FILM FOCUS: HOCUS POCUS

Hocus Pocus is the moon landing of my generation. The question among my peers is not “Have you seen Hocus Pocus?” but “Where were you when you first saw Hocus Pocus?”  It is a litmus test against which all other Halloween movies will forever be judged: “It was good, but it wasn’t as good as Hocus Pocus.”  I will not insult you by offering up any sort of synopsis, as it must be assumed that you have seen Hocus Pocus many, many times and if not that you are locked away in some sort of Siberian gulag and therefore do not have access to this blog post in the first place.

Besides being a great movie (it makes my Top 100 list) it’s the greatest Halloween movie ever made for, unlike many other so-called Halloween films, the emphasis is on the holiday itself.  The majority of the movie takes place on Halloween night and every possible Halloween related thing is thrown in: witches, trick-or-treating, lavishly decorated suburban houses, Satan (in the form of Gary Marshall), a costume party with a skeleton band, a zombie, a graveyard, a talking black cat.  True there is a distinct lack of vampires, but the Dad is costumed as Dracula just to cover the bases.  It’s like they made a Halloween checklist and made sure to include everything.

Thackery Binx (not Zachary).  This picture alone is so Halloween I can hardly stand it!

I was thrilled when, during the Bette Midler episode of Inside the Actor’s Studio, host James Lipton asked Midler about Hocus Pocus.  She further cemented the movie’s worthiness by describing it as “one of my finest hours.”

The movie has mass kid and nostalgia appeal, but it also has major queer appeal, which makes sense given that it was directed by Kenny Ortega, a gay man who later went on to craft another jewel in the Disney cinema crown, the even gayer High School Musical series.  Here are some of the things that make Hocus Pocus gay:  Better Midler (bonus gay points for the inclusion of Kathy Najimy and Sarah Jessica Parker).  The “I Put a Spell On You” number.  The mom vouging while dressed as Madonna in the cone bra.  The Sanderson sisters are essentially drag queens.  Plus the hero of the film is bullied, a sadly relatable state of affairs for most queer people.

 

My favorite scene: Medusa, Satan, slow-dancing, Clark bars.

People (mostly my boyfriend) got very, VERY excited when the internets reported that a sequel, Hocus Pocus 2: Rise of the Elder Witch, was in the works.  It was a total hoax and that horror-movie sounding subtitle should have been the tip-off.  As long as all three actresses (this is the one and only thing I like Sarah Jessica Parker in) returned as the Sanderson Sisters I'm there.  But we need more than a sequel.  We need a ride at Disneyland.  We need a Criterion Collection Blu Ray release.  We need in-theater retrospectives every October and statues of the Sanderson Sisters erected in Salem next to the statue of Samantha Stevens.  We need Hocus Pocus in our lives every October and, per tradition, it's what we'll be watching tonight as the grand finale of the Halloween season.  

Hocus Pocus = Halloween.

Happy Halloween from the Sanderson Sisters & me!

HALLOWEEN 2013 RETROSPECTIVE

Halloween is so close I can taste it (tastes like candy corn and Jolly Ranchers) so now is a good time to look back and reflect on the season.  First things first: a huge, heartfelt thank you to all of you for reading, commenting, and liking the blog on Facebook.  It’s been tremendously fun and I’ve loved sharing it all with you.  Luckily we have lots more holidays coming up to enjoy together!

I’m thrilled that I beat last year’s record of 65 episodes watched.  It was close but I did it, having watched my 67^th episode last night.  And maybe I can cram one or two more in by midnight on Halloween!  We also survived our trip to Sleepy Hollow and finally made it to the Great Jack O’Lantern Blaze, which was amazeballs.  I read four Halloween books, watched a couple of Halloween movies and ate way too much candy.  Tis the season!

And now I will hand out some random, meaningless awards (hey, if the Academy can do it so can I):

Our number one trope of Halloween 2013 was the inexplicably popular Rag Doll Costume, which appeared in four different episodes.  Coming tied in second and  appearing in three episodes each were the ever-popular Cleopatra Costume, A Dark & Stormy Blackout and Haunting with a Logical Explanation.

Scariest Moment is a tie between Zeke the Plumber in every scene he appeared in along with the moment Greta turned from trick-or-treater to demon in “Hellowe’en.”  Honorable mention for the scene in which Louie and his daughters were menaced in Louie.

Worst Episode goes to The Big Bang Theory’s “The Holographic Excitation.”

Best New Show Discovery is Halloween Wars, with the junior award given to Doc McStuffins. 

Worst New Show Discovery goes to Quints by Surprise—but at least one Facebook poster said they loved the show.  Different strokes, folks!

Fictional Halloween Party I Most Wish I Was Invited To goes to the Taylor family’s two parties seen in Home Improvement, with an honorable mention for Carrie’s party in Two of a Kind.

Unnecessary Excessive Flatulence Dishonor is bestowed upon Jessie with a shout-out to the “fart attack” in Parks & Recreation.

And finally the Batshit Crazy award goes to Girlfriends for bringing us the poignant story of a woman’s nervous breakdown, her shopping cart, and a weirdly long church-set sobfest.

As for tomorrow’s post, I’ve saved the bestest for lastest—can you guess what it will be?!

BOO-HOO TO YOU!

Doc McStuffins

Season 1 (2012)

Just when I was ready to throw in the towel when it came to the Disney Channel Doc McStuffins came along and restored my faith.  She’s a miracle worker, that Doc!  I had heard of this Disney Junior show, about a little girl who serves as a doctor to broken toys that come to life around her.  It’s a cute premise and this plucky show really delivered with this Halloween episode.

It’s Halloween and the good doctor and her dad are working on their annual haunted living room display.  Even Doc’s toys are getting in the act by wearing costumes.  But when a pumpkin with a motion-detecting ghost inside malfunctions, Doc McStuffins takes it to her clinic (a playhouse in the backyard) to work her medical magic.

Once the Doc brings the adorable little ghost to life it’s revealed that he was frightened by the Halloween decorations and so is hiding out inside the pumpkin.  Doc McStuffins brings the decorations, including a witch and some hanging spiders, to life in order to show the ghost that they are friendly and it’s all in good fun. The witch reminds me of the motorized witch seen in Home Improvement-- except now with the added bonus of sentience!  All my Halloween dreams are coming true!  Anyhoo, the ghost gets into the spirit of things and everyone comes together to spook visiting trick-or-treaters.

Ghost or dollop of delicious frozen yogurt?  Either way I'm sold.

Loved it!  I loved the toy characters and I loved that the Halloween decorations came alive and conversed.  Basically this show is my childhood brought to life, in which I assigned personalities and developed friendships with every inanimate object I came across.  I named every stuffed animal I ever owned and rotated which ones got to sleep at the head of the bed so no one’s feelings would be hurt.  And unpacking our Halloween decorations every year was like being reunited with old friends. 

My only complaint was with the voice actress chosen for the Doc.  The actress is 14 and she sounds like it, with no attempt made to make her sound more childlike.  So it was a bit weird to see this animated little girl talking to her dad in a sort of womanly voice.  Other than that, Doc McStuffins really nails that sense of imagination that kids infuse the world with, especially around the holidays.

And I discovered that there is a dollhouse playset and it is so going on my 2013 Christmas Wish List!

It will be mine!

Halloween Quotient: 4

See It, Skip It, Own It?

This was so charming that it’s worth owning and watching yearly—here’s hoping there’s a Christmas episode!

GHOST BUMMERS

Jessie

Season 3 (2013)

I grew up with the Disney Channel and am a big fan of its original shows like Flash Forward and Lizzie McQuire.  I fully embraced my role as an old curmudgeon, however, when watching this episode of Jessie.  Jessie is one of the Disney Channel’s current shows, one of countless many that all seem the same to me and all feature tweens who all sound like they’re shouting all of their lines.  Even the colors were squint-inducing bright.  I found myself sympathizing with the bitchy adult antagonist character who hated all of the kids and couldn’t remember any of their names.

In this scenario I am the lady in pink.  Rotten kids!

But amidst the shouting and bratty kids this episode wasn’t without its charms.  The premise of the show seems to be that the very Emma Stoneish Jessie is a nanny for a bunch of kids at a posh Manhattan apartment building.  In this episode evil spirits invade the kids’ Halloween party to prepare the opening of a portal that will usher in a demon-lord.  If that sounds familiar it's because the entire episode is a loving tribute to the movie Ghostbusters.  We get the possessed gatekeeper residents, the rooftop showdown with the demon, a Slimer-like poltergeist and some of the characters even don proton packs and jumpsuits at the end to fend off the malevolent spirits.

All of the above was great fun, as were the party scenes and lavish costumes seen throughout the episode (one extra dressed as a box of chocolates kept having trouble keeping the bow on his head).  A glimpsed game of Pin the Tail on the Werewolf particularly pleased me.

Kids these days!  They love their tan jumpsuits and wigs.

The weirdest aspect of the episode was its obsession with bowel movements.  Sadly, “obsession” doesn’t even begin to cover it.  There are several references to one character who “farts on pillows.”  Another little girl vows to eat her underwear and then implies she can’t because she peed (at least I hope it was peed) in them after being scared by a ghost.  There’s even a joke at the very end about a “haunted colon.”

Call me old-fashioned but all of this makes me grateful that I grew up during an earlier, gentler, less gassy era of Disney Channel programming.

Recurring Themes: The “it was all a dream!” ending counts as a Haunting with a Logical Explanation.

Halloween Quotient: 4

See It, Skip It, Own It?

The bad kid acting is grating but this is a fun homage to Ghostbusters and escapist Halloween fare that’s worth seeing (once).

NIGHTMARE ON CARRIE'S STREET

Two of a Kind

Season 1 (1998)

I should hate Two of a Kind.  Despite my hankering for campy sitcoms I am somehow not a fan of Full House and the wealth and success of the Olsen twins is baffling and angry-making.  They were cloying as children and now design ridiculously expensive handbags, essentially still famous just for being twins, which is the worst kind of famous.  And yet I really like Two of a Kind, a short-lived late 90s TGIF sitcom starring the Olsen twins.

What’s the appeal?  The premise of Two of a Kind is essentially an updated The Nanny and the Professor.  Or more accurately, exactly the same premise.  The two Olsens (their main personality traits being that they are twins, as in every Olsen twins project ever) have a widowed professor dad who hires a spunky nanny and sparks fly between the two (the professor and the nanny, not the twins).  Not much really ever happened save two terrific holiday episodes.  I think the appeal lies in the two likable adult leads.  Christopher Sieber, the actor who plays the dad, is out and proud in real life which proposes an interesting theory as to why the Professor never hooks up with nanny Carrie.

 

I can't think of a witty caption but hey, check out that Mickey Mouse Jack o'Lantern logo in the corner!

The first of the two aforementioned terrific holiday episodes is this Halloween outing.  The girls want to go to Carrie’s Halloween bash but their dad forbids them from attending a college party.  While out trick-or-treating the girls swap costumes with two boys and sneak off to the party, which is AWESOME.  Their dad discovers the deception and pretends to be arrested in order to traumatize them.  Then they have to pick up garbage.  Fin.

The awesomeness of the episode is in Carrie’s party, one of those super-elaborate affairs that a poor college student would never manage to pull together in real life.  Unless you’re Kate Gosselin getting a free pass at Party City, the amount of rubber severed heads and life-size monster statues seen here would cost a pretty penny.  There is also some definite gayness going on.  The faux cop who handles the fake arrest is drawn back to the party to perform the YMCA along with an Indian chief and construction worker.  And Carrie’s Cleopatra costume keeps getting confused for Cher.  Subtly queer stuff for TGIF!

Bonus: the episode ends with some cute outtakes of the actors scaring each other on set.

Recurring Themes: The two boys dress in the girls’ costumes, leading to some Gender Confusion.  Carrie wears the ever-popular Cleopatra Costume.  Plus we get a Head-On-A-Plate (not technically on a plate but it’s the same concept).

Halloween Quotient: 5

See It, Skip It, Own It?

Worth owning, if only it was available on DVD!  So you’ll have to settle for watching a low-quality version on YouTube, but you’ll be so filled with Halloween spirit you won’t mind.

HALLOWEEN

The Cosby Show

Season 2 (1985)

Cliff Huxtable (sans sweater) and a jack o'lantern suffering from small face syndrome

On Thursday nights my dad always had soccer practice (he still plays in an over 50s league—be impressed!) so we had Mom & Kids night.  This involved some sort of fun food for dinner (my favorites were Macho Nachos and Kraft Mac & Cheese) and watching The Cosby Show.  It’s family friendly fare that I don’t have a particularly strong affinity for as an adult (though I still adore spinoff A Different World).  It’s a mellow show, too mellow at times for my tastes, where not all that much ever happens.  But there are some definite holiday gems and this Halloween episode is one of them.

The Huxtables host a party for tween (before tween was a thing) daughter Vanessa.  Mom Claire is as cool and calm as ever, decked out as Tina Turner.  Cliff, who ends up costumed in a witch hat, clown pants and exclamation point t-shirt, takes Rudy and her friends trick-or-treating.  And Vanessa plays the age-old game of crushing on a guy from afar, using friends to ferry messages back and forth across the party.  She eventually drops a tray of glasses, the episode’s biggest moment (which gives you a sense of how understated this show is) but later overcomes her embarrassment with the help of her parents.

Tina Turner, a Zulu princess and a girl whose parents refused to buy her a proper costumer so she was forced to improvise

Again, the charm of this episode isn’t in the almost non-existent story but in the likeable characters, gentle humor and tender moments. Unlike the Taylor’s, the Huxtables keep it simple and classy in terms of their Halloween party décor, relying on some fun crepe paper garlands, spiders, baskets of apples and Indian corn (all of which adorned my own house growing up).  Everything, from the characters to the situations to the decorations, feels realistic and familiar, inspiring lots of warm, tingly feelings of nostalgia.  It’s all capped off when Claire and Cliff slow dance with Rudy squeezed in-between them.

Say it with me now:  Awwwww….

Recurring Themes: Elder daughter Denise shows up at one point in a Cleopatra Costume.

Halloween Quotient: 4

See It, Skip It, Own It?

Worth repeat viewings so add this episode to your Own list!

FILM FOCUS: THE WORST WITCH

My good friend Liz has an impressive DVD collection and while at her apartment this past weekend it was much to my delight to discover that she owned The Worst Witch.  Since Nick had never seen it the three of us settled down to watch, though I don’t think he was quite prepared for what unfolded (and he only fell asleep for part of it).

The Worst Witch is a made-for-TV movie from 1986 based on the first book in a British series; I remember seeking out the book at my elementary school library as a kid and while it’s a pretty faithful adaptation I preferred the film, which is a bit zanier.  Relatively obscure here in the States, in the U.K. The Worst Witch is a veritable franchise, with the book series, a TV series and, I just discovered, even a spinoff “college years” series with a darker tone.  It’s also impossible not to overlook the wild similarities between the world of The Worst Witch and a certain later series of books and films that also feature a school of witchcraft, a stern-yet-somewhat-sympathetic antagonist teacher and a blond, snobby rival. 

Before Professor Snape there was Miss Hardbroom.

The premise is simple: Mildred Hubble (a young Fairuza Balk, who would grow up to play another notable witch in The Craft) is a hapless student of witchcraft at Miss Cackle’s Academy for Witches.  The character names in The Worst Witch are a treat for the tongue: Mildred, Ethel, Miss Cackle, Miss Hardbroom.  It’s a good thing I’m not having kids because my daughter would totally be named Cackle Hardbroom.  The non-existent Cackle Hardbroom would probably fare about as well as Mildred does at school: she messes up her spells, gets teased by blond bitch Ethel (my favorite character) and earns the disapproval of her teacher Miss Hardbroom.

Ethel's got the look.  It's all in the eyebrows.

After a series of mishaps (including turning Ethel into a pig) Mildred is sabotaged by a cursed broom and ends up botching the Halloween-night flying exhibition in front of the Grand High Wizard (an amazing Tim Curry).  She eventually redeems herself by exposing a group of evil witches, led by Miss Cackle’s twin sister, who plan to take over the school.  After turning them into slugs she wins the approval and admiration of her teachers and peers.

Sounds pretty standard, no?  But The Worst Witch is fucking bananas.  Half of its weirdness comes from the extremely low-budget special effects but the other half comes from the fact that it’s just plain crazy.  Take Miss Cackle’s evil twin sister Agatha (both characters are played by The Facts of Life’s Charlotte Rae).  She’s got pink hair and a Southern accent (her twin sister is British but this is never explained) and is the campiest witch this side of Witchy Poo.  She and her fellow hags are basically drag queens who hang out in the woods.  And they have a musical number.

Coincidentally, my drag name is also Agatha Cackle.

The music is the most memorable thing about The Worst Witch.  The opening song (“growing up/isn’t easy…”) is wildly infectious (like a disease!).  But if there is one thing to take away from this movie, one thing to remember for all time, to reflect upon, study, memorialize and watch over and over and over, it’s this:

I assume you’re rubbing the glitter out of your eyes and are a bit dazed so take a few minutes to collect yourself.  Then go out and watch The Worst Witch if you haven’t seen it, or go re-watch it (again and again).  It’s deserving of your love.  And just remember…

Anything can happen on Halloween!

DARK AND STORMY NIGHT

Family Matters

Season 6 (1998)

Family Matters is one of those shows that I normally find too stupid-silly to sit through, but the schmaltz factor pays off in several really excellent Christmas episodes.  The Halloween episodes unfortunately aren’t quite as good. 

The first scene of this Season 6 offering is excellent: the house is insanely decked out for Halloween and one by one the family members reveal their costumes.  Laura is dressed as Batman Returns-era Catwoman, forever rooting this in the 90s (in the best way possible).  When a thunderstorm and blackout instantly erupts the family’s trick-or-treating and party plans are scuttled.  Instead they (and Urkel, of course) play a game of “pass the ghost,” passing a flashlight around as they each tell part of “scary” story.

Unfortunately the story then takes up the rest of the episode.  It recasts the family as medieval vampires and Urkel as their unwitting houseguests/slayer.  It’s a lot of sight gags and distractingly cheap props: a vase falls on the ground with a tremendous breaking glass sound only to roll away, completely intact. The vampire story doesn’t even take place at Halloween so there’s nary a pumpkin in sight (but there is, for some reason, a bowl or oranges and a tray of croissants laid out on the banquet table).

The episode’s scariest moment is when Urkel discovers a chained-up Laura who says she’s completely helpless and he leers at the camera, creepily repeating “Completely helpless!”  Nothing says Halloween like implied rape.  Weirdly, the only picture I could find of this episode online is of Laura in chains.  Ick.

She is wise to fear the Urkel.

Let’s move past this episode quickly and hold out for the better “Dog Day Afternoon.”

Recurring Themes: The grandmother wears a Rag Doll Costume (what is it with TV writers and rag doll costumes?!). Plus we get a Dark & Stormy Blackout.

Halloween Quotient: A 3 for the first scene and a 1 for the rest of the episode.

See It, Skip It, Own It?

Due to the disappointing lack of actual Halloweeness, this is an easy skip.  Unless you’re really into overly long, goofy swordplay sequences, in which case this is the episode for you!