The Conservative Cave
The Bar => The Lounge => Topic started by: movie buff on October 30, 2011, 02:32:14 PM
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Hello, and welcome back to my Monster- Fest!
I know I’m kind of cheating with this one, as it’s not about a movie, but it’s still a related topic I’d like to address.
Everyone knows and loves TV Christmas specials (And I’ll be hopefully looking at several of them this December during my ‘25 Days of Christmas’ marathon), but there are plenty of good TV Halloween specials as well, so today I’ll be looking at a few of my personal favorites of them (And no, sorry, I won’t be looking at ‘It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown’; I know a lot of people like it, but I always found it to be a bit too depressing for my tastes).
The first I’ll be discussing will be the ‘Beavis and Butt- Head’ Halloween special, entitled “Bungholio: Lord of the Harvest.†These guys are admittedly an acquired taste, but I always liked them (And I’m thrilled that the show is now back and making new episodes), and their Halloween special was great. It concerns them on Halloween night, initially not realizing what the night is (When a pair of trick or treating kids show up at their door, Butt- Head takes their bags of candy, thinking they’re passing out free samples, only to suffer the wrath of their furious father). Then, when they realize they can get free candy, they decide to costume up (Beavis puts a pair of briefs on his head and claims that he’s “A nadâ€; Butt- Head pours melted cheese over his head and claims that he’s “Nachosâ€) and go out to get some. They have no luck, however, as everyone either thinks they’re too old or only gives them candy alternatives like bumper stickers.
Finally, they go to their semi- senile neighbor Tom Anderson, and when he’s distracted by a phone call, Beavis tears into his candy bowl, and as is usually the case when Beavis ingests large amounts of sugar or caffeine, he turns into his wild alter- ego, ‘The Great Cornholio.’ He begins going nuts and scaring everyone around, before leading to a finale that is actually pretty darn scary for an episode of ‘B & B’ (The first time I saw it, the ending made me fall dead silent for like a minute or two).
Although, as I’ve said, ‘Beavis and Butt- Head’ isn’t for everyone, this is an awesome Halloween special. It’s both scary and funny, just the way Halloween should be for most people.
The next Halloween special I’ll be looking at is for the TV show ‘Reno 911.’ This was a very funny show on Comedy Central, a parody of ‘Cops’ which follows around seven officers of the Reno Sheriff’s Department, revealed to be the stupidest and most incompetent law enforcement agency on the planet. In this Halloween special, which was also the 1st season finale, they deal with various funny call- ins on Halloween night. The intro for the episode starts out scary as two of the officers receive a trespassing call at a local cemetery and a bunch of teens in hockey masks silently approach them with eerie music playing, but turns hilarious in seconds, as the teens then out of nowhere begin pelting the two officers with eggs, and the officers run off screaming like little girls (What’s especially funny is that of the officers on the show, those two were the ones usually regarded as the ‘Toughest,’ Jones and Garcia).
From there, it’s one weird Halloween- related call- in after another. Probably my favorite is when the goofy deputy Weigel sets up a stakeout at her house to try and catch some vandals that every year hit her house and make off with one of her cats. Finding out who the vandals in question actually are is great. It ends on a cliffhanger, as a hilarious but pretty mean- spirited prank two of the officers pull on the others goes VERY wrong. The cliffhanger would be resolved in the next season premiere, but in a pretty stupid way.
While it’s obviously not for children (A LOT of bathroom humor in it), the ‘Reno 911’ Halloween special is funny as hell, and helps drive home, albeit in an exaggerated way, what a stressful night Halloween can be for cops.
The third special I’ll be looking at is from an old Nickelodeon show called ‘The Adventures of Pete & Pete.’ For those who’ve never heard of this show, it was an incredibly clever, well- written show that was on during Nickelodeon’s “Golden Age†in the early- mid 1990’s, centering around two brothers with the same name, one about 16 and the other about 12 or 13 (They’re usually told apart by being known as “Big Pete†and “Little Pete,†respectively), and the various quirky residents of their town Wellsville.
In the Halloween special, “Halloweenies,†Big Pete is revealed to be someone who used to love Halloween, but now despises it as a dorky holiday. Little Pete, on the other hand, adores Halloween, and is determined to break the trick or treating world record for most houses visited in one night. Big Pete decides to come with him and help him. He does so with reservation, however, out of fear of falling victim to ‘The Pumpkin Eaters,’ a gang of pumpkin- masked, Halloween- hating thugs that terrorize trick or treaters (Especially teenage ones), destroy jack o lanterns en masse, and generally do all they can to ruin Halloween for everyone. A year earlier, they apparently caught another teenage boy trick or treating and basically ruined his life.
Things have gotten so bad that it’s revealed that unless the Pumpkin Eaters are caught, Halloween will have to be permanently cancelled in that neighborhood from then on, making it all the more imperative for Little Pete to try and break the record while he still can. While things initially go great on the record attempt, Big Pete eventually chickens out when he realizes that the two of them are the last trick or treaters out on the streets and thus prime targets for the Pumpkin Eaters, and leaves a thoroughly angry/ disappointed Little Pete to continue pursuing the record alone. By the time things end, however, Big Pete regains his nerve as well as his past love of Halloween, the two brothers stand up to the Pumpkin Eaters, and Halloween is saved.
About the only problem I have with this special is that we learn who the leader of the Pumpkin Eaters is rather early on in the episode when he briefly takes his pumpkin mask off (It turns out to be a somewhat- recurring villain on the series), it would have been better if his identity was a mystery up until the episode’s climax when Big Pete stands up to him. Other than that, though, ‘Halloweenies’ was great. The brothers’ relationship with each other is as nice to see as it always is in the series, there’s plenty of humor in it, the Pumpkin Eaters make for good villains that alternate between being scary and being funny, and the whole atmosphere from the sets to the music screams Halloween. An awesome Halloween special for an awesome series.
The fourth special to look at is ‘Scared Shrekless.’ I’ve always liked the ‘Shrek’ series, even the rather subpar third and fourth entries, and it makes for a good Halloween special. This special, which premiered just a year ago, concerns Shrek, Donkey, and the rest of their friends gathering in the now- abandoned castle of Lord Farquaad (The villain of the first ‘Shrek’ movie) telling ghost stories, with the one who lasts the longest being deemed king of Halloween. When they first enter the city, there is an amusing reversal of the whole ‘Singing puppets’ scene from the first movie.
The first to tell a story is Gingy, the Gingerbread Man. His story, ‘Bride of Gingy,’ concerns him forcing the baker who made him to make a gingerbread girlfriend for him with an abnormally large amount of sugar in the mix. Problem is, having that much sugar in her soon makes her extremely clingy and possessive towards him, and things start to fall apart rather quickly from there, leading to an ending that is surprisingly scary for a kids’ Halloween special.
The second story, which Donkey and Puss in Boots tell together, is called “Boots Motel.†This is probably my least favorite part of the special, though it’s still funny. It starts as a parody of ‘Psycho,’ but things quickly become chaotic as each of the two characters inserts new details into the story to humiliate the other character (i.e. Donkey repeatedly tries to get Puss killed off in the story, Puss at one point says Donkey was wearing a tutu and coconut bra, etc.). It becomes a bit weird and ends a bit too suddenly for me to really like it.
Shrek tells the third and final story, “The Shreksorcist.†This story, which concerns Shrek being made to act as a babysitter for the apparently- possessed Pinocchio, is an obvious parody of ‘The Exorcist,’ and is extremely funny. Pinocchio’s movements and Shrek’s reactions to him all made me laugh, and the revelation of why he was doing all that is great. The whole special finally closes with a rather amusing prank being pulled on Donkey by Shrek’s family, though if I were making the special, I’d have had Shrek fall victim to the prank too. All in all, ‘Scared Shrekless makes for a fun, watchable Halloween special great for kids and adults, much like the Shrek series as a whole.
To close, I would be remiss if I didn’t at least mention/ acknowledge the Simpsons Halloween specials, aka the “Treehouse of Horrors†series. These are almost always a lot of fun to watch, with my favorite probably being the fourth one (With a story about Homer selling his soul to the Devil for a donut, a ‘Twilight Zone’ parody in which Bart sees a monster on the side of the school bus, and a parody of ‘Bram Stoker’s Dracula’ involving the Simpsons and Mr. Burns). However, they started to go downhill around the same time that the series itself did, with many of the shorts being less horror- related and more sci- fi or fantasy- related. Plus, the fact that they’re often not shown until AFTER Halloween is an annoying tendency.
btw, the 'Pete and Pete' Halloween special and 'Scared Shrekless' are both available to be watched on Youtube now, though the one for 'Scared Shrekless' has Swedish subtitles on the bottom of it that are a bit annoying.
So, what are you guys’ favorite Halloween specials? Let me know.
There are just two more reviews left, the next will feature a good long look at one of my favorite fictional ghosts who’s always associated with Halloween! See you then!
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I cannot for the life of me remember how The Great Cornholio ended!
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I cannot for the life of me remember how The Great Cornholio ended!
You mean the Beavis and Butt- Head Halloween special (Not the episode "The Great Cornholio," which was Cornholio's first appearance)?
MEGA- SPOILERS!
First Butt- Head, then Beavis as Cornholio, end up out in the country (Butt- Head ends up there because Todd and his gang drove him out there and left him there, and Beavis just randomly wanders there as Cornholio) and fall victim to a psychotic farmer guy with bluish skin and a really weird voice. Beavis wakes up, the sugar rush having faded, to find himself hung up from a hook in the psycho farmer's barn. Into the barn come the psycho farmer and Butt- Head (Who now also has bluish skin and has apparently gone insane), and the two of them apparently kill Beavis with chainsaws.