October 16, 2006: The Mystery Magical Special is the very cumbersome title of an oft forgot Halloween special from 1986. The 30 minute (well, 22 minute) special enjoyed a fairly long annual run on Nickelodeon, mostly due to its star, Marc Summers, being the beloved host of 5,000 different variations of Double Dare. It's low budget, kind of dumb and uses the absolute worst stock music in the history of television, but like I've said before...Halloween specials are a rare breed, and we'll take what we can get.
Marc plays himself, or at least, he plays a guy also named Marc who dresses the same. Driving home from a scary movie with three children also playing themselves, we've got a young Jonathan Brandis in one of his first roles, a young Shiri Appleby in her first role, and some other kid named Trenton Teigan who didn't explore many more celebratory roles after this, unless you count a bit part as "Young Mr. Belvedere" in a 1989 Mr. Belvedere Christmas episode. Of the four, only Marc and Shiri remain relevant today, but I guess Jonathan gets off on a technicality.
The "Halloween" elements of the special work under covert circumstances; there aren't any jack o' lanterns, but the opening credits use a ghoulish font to list the stars, and the whole thing takes place at a spooky old house. This was very much a cable special, during a time when "cable special" universally meant "cheap ass." The Mystery Magical Special still wasn't without its charm, and in its final minutes, introduced a batshit plot twist that guaranteed its remembrance twenty years later. More on that when I'm up to Picture #15.
Marc's car gets a flat, so they pull up to the creepy house hoping to use the phone. Special guest star John Astin tells them to go right ahead and promptly disappears for the remainder of the show, stubbornly believing that cameo spots should be just that.
The mansion is dimly lit and really makes me want to play Clue, and it doesn't take long for the gang to realize that they should've picked the house next door. There's weird animal heads littering the walls, along with spooky paintings with moving eyes. Marc finally finds a phone hidden within a phone book, which is a such a remarkably shitty gag that I can't believe I'm not making a bigger deal over what a remarkably shitty gag it was. On the other hand, all of this crap sets the tone for much trickery and tomfoolery, which is appropriate since the Mystery Magical Special is less a Halloween special and more a magic show.
The kids aren't given any real specific roles here, but while Jonathan and Shiri approach their surroundings with some caution, Trenton seems recklessly enthusiastic about the house's haunted qualities. Why they always gotta make the fat kid the idiot?
After Marc pratfalls through a secret passage (Just like Clue!), the guests find themselves in the domain of famed magician Lance Burton, who can't even muster a "hello" before breaking into his routine -- one filled with disappearing candles, doves and jumping fire. Burton is a real pro and showman, so this isn't a case of a widely edited television program that uses a bunch of cheap cuts to cover his transitions -- Burton's act is seen straight and "live" as it plays out, and it's pretty darned good. Good enough for us not to question a very unfluid plot where Marc Summers and three kids crash through a wall in a creepy mansion that won't let them escape, spot a magician and quietly enjoy the show instead of asking what in the holy fuck is going on.
Lance finishes Act 1 and takes a powder, so the gang decides to do a bit more exploring. Since Burton made no motions to murder them, they're a little less apprehensive about the house in general, gleefully strolling through without a care. That is, until that idiot Trevor belts out the most non-sequiturry non-sequitur I've ever heard: "I wish something really spooky would happen." Okay, Trev...what POSSIBLE reason could you have had for saying that? Explain it to me. What the hell were you thinking?
Nevertheless, Trevor's stupid wish comes true. A bleached fake head with a ridiculously thick rope sloppily crammed into its skull falls from the ceiling on a platter, and as far as visual scares go, I've seen better and more logical in the "Freaky Train" dark ride at Keansburg as a kid. Seriously, this head looks like something you'd buy from Party City's Halloween clearance rack for six bucks. Marc hurries his charges out of the room, but not before the kids get to deliver a 1-2-3 punch of facial expressions worthy of YTMND tributes...
All three facial expressions were welcome additions to my weekend, but Brandis's came with an extreme zoom-in that makes his reaction champ. Trevor of course has no reason for his face, having wished for such a thing to happen no more than three seconds prior. Shiri, using some of that fine method acting that'd make her such a dynamo as Jesse Bradford's girlfriend in Swimfan years later, actually points at the head with a trembling figure instead of just screeching in its general direction. Mystery Magical Special director Steven Santos is rumored to have offered whichever kid gave him the best reaction a cookie shaped like Big Bird.
The head-on-a-rope-on-a-platter incident was enough to erase whatever good Lance Burton's magic show had done; now the gang just wants out of there. Marc locates a phone booth inside the house, and when the kids check to see how things are going a minute later, his body is replaced with the kind of plastic skeleton one would find right next to that head-on-a-rope-on-a-platter on Party City's Halloween clearance rack. Okay, now I'm just being bitchy. You can see the strings holding it up, and it doesn't appear to be a very complete skeleton, but otherwise, it's not that bad. Besides, without things like cheap fake heads and misshapen plastic skeletons, the Mystery Magical Special might've garnered more complaints that it wasn't at all Halloweeny.
The kids run off screaming again, but since Marc has apparently been robbed of his flesh and blood, they no longer have one to call their protector. They hear some door jiggling noises coming from afar and hide behind a couch until the storm passes, but no worries! It's only Tina Lenert! Our second special guest magician! Now, I'm going to attempt to put Tina's act into words, but it'll be tough, so I apologize in advance if the next few lines don't make sense.
Okay, so picture a bucket with a mop standing in it, upside down, dressed in clothing. Now add Tina to the mix, and have one of her arms inside one of the mop creature's jacket sleeves. Tina "puppets" the arm to make it appear as though the mop creature is both holding her captive and presenting her with fine diamond jewelry. That's the act, and it's a lot cooler on the screen than it is in the website review. Light research tells me that she's still doing that mop gag at shows today, which is an understandable longevity when you consider how few magicians would see a "mop comes alive" gag and want to rip it off.
So Tina turned out to be pretty cool, but the kids still want out of the house. Before they can escape, they need to find Marc, thereby conflicting with the earlier plot point of the kids believing Marc had transformed into a plastic skeleton. The house is kind of labyrinthian, and they don't know where to start searching. Oh, wait, there's a crude printout reading "Marc" with an arrow sign underneath it. There we go.
The kids spot Marc, now onstage in full magician gear. Marc runs through his act (Summers was evidently an accomplished magician long before he was an accomplished guy who commentated as kids grabbed things out of giant noses), and is ultimately joined by Lance Burton to finish the trickery in a big way. The kids clap when the show finishes, but it was more a gesture out of politeness since they're far more interested in knowing how in the what the and the who that. First Marc's a skeleton, then he's a magician. Then he's a magician joking around with the other magician. Then he's a three-eyed goat and I don't mean the one from Jabba's sail barge. Marc confesses that Burton had shown him the light and let him in on the best kept secret of the creepy old mansion: "It's all a trick!"
The head on a rope? A trick! The locking/unlocking doors? Trick! So that's what all of those shenanigans were! Tricks! Shiri takes Lance aside for a more serious evaluation, wanting to know if that bit with the skeleton in the phone booth was also a trick. Well, duh, of course it was, Shiri. Marc's standing right there; obviously he wasn't really transformed into a plastic skeleton. Lance plays along without a drip of sarcasm, because magicians are good at poker faces and he doesn't have to look like he thinks Shiri's an asshole even if he really does think it. To prove that it was a trick, Lance offers to slide open the phone booth door, leading to the most ultimate and remembered scene from the Mystery Magical Special. It's time to meet...Skeleton Dude.
When Lance opens the phone booth door, the plastic skeleton is nowhere to be found. In its stead is Skeleton Dude, a very much alive, Zorro-like creature of the night wearing an amalgam of pirate, British officer and grim reaper costumes. Brandishing a fencing lance and threatening to fence Lance, Skeleton Dude came off a lot scarier than the producers probably intended, all due to that creepy, lifeless mask he wore. That's a frightening mask, and Skeleton Dude didn't really need stern portrayal as a villain to be the stuff of nightmares. Hell, he could've been written to play cards with the kids and make them sandwiches -- Skeleton Dude still would've given us bad dreams.
Skeleton Dude duels Lance, and the moves are either impressive or like watching someone in a skeleton costume do an animated rap depending on the camera angle. Their battle is one of the longest scenes in the special, punctuated by a musical score that sounds like something that would play if Daffy Duck's train went off track and was about to crash into crates of oranges. Though lighthearted in its choreography, the fact that Skeleton Dude maintains his one "I Will Eat You" face throughout makes the duel a real nailbiter.
Near the closing moments, Skeleton Dude catches Jonathan Brandis, who seconds earlier bucked conventions when he attempted to escape a villain by running directly towards him. Whereas tabloids once reported that Brandis threatened to walk off the set if he wasn't given the role of "Skeleton Dude's captive" over his colleagues, I will only say that Jonathan shot Trenton such a "ha ha look what I'm getting to do" look as Lance pawed him off-screen.
In the end, the swordfight evolves/degenerates into a magic show, with Lance somehow transforming into Skeleton Dude before a slow camera zoom to his face reveals him sweating profusely and breathing heavily (Was that whole swordfight done in a single take?), barely able to get out an "It's all a trick" before collapsing.
The magic stuff still holds up well today, but I'm a little peeved at the notion that Skeleton Dude never really existed. He could've been the next Pinhead, or at least the next twins-with-twisty-face Cenobite who provided Pinhead with muscle.
Marc and the kids finally get to leave the mansion, and as another stranded driver wanders up to the front door wondering if he can use the phone, they're all like, "Sure, whatever, go right ahead." Not a very nice thing to do considering that they know they're condemning the man to Skeleton Dude and heads-on-ropes-on-platters.
The special ends there, and I'm pretty happy that it does, because I'm not so sure this could've held up for another 30 minutes. It'll seem really dated and dumb to those who didn't grow up finding this sort of thing perfectly acceptable entertainment, but the Mystery Magical Special was totally okay. Nothing wrong with it. Nothing except that cheap fake head.
And where are they now? Marc Summers currently hosts Unwrapped on the Food Network. Lance Burton and Tina Lenert are still performing. Shiri Appleby grew up to become a successful television and movie actress, though she prefers the term "actor," because it ain't a man's business no more, sucker! Trenton Tiegan unsuccessfully sued NJ little league team "Trenton Tigers" for something or another. And Jonathan Brandis did some stuff too.
Click here to see the head on a rope on a platter! Click here to see Skeleton Dude fuck shit up old school. Click here to see the, uh, last ten seconds of the special.
