Is there any doubt that Halloween is the greatest holiday of the year? It combines the greed of Christmas with the gluttony of Thanksgiving in one paganistic package, celebrating terror, evil and death. Yet TV doesn’t go nearly as hog-wild on this most theatrical of holidays. I’ve already given a shout-out to It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, and have yet to watch my TiVoed Hallow’s-Eve episode of Reaper (if this show can’t knock this holiday out of the park, who can?). But what are your favorite scary-TV staples?
I’ll start off by nominating the Halloween episodes of Roseanne, not just because the Conner’s grisly H-Day costumes were funny, but because they got at essential themes of the show. The family fought, but they were united in their oddball rebelliousness. Roseanne was about a lot of things, but it was largely about the experience of being, in a Midwestern town, just a little weird: an artsy high-school student, a peculiar kid, a wife and mother with a less-than-homespun worldview. Halloween is great because it gives you permission to weird out and act out–a kind of permission Roseanne was never one to pass up.
Your nominees? Favorite Treehouse of Horror installments? Or your favorite local-TV horror-movie host? Freak us out. Or just watch this:
Better plan all week! Better plan all month! Better plan all year!