October Report #5

3rd Rock from the Sun: “Scaredy Dick”

You know something? I friggin’ hated 3rd Rock from the moment I first saw it. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. The show has always seemed really irritating to me. Of course, I love John Lithgow but he just wasn’t a big enough draw. It is almost impossible for me to watch him do comedy and not think of his psycho roles from Raising Cain and Dexter. I’m not saying the guy isn’t hilarious but I get more than enough of his shtick on 3rd Rock from this one episode. Oh and I think that aliens are lame and boring. Sorry!



The show really goes all out for this Halloween episode and there are a whole lot of laughs here. I won’t even bother describing the plot. It is more complicated than I am willing to summarize for you. It's about these three aliens disguised as humans and stuff happens. There. You like that? Just know there are some great moments that make 3rd Rock worthy of its classic sitcom status. Can you tell that I'm a huge fan?



Martha Stewart’s Halloween Special: Bad Things, Good Things

Is it unthinkable sarcasm or sub-irony when I admit that I like Martha Stewart? Am I just being a sardonic and cynical snob when I gush about this freakin’ fantastic Halloween special? The answer to both of these questions is: “Naw, fuck it, this shit is so good.” The woman has made a fortune keeping upper middle class ladies’ hands busy for the last 30 years and I don’t know why but she’s kind of fascinating for some reason.



My wife LeEtta gets pretty crafty sometimes and occasionally picks up Martha Stewart’s magazine while in line at the grocery store. I don’t get this but she says that it’s an okay mag. We weren’t all that into her show either but my obsession to record a bunch of Halloween specials one year led me to get “Bad Things, Good Things” on DVD-R. And I’m really glad I did. This special gets better with every viewing. It is equal parts entertaining and ridiculous. Stewart claims that Halloween is her favorite holiday and she puts way too much effort into these cheesy ass decorations.



I can’t really say how much of this special is actually good and how much of it is just painfully hypnotic. When it comes to holiday specials, I fight for my nostalgia even when it doesn’t exist. I will make something that I normally don’t give a shit about into the most important thing. Like the Halloween episodes of things like 3rd Rock from the Sun or Lawrence Welk, Martha Stewart totally redeems her entire annoying career in one magical tribute to my favorite holiday. I am suddenly imaging Lawrence Welk and Martha Stewart trying to kill each other with an accordion and a bone folder.



While I’m here, I might as well confess to my love for that Whatever, Martha show where Martha Stewart’s daughter and her friend heckle the worst bits of the old episodes of Martha Stewart Living. It’s a catty and bitchy show that, as a guy, I probably shouldn’t be watching. But what am I gonna do? Watch fucking football? Come on! But anyway, if you watch this particular Halloween episode which is mostly a hodgepodge of bad Halloween crafts, I doubt you're going to run out and try any of Martha's delightfully quaint and corny ideas. But you might get a little sample of a very strange planet where no one has anything better to do than carve about 2 dozen pumpkins of varying sizes to make a stupid pumpkin snake for the path up to your front door. Spooooooooooky!

October Report #4

The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy: “Billy & Mandy’s Jacked Up Halloween”

This show is about a couple of kids who trick the grim reaper into being their best friend FOR ALL ETERNITY. Of course, it’s amazing. “Billy & Mandy’s Jacked Up Halloween” is one of two Halloween specials (the other being Underfist: Halloween Bash) (and there is another Halloween episode) but I like this one the best.

Jack-O-Lantern was a prankster of epic proportions in medieval times. He took things too far one day and the queen orders his execution. When Grim came to take him to the land of the dead, Jack tricked him and stole his scythe (happens a lot on this show). Grim agrees to grant him eternal life but he takes his head as payment. Jack replaces his noggin with a pumpkin. In the town of Endsville, present day, it’s Halloween and Billy and Mandy are getting ready for trick or treating. Billy wants to dress up like the grim reaper so Grim foolishly lets Billy borrow his scythe. While Mandy and Grim take off in one direction, Billy goes in the other. He goes straight up to Jack-O-Lantern’s house (where the pumpkin-headed has been living for hundreds of years) and next thing you know, the scythe is in the wrong hands, a portal to the underworld is opened, and all heck is breaking loose.



This is a pretty friggin’ awesome Halloween special. Great characters, a fun story, and tons of corny jokes make this a favorite of mine. As usually (that's a typo but I'm leaving it in), it’s Irwin, the nerdy kid who pines for Mandy, who steals the show. He spends the entire episode trying to find a scary costume with no luck whatsoever.



Phil of the Future: “Halloween”

So Fred Savage directs stuff now? Sure, why not? He directed this funny yet silly Halloween episode of Phil of the Future. I’ve never actually watched this show but this episode is a good time. Phil (who is from the future), his sister Pim (who is also from the future), and best friend Keely (who is not from the future) are dragged into a bizarre battle with Debbie, a cupcake making cyborg (that is from the future) bent on world domination.



This episode gets bonus points for being instantly nostalgic (how did they do that?) and despite its wildly over the top corniness, it’s just a lot of fun. I might actually have to check out more of Phil of the Future sometime. One day, I might actually be too old to watch some of this stuff. Naw... It's Halloween! Who cares?

And now...

Here are some Halloween treats from my birth year:





Part 1 of 6 (the rest are on Youtube):

Vlog of Doom: Happy Halloween

Go to the Goblinhaus!

October Report # 3

Here I am with my friend, Freddie Cougar!

The weekend started out with a visit to Wilson's Books in St. Pete where I raided the horror section buying paperbacks based solely on their covers or titles. I really love this store and whenever LeEtta and I are visiting her folks, we stop there. Their faded and bent Nightmare on Elm Street cardboard cutout is a landmark, I think. I managed to pick up three books and they look super exciting/terrible.


Illegal in most states.


Perfect cover for a Video Nasty except on a book.


Everything about this is perfect in every way.

Today, we hit a few Halloween stores and it was fun. I like how Target and Wal-Mart have decided that they are going to totally dick around this Halloween season and let all the other stores have all the fun. We hit Halloween City on Dale Mabry, Spirit or whatever its called in the University Mall, and good old Party City on Fowler. It was something all right. Even though I wasn't exactly blown away by anything in the stores, it did get me in the mood for the season.


More like Halloween Village! Zing!


Yoooooooooooooooo!


Disproportionate is the new spooky.


Wanker Texas Ranger! Zing again!


I bought this entire display.

October Report #2

Hey Arnold! - "Arnold's Halloween"

Hey Arnold! was one of the more eccentric cartoons that aired on Nickelodeon; filled with oddball characters, a jazz-laced soundtrack, and strange storylines. The episode “Arnold’s Halloween” briefly parodies films like Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Independence Day but the plot is based on the infamous 1938 War of the Worlds radio broadcast. There’s even an Orson Welles-like character who hosts an alien conspiracy TV show. On Halloween night, football-headed Arnold and his friend Gerald decide to prank the adults of their boarding house by pulling off a faux-alien invasion. Of course, the prank gets out of hand putting the entire city into a panic. I dig this episode because I like the show but as a Halloween episode, it’s not really a favorite.



The Beverly Hillbillies - "Trick or Treat"

When I was a kid, I had an amazing attention span. I could sit still long enough to endure such timeless classic TV shows as Dennis the Menace, Dobie Gillis, Leave It to Beaver, and Gilligan’s Island. Um yeah, those shows are terrible and boring! Don’t get me wrong, I still have fond memories of My Three Sons and The Donna Reed Show so I guess I’m a hypocrite. But The Beverly Hillbillies is terrible, boring, and annoying! So, of course, the show had to have a lackluster Halloween episode that I just had to watch. It contains less than 10% Halloween-related content.

The premise of this episode (number 6 out of 274!) is that Granny thinks that Beverly Hillsians are too unfriendly and she wants to go back home. Jethro tries to convince her that they need to stay because Elly Mae is finally starting to turn into a proper young lady. ZZZZZZZZZZ-snore snort! Sorry about that. Blah blah blah, the Clampetts go from house to house not knowing it’s Halloween and people give them candies and treats because they assume they’re a family of rich people pretending to be white trash. So funny! The only good thing about the whole lame episode is the presence of Jethrine which is Jethro in drag and voiced by a female actress. Very bizarre but not in a good way. Okay, there is one other thing. How disturbing were Halloween masks back in the day? Jeez, look at these kids:

October Report #1

I know I'm not unique when I say that fall is my favorite time of year. There are so many moments, so many memories tied to the many Octobers I've spent on this planet that I could ramble on forever. From my perusal of the blogosphere, I see that most horror bloggers suffer from the same crippling nostalgia that I do when it comes to Halloween. I'm going to try this year to cover some stuff that hopefully will be outside of the box but when everyone seems to be talking about the same stuff, what can you do? I will attempt to focus on Halloween TV stuff and less about films this year.

What are the two most important things when it comes to Halloween? Well, the first is obviously clip art. I love googling Halloween clip art. I take perverse pleasure in pictures like this:



And this:



And the second most important thing about Halloween is watching Halloween-related stuff all October long. So I'm going to keep track of all the Halloween TV specials, Halloween episodes of TV shows, and of course, Halloweeny movies airing in our household this year. Last October was pretty intense due to our big move so we didn't get to watch nearly enough good stuff. We're going to fix that this year and I'll be sure to share the fun with y'all. The best resource is just go to Tivo.com and search for Halloween stuff there.

This weekend, we watched Hocus Pocus, the one with Bette freakin' Midler and Sarah Jessica Horseface. We also watched the Angry Beavers Halloween special and a Halloween episode of iCarly. These are good things. October is the time of year when I get really, really silly and will watch pretty much anything Halloween related. For instance, there's that Lawrence Welk Halloween special from 1978 which is perfectly genius. You can check out me talking about a bunch of these specials in a post on my old blog.

So if it seems that October is off to a shaky start, well it is! I'm still recovering from Asian horror month and the 4th season of Dexter (which I finally watched the rest of yesterday). See? I got a lot goin' on right now! Anyway, I will try to post as much as I can this month since I'll be completely silent during all of November for National Novel Writing Month. That's right, I'm trying to work on The Novel again. Sigh. When will I ever learn?