A "special" in the purest sense of the word, Witch's Night Out creates a world out of nothing that exists for about half an hour, then is gone forever. It's sharply written, with funny jokes, and animation that may be a bit crude, but is also stylish and unique. Never released on DVD, though the copyright holders can be FIERCE about getting it taken down whenever it's posted anywhere.
The best of live action specials, to my mind. Judd Hirsch clearly has a ball as Count Dracula. The "History of Halloween" lesson is a BIT less horrifyingly inaccurate than most of them. There's a blooper reel hiding in storage someplace - I'd sure like to see it!
This was THE special for my generation, and is surprisingly scary - the pirate ghosts at the end are legitimately spooky. This is always nice to see - so many cartoons are afraid to be the least bit scary.
Though the title alone makes it a "Halloween" cartoon, this is a cool one. The music is catchy, the autumnal atmosphere is dreamy and inviting, and Hans Conried, one of the patron saints of Halloween specials, does as good a job as anyone could replacing Boris Karloff as the voice of the Grinch. They never do say what will happen when the Grinch shows up in town on Grinch Night, but you can bet it ain't gonna be pretty.
It takes most of the special for Raggedy Ann and Andy to decide to get a boy a pumpkin, get him a pumpkin, and bring it to him. Indeed, this special really takes its own sweet time for anything to happen. But the sharp, funny dialogue and comedic touches help it rise above countless other boring Halloween cartoons where the creepy old lady turns out not to be so bad, after all.
The last of the major specials to continue airing regularly still holds up well, despite a distracting "World War I Flying Ace" subplot. The importance of Vince Guaraldi's note-perfect score cannot be overstated.
This would probably rate higher if I'd grown up watching it - it's really much better than a few of these. But you can't underestimate how big of a role nostalgia plays in how much we love these things.
The first show I remember watching - in fact, I'm not sure I have any earlier memories of television at all. Just a compilation of earlier cartoons, but what great, spooky cartoons they are!
A made for video entry from a brief period when it seemed like they wanted to relaunch the Chipmunks as an all-Halloween franchise. The Frankenstein entry isn't much to write home about, but the Wolf Man movie was fantastic. Fairly funny and with that wonderful Halloween vibe that I love so much.
This animated adaptation of Ray Bradbury's novel gets a bit dull in parts, and the "history of Halloween" isn't entirely accurate, but it manages to make its point about why we (and many other cultures through history) celebrate death and horror every year. It's got the best creepy house on the edge of town in the business, and a daring, haunting ending.
Honorable mentions:
Disney's own take on Legend of Sleepy Hollow is still probably the best (and most faithful) adaption of them all. This would be on top of the list if it wasn't disqualified for not being a true "special," just a movie that aired on Halloween a lot. I'm picky (perhaps "dorky" is a better word) about this kind of stuff.
These haven't really aged well, and "Bride" seems to be trying to cram a 13 episode season into a 90 minute movie, but the sheer number of letters I get from people who had nightmares about Mr. Boogedy speak for themselves. A nifty special that I'd like to see on a proper DVD release (though Disney has taken no interest at all in its 1980s back catalog in recent years).
Tim Burton's early short film pretty much lays out the template and style Burton would use in most of his subsequent movies when he became a major director.
0 comments:
Post a Comment