular Dr. and Catherine O'Hara as his unwitting "victim." Eugene Levy is the Dr.'s gortesque servant Bruno.
This appears to be the first appearance of the Dr. Tongue character, who would appear numerous times throughout SCTV's run. He's a spoof of the cheesy horror movie villains of the 50s and 60s with ridiculous premises and even cheesier 3-D. It's a lot of fun!
I'm back to round out the first week of the Countdown to Halloween 2023. And as I try to do on Fridays during the Countdown, I'm featuring a long-form program for you to enjoy over the weekend. This week, it's the 1981 TV-movie Midnight Offerings!
According to IMDb, "Vivian has magic powers. She doesn't hesitate to save her boyfriend David from failing in school by murdering teachers. However, David has gotten tired of her and is putting his charm on a new girl in school, Robin. Robin discovers that she also has magic powers, and it comes to a mental showdown between the two women over David."
It kind of sounds like Mean Girls but with witchcraft.
Oh, and supporting cast members include Marion Ross (Happy Days), Gordon Jump (WKRP In Cincinatti), and a very young Vanna White!
To be honest, I haven't seen this yet myself, but I'm fascinated by made-for-TV horror films, particularly since broadcast standards in the hayday of TV-movies were pretty stringent compared to today, and horror can be a challenging genre to make work with strict content guidelines. I'm always curious to see how the creators tell their horror stories under those conditions. Let's find out how the creators of this movie tell theirs!
I want to thank Joe Mello, one of my oldest social media buddys and the author of fellow Countdown blog Hellowe'en Horror, for bringing this movie to my attention!
I've embedded the movie into the blog below, but if you prefer to watch the movie directly on YouTube. the link is here.
Enjoy! Have a great first full weekend of October! Do spooky stuff! Drink pumpkin beer! Hang up decorations! Read old Halloween articles of my blog!
Hello again! Today's post is a Countdown perennial: it's time for this year's batch of Halloween TV Commercials! I post at least one round of spooky-themed commercials each and every year. Commercials are one of the earliest signs that a holiday or season is around the corner, so I think posting several Halloween-like commercials early in the Countdown sets the mood for the whole month. Let's get to it!
First up, this rad commercial for Hallmark's Halloween fare from 1987. I love the old school GCI graphics on this one. Very 80s!
Next up, Casper The Friendly Ghost helps Target welcome shoppers to their stores in 1991!
Who is Mr. Fright? I have no idea, but he had a local 976 number here in the Philly area in the 80s, as can be deduced from this commercial. No other details are available, and I have no memory of this guy whatsoever. But he seems cool!
Goodwill is always a popular and inexpensive way to create a great homemade costume. Visit your local store today! This commercial aired in central Texas in 2014.
Pharmacies have long been Halloween necessity destinations, and Walgreens is no exception. Check out their offerings in this commercial from 1992!
I believe I've featured this next commercial before, but this is a much better copy. Enjoy this delightful commercial from the 70s for the Weebles Haunted House!
I'm sure every kid who had this was considered the coolest kid on their block. From 1984, it's Play-Doh's Count Creepyhead!
Finally, I can't believe I haven't featured this commercial until now, as this ran pretty extensively during the 80s. Here is a commercial for the king of all Halloween candies, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, featuring a generous but misunderstood Frankenstein!
I hope you enjoyed those. Stay tuned this Friday for a movie presentation. Thanks!
Hello again! Welcome to the first "real" post for this year's Countdown to Halloween. To start off the event properly, I present an episode of the 1980s fantasy anthology series Amazing Stories.
Amazing Stories, executive produced by Steven Spielberg, was a series on NBC that presented a different story of the fantastic every week: some scary, some sweet, all featuring a story of the supernatural, otherworldly, or scientific.
In this episode, "Mummy, Daddy," a horror movie actor, in full costume as a mummy for his latest movie, is trying to find his way to the birth of his new baby. However, a real mummy coincidentally makes his moves on the town the same night as the actor is on the way to his baby's birth. Confusion and hilarity ensue.
I was a fan of this series during its run, and this episode, which first aired October 27, 1985, is one of my favorites. Thanks to Twitter/X user Retro Art Blog for reminding me of this.
Welcome one and all to the 2023 Countdown to Halloween!
Yes, boils and ghouls, it's time to rise from our musty coffins after 11 months of very deep sleep, and celebrate the feast of All Hallows E'en. How do we do that? With commercials, cartoons, movies, music, and anything else that fits the Halloween spirit. They'll be hardcore stuff, cutesy stuff, grown-up stuff, kid stuff, and many other kinds of stuffs.
As always, a grave, er, great thank you to Dex, Naila Moon, and everyone behind the main Countdown to Halloween site. Please please PLEASE check that site out for dozens of other great Halloween sites full of tricks and treats.
I hope to entertain you every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday between now and the big night with maniacal marvels sure to tickle your fancy.
Without further ado, let the 2023 Countdown to Halloween begin!
