SPECIAL SPOTLIGHT: NICKELODEON'S ULTIMATE HALLOWEEN HAUNTED HOUSE

I was recently traveling for work, which meant I was cut off from our TIVO and forced to watch TV in real time in my hotel room, suffering through commercials and whatever random programming happened to be on.  I’ve discovered over the years that one of the few things you can rely on when it comes to TV at odd hours is that SpongeBob Squarepants is likely playing, and that it’s usually your best bet (unless you enjoy reality shows about fish tanks, naked survivalists or men who use chainsaws to make stuff out of wood).  So because I was watching SpongeBob on Nickelodeon I caught a commercial for a special called Nickelodeon’s Ultimate Halloween Haunted House.  Naturally, I was intrigued.

The next day, returned to civilization and our trusty TIVO, I set it to record this special with the rather exhaustingly long name.  I enjoy a good walk-through haunted maze or house, and it looked reminiscent of the old Nickelodeon game shows Fun House or Legends of the Hidden Temple, in which kids navigated elaborate play structures for lame prizes.  The gimmick here is that the kids in questions are all actors from Nickelodeon shows.  Our host was the actor who plays Manny from Modern Family. Why, you ask? At some point he shouted something about loving Halloween, but otherwise I have no idea why he qualified to serve as host for a haunted house Halloween show.  Also, how old is Manny?  Is he 18?  12?  21?  I had a hard time pinpointing the ages of all of the participants, as they seemed to vacillate between actual kids, annoyingly precocious tweens and weirdly stunted early twentysomethings.

Watching this made me feel very old and of touch, because with the exception of Manny and one random girl from Dance Moms (a guilty pleasure of mine) I’d never heard of any of these child-adult actors or the shows they hailed from.  Here’s my break down of the three sets of participants and my best-worst guesses at the shows they star in:

Manny, Girl, Boy, JoJo from Dance Moms

Boy & Girl from Harvey Danger

The girl was likeable and unassuming, aside from her weird, shiny silver jacket.  The boy was disconcerting, since he had an androgynous, ageless quality about him and looked like Ellen DeGeneres and Justin Bieber were cloned into a single, floppy-haired being.  As for Harvey Danger, I’m thinking it’s a show about kid spies?  Or kid stunt doubles?

Four Kids from Game Shakers

This was my favorite group, just because they all looked and acted like actual kids.  One girl had glasses and a cardigan, lending her a sort of 1950ish vibe that I appreciated.  I’ve seen commercials for Game Shakers before, and from what I can tell it’s about kids who play video games and have adventures. 

Legendary Dudas?!

Two Boys from Legendary Dudas Plus the Miz

This was the most inexplicable group.  What the fuck is Legendary Dudas?  Does it have something to do with wrestling, because otherwise why did they pair them with the Miz, who is very much an adult and a wrestler/former Real World cast member?  I didn’t like the Miz when he was on the Real World (which I watched devotedly, back in the day) and I don’t particularly care for him now, either.  Seriously, he has the dumbest wrestling moniker ever.  The two Dudas boys seemed genuinely frightened throughout, while the Miz, who has to be like 40 now, calmly walked around with them and was totally unaffected by the spooky surroundings. 

And now for the main attraction: the haunted house!  Which, unfortunately, was a major letdown.  This was the least scary haunted house ever, even by kid standards.  There were several rooms, each room containing a key that our aforementioned contestants had to locate.  Each room was rather disappointing and sparsely decorated.  There was a library where the scariest thing that happened was some books falling off a shelf.  An indoor pumpkin patch with a scarecrow who came to life (yawn).  A laboratory with some very fake-looking bones, purchased at Party City.  I know this because there was an entire two-minute segment devoted to two other child actors buying random things at Party City.

Look out-- it's a phonograph!

I was expecting big budget special effects—elaborate sets, secret passageways, lasers and other mind-blowing things.  Instead we get Manny sitting at a bank of video monitors saying “’cue Jojo from Dance Moms to sit in a rocking chair dressed like a giant rag doll!”  The kids all acted appropriately terrified, but since they’re all actors I kept wondering if they were actually scared or just playing it up for the cameras.

If there was a winner, I can’t remember who it was or what they won or even if all of the kids survived.  So Nickelodeon’s Ultimate Halloween Haunted House was ultimately a bust, save that it made me feel very out of touch and confused and left me with a hankering to buy fake bones at Party City.