October 12, 2004:
Ah, the Halloween television special. So rare these days, so sorely missed. The networks haven't completely stopped airing the classic animated Halloween specials, but if you thought A Charlie Brown Christmas and other yuletide treasures have been treated like little bitches in recent times, you've really gotta pity any cartoon special brave enough to include a jack o' lantern. Though loved by many, the specials rarely bank big ratings, and with competition being as fierce as it is, fewer networks are willing to hedge their bets on prime time Great Pumpkins these days. Sucks for us. Thank God for DVDs.
It wasn't terribly long ago that I'd base the entire month of October around two simple goals: not missing It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, and not missing Garfield's Halloween Adventure. There were other specials, of course, but they had already been shuffled into the abyss even by the time I was a kid. No Halloween season was complete without viewings of the aforementioned shows, shows which lifted my spirits like nothing else could and prepared me for the three-month long holiday season that, in truth, was usually counted on to compensate for the shitty remainder of the year. As a kid, I only seemed to thoroughly enjoy life from October to December. It wasn't like I went into a coma for the other nine months on the calendar, but there just wasn't much to get excited about. No costumes, no pumpkins, no candy, no turkeys, no Santa, no presents, no Port Wine nut-enhanced fucking cheese logs.
In that, Halloween specials always meant so much to me. Usually shown around October 20th, they were the true starting point of many weeks where you could disregard all of life's troubles by concentrating on holiday fun instead. Besides, for a holiday that didn't even come with a day off, Halloween packed a whole load of shit to look forward to. Aside from the usual activities like pumpkin-carving and trick-or-treating, watching Garfield steal Odie's sack of Almond Joys was an event in itself. Yes, while the rest of the material world slacked off on filling us with Halloween mania, you could always plop in front of the tube and let Garfield and Snoopy do the dirty work. Though I can't honestly claim that kids of this generation would still be way into the specials, I can solemnly swear to force my own kids to watch them year after year, tied to a chair if need be. I don't have kids yet, but if I ever do, they will know the entire scripts of both specials by heart by age 3. Or they will be disowned.
Now, there's a big difference between watching the specials on officially released DVDs and videos as opposed to their annual taking over of an all-important prime time slot. There was something extra nice about watching the shows at the same time as millions of others; we all collectively felt the waves of spooky spirit both through Charlie Brown's poorly conceived sheet ghost costume and the many Halloween Happy Meal commercials dispersed between scenes. For those thirty minutes, everything bad in the world took a vacation.
Here's three clips that'll help fuel your desire to build a time machine with the sole purpose of transporting you back to a time when Halloween meant more than seasonal door flags and dyed-orange Pringles…
Teaser Ad #1: It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!
I reviewed the special a long time back, and it still ranks as my #1 Halloween special. Sorry, Garf. You've memorized the story I'm sure; Charlie Brown has the worst life ever, Lucy tongues Snoopy, and Linus ruins Sally's Halloween celebration by making her stand in a cold field waiting for the infamous "Great Pumpkin." Like many Peanuts specials, the story is actually adapted from Schultz's original scripts. I strongly recommend finding some old Peanuts books (or the more recent and totally awesome treasury) and checking out these classic holiday tales in their infancy. Click the link below to grab a commercial promoting its annual airing (like yesterday's Hallmark ad, this too is from '89), hitting all of the necessary bullet points and being narrated by the same voiceover artist you've heard a zillion times. He could be your neighbor, really.
Likewise, I've reviewed this one, too. Garfield is perhaps deservedly maligned by many these days; the strip has lost its soul and all of the fat cat's extracurricular activies have been met with either A) apathy B) anger C) murder. But you know, no matter what Garfield does at the request of cruel master Jim Davis, I'll never be able to maintain the hate. I just love his holiday specials way too much, and while the Halloween version can't hold a candle to Odie's Christmas backscratcher, it still packs a huge punch. Garfield and Odie dressed like pirates, Garfield and Odie being chased by ghosts on a haunted island, Garfield and Odie going trick-or-treating…whole lotta Garfield and Odie. Jon was such a bit player in October. The ad features ominous chase music and pretty much promises that your life will be over if you don't watch the special. I always agreed with that sentiment.
We first ran into the McBoo pails on the site during last year's McDonald's Halloween Spectacular, and if for some foreign reason you've been wondering what were the first decorations I zoomed for when we pulled out the Boxes of Spook Decor a few weeks ago, this be them. The McBoo trio -- a ghost, a witch and a pumpkin -- are for some of us as iconic to Halloween as Elvira or miniature gourds. The commercial did a terrific job of making me feel totally incomplete without the pails as a kid, and to this day, no month of October has passed without me thinking about said pails at least twice an hour. They may just be my favorite Happy Meal promotion of all time, narrowly beating out those little pullcars driven by Grimace's head and half of Birdie's body. A big part of the joy that came from watching Halloween specials rested on the crap you'd see advertised and subsequently devote your life to owning.
