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.

SPECIAL SPOTLIGHT: A MUPPET FAMILY CHRISTMAS

As a kid, one of my favorite things about the days of school vacation leading up to Christmas was watching cartoons and sitcom reruns on weekday mornings.  The majority of them were Christmas-themed episodes, and not only was it a delicious privilege to watch these normally unavailable shows, reserved only for the occasional sick day or summer vacation, seeing that the TV programmers has specially selected to air Christmas episodes always gave me the feeling that the holiday was truly everywhere; pervasive in the best sense of the word.

This is how I first saw A Muppet Family Christmas, being rerun on some random channel one Christmas Eve morning.  I stumbled upon it while channel surfing and was amazed that up until then I’d never seen this special. My sister and I loved the Muppets growing up: we religiously watched Muppet Babies on Saturday morning and rented The Muppets Take Manhattan on a steady rotation.  And yet somehow this greatest of Muppets specials was never a part of our holiday traditions. It may be due to the general scarcity of the special, which remained difficult to find for years and even now only exists in an edited form (scenes were removed after the original broadcast due to song rights issues). 

Falling in love with the special after that first viewing, I eventually tracked down a used VHS copy, which is the same way I still watch it every Christmas Eve morning (it's now available on DVD, but as long as the VHS still works I figure why fix what ain’t broke?  Besides, VHS cassettes have a big nostalgia factor for me).

Any Muppets fan or child of the 80s should adore A Muppet Family Christmas because it brings together the Muppets, Fraggle Rock and Sesame Street. It even features a brief cameo by Jim Henson himself, not long before he passed away.  Not only is it dripping in Christmas spirit, it’s the ultimate tribute to Henson and his beloved characters.  There’s such a thrill in watching the Swedish Chef plot to cook Big Bird, or Kermit travelling to Fraggle Rock (via an entrance in the farmhouse basement).  The Muppet Babies even make a very brief appearance on a projector screen (their scene/musical number is one of the ones that was sadly cut).  This TV special is truly special, not just because of the Christmas theme but also the sense of worlds (in the form of separate TV shows) overlapping.  Not since the Jetsons met the Flinstones have I gotten such a thrill from seeing different characters interact.

The storyline is incredibly simple: all of the aforementioned Muppet characters gather together on Christmas Eve at Fozzie Bear’s mother’s farmhouse.  A blizzard hits, causing Miss Piggy's arrival to be delayed and Kermit to worry.

There are several running jokes and plotlines that have become Christmas lore for me and an entire generation.  There’s an icy patch at the front door that, despite the constant warnings, everyone slips on.  Fozzie’s mother is forced to think of increasingly creative places for her endless flow of guests to sleep (including the bathtub and eventually hanging on hooks on the wall—much to Gonzo’s delight).  There are musical numbers throughout, and the special ends with an amazing Christmas carol medley, composed of just about every Christmas song you can imagine and sung by the assembled cast, a huge crowd of childhood favorites all crammed into one room.  It really feels like a captured moment in time, like someone’s home movie, and even though I watch it year after year, it’s like a special, one-time event each time.

Sadly this year we lost actor Gerard Parkes, who played Doc in Fraggle Rock and, other than Henson’s cameo, is the sole human in the special.  He starts out as the curmudgeon who has rented the farmhouse for some peace and quiet, only to see it invaded by a steady stream of weirdos.  But of course he comes around, won over by the Muppets’ charm, and ends up first dressed first as a footman accompanying Miss Piggy’s sleigh during her dramatic entrance and then as Santa Claus himself.  Parkes’ death will make this year’s viewing rather bittersweet.

If I could chose one TV world to spend Christmas in, it would have to be that snow-bound farmhouse.  Sure, it’s crowded and a bit chaotic, but also incredibly cozy and the love and sense of surrogate family feels so genuine and powerful.  Plus, those Muppets really know how to carol!

Merry Christmas to All—and watch out for that icy patch!

SPECIAL SPOTLIGHT: WHICH WITCH IS WHICH?

Which Witch Is Which? premiered in 1984, the same year as my illustrious birth.  Apparently it’s part of the Chucklewood Critters series, which began with a Christmas special and then went on to cover all the other major holidays.  It was even made into an ongoing series in the late 1990s, but Buttons and Rusty only ever scampered across our television screen every year around Halloween.

Which Witch Is Which? is set in a national park (apparently named Chucklewood Park, but that’s never mentioned in this special) where Ranger Jones is keeping a watchful eye over the (talking) animals in his care.  Apparently none of the other humans but the Ranger (or Jonsey, as he is also known) notices that the wildlife can speak or occasionally wear pants, but such is life.  Buttons and Rusty, our young fox and bear cub, have a tendency to snoop around the human campers, much to Ranger Jones’ dismay.  When the two learn about the Ranger's upcoming Halloween party they are only too eager to celebrate this strange new human holiday, woodland creature-style.

Meanwhile in a dingy trailer two burglars are plotting to rob the rest of the residents blind while everyone is off at Ranger Jones' party.  Do people really live in trailer parks on the edges of national parks in October?  Probably.  But even as a kid this community always seemed a little weird to me.  The pair of burglars select their Halloween garb in which to perform their Halloween crime spree: a bear suit and a witch.  That’s Witch #1.  Pay attention-- there’s more coming up.

The Ranger's party gets underway and we are treated to a neat musical number, apropos of nothing remotely connected to the plot, but from which our title is taken.  It’s all bubbling cauldrons and jack-o-lanterns and a couple of witches (that’s Witches #2 & #3).  Also in attendance at the party are a local cantankerous shop owner (Witch #4) and a random blond lady in a peaked hat (Witch #5).  All of these witches play a very nominal role in the actual storyline  and no one seems confused as to their identity.  But some identity swapping is in the works, so bear with me.

While the Ranger parties (dressed as some sort of Elton John vampire that always made my sister laugh), the aforementioned burglars snoop around, stealing a fur coat and silver teapot (those trailer park people appreciate fine things).  Meanwhile Buttons and Rusty attempt to trick or treat amongst their oblivious forest friends.  They get skunked by a skunk and get a bunch of acorns dropped on them by a cantankerous squirrel.  Their hapless fathers are in search of the boys as well.  Abner the bear wears overalls; George the fox goes au naturale, and in classic cartoon fashion, no explanation is given for this sartorial discrepancy.

Everything comes to a confusing climax when Button and Rusty cross paths with the robbers, mistaking them for trick-or-treaters.  At one point Rusty dons a witch’s hat, which I guess makes him Witch #6, but no one really cares.  Buttons, Rusty, Abner, George, Ranger Jones, the robbers, and the locals all collide.  Justice is served, peace prevails and the animals return to the forest.

I’ve learned much from Which Witch Is Which? over the years, including:

* Halloween is for humans, not for bears and foxes.

* People in trailer parks wear fur coats and drink out of silver teapots.

* Some animals are nudists, others are more modest.  Especially overweight bears.

* Judging by his choice of Halloween costume, Ranger Jones may be gay.  And I’m okay with that.

And finally, which witch really is which?

Beats me.  But it sure is fun to say the question out loud!

Where To Watch It: I was thrilled to discover that Which Witch Is Witch? is now (finally!) available on DVD as part of a set of mostly holiday-themed Chucklewood Critters episodes.  It's priced insanely high on Amazon, so luckily it's also up for free on YouTube: 

SPECIAL SPOTLIGHT: THE ELF WHO SAVED CHRISTMAS

I’ve previously mentioned that I used to love watching holiday-themed reruns of cartoons and sitcoms on the USA Network in the days leading up to Christmas.  Among them was The Elf Who Saved Christmas, which I saw just once as a kid and spent years thinking about and searching for (this was long before things like DVR, Netflix and even DVDs).  For years I remembered it fondly but vaguely.  I could only recall a few things about this 1992 live-action Christmas special: a female elf, a giant mailbox and a vulture villain.  Finally a year or so ago and a fair amount of time spent googling the search terms above and I figured out the title (and it turns out my memory was somewhat faulty—the villain wasn’t a vulture but rather a witch named “Mrs. Buzzard”).  

But even after figuring out the title I was frustrated to discover that this obscure little special was only available on VHS and nowhere else.  This morning some spirit of Christmas compelled me to google it yet again and lo and behold!  Some benevolent soul uploaded the entire thing to YouTube this past November.  So it was with great excitement that I settled down to watch this happy piece of my childhood.

The Elf Who Saved Christmas is what I would term “delightfully low-budget.”  It has a definite DYI feel about it that ranks it just slightly above a video you and your friends would have made for an 8th grade class project.  Santa’s Workshop looks like someone’s repurposed house and his entire staff is made up of only 7 elves (and at least one is incompetent).  It does feature actress Jo Anne Worley as Mrs. Buzzard, but unless you’re like me and enjoy character actresses of the 60s and 70s that probably doesn’t add much.

The plot is a tried and true formula, as Christmas and Santa are seemingly in constant need of rescue.  In this case Santa hasn’t received any letters so he decides to cancel Christmas this year.  A plucky (aren’t they all?) mailroom elf named Toby sets out to save the holiday, discovering that a witch named Mrs. Buzzard enchanted his mailbox and redirected all his mail.  Toby’s belief in Christmas breaks the spell, the letters are returned and Santa sets out to deliver the goods.  

The villains found in this type of special always fascinate me.  They tend to be rather wacky and their motives vague; Mrs. Buzzard is no exception.  She’s a witch but dresses kind of like Mother Goose.  She apparently wants kids to be disappointed by Santa’s failed arrival and therefore misbehave, but it’s never explained exactly why.  Does she derive dark eldritch energy from misdeeds?  Is she part bird, part woman?  I think I need to write a Mrs. Buzzard fan fiction origin story.  As witches go she’s pretty down on her luck: her lair looks like somebody’s backyard shed with a crystal ball on a folding table and somebody stuck a tiny vulture stuffed animal in one corner (hence my years of buzzard/vulture confusion?!).  I think most of the budget went into building the giant mailbox... 

After Toby the elf gets sucked into Mrs. Buzzard’s lair via the enchanted mailbox Mrs. Buzzard just sits in a chair and half-heartedly cackles.  Seriously, she sits and plays with a slinky while Toby tries to escape.  I like to think that Jo Anne Worley was like “okay, I’ll be in this but only if I can sit for 90% of the time and play with a slinky.”  When Toby escapes Mrs. Buzzard just sort of sighs in resignation.  As anti-Christmas villains go she’s pretty low energy. 

The same goes for Santa.  When Toby calls the post office to check on the missing letters (which she waits to do until Christmas Eve, for some reason) they tell her that the mail was indeed delivered (but, as we later learn, subsequently stolen by Mrs. Buzzard).  But Santa says “Oh, they’re just trying to make me feel better.  Nobody sent letters.  Christmas is over!”  Santa needs some self-esteem!  I think he secretly was just looking for an excuse to skip the sleigh ride that year.

Despite my poking fun, I wholeheartedly enjoyed re-watching The Elf Who Saved Christmas after all this time.  I'm grateful that we live in this internet age where you can track down these obscure childhood gems and so readily evoke a sense of nostalgic holiday bliss.  You best believe that when Toby turned to the camera and implored the audience to say “I believe in Christmas” with her three times in order to break Mrs. Buzzard’s spell my voice rang out loud and clear!

P.S. While doing some light research for this post I discovered that there is a second special featuring the same characters, including Mrs. Buzzard, called The Elf and the Magic Key, also up on your YouTube!

SPECIAL SPOTLIGHT: HALLOWEEN IS GRINCH NIGHT

Among the sacred texts of my childhood is the aforementioned battered VHS tape (now thankfully transferred to DVD) on which was recorded a quartet of Halloween specials, all taped off TV back in the early days of the Disney Channel in the 1980s.  My sister and I would watch the tape twice a year: once at Halloween and once during the summer as part of our “Halloween In August” celebration (a nice compliment to our annual “Christmas In July”). 

The first special on the tape was Halloween Is Grinch Night, a little known animated sequel to How The Grinch Stole Christmas.  Although not quite up to par with its' yuletide predecessor, many of the same elements are here: the Seussian wordplay, great day-glo animation and a smattering of surprisingly advanced vocabulary.  One year while watching Grinch Night I remember calling into the kitchen to my mother, AKA The Human Dictionary, for the meaning of the word “euphemism”, which remains one of my most beloved and overused keywords to this day.

The special, which was originally aired in 1977, bring us back once more to Whoville, which looks strange denuded of snow and all of the Christmas geegaws.  It is a placid autumn evening, that is until the “sour-sweet wind” starts blowing, leading to a series of complicated rhyming events that all herald the Grinch’s imminent arrival.  The Whos take shelter while the Grinch, up atop Mount Crumpit, hitches up his sad-sack dog Max to the “Paraphernalia Wagon” and makes his way down to presumably do something horrendous to the Whos.

An ill wind is a blowin'

On the trip down we get an EXTREMELY melancholy song in which poor Max laments his position as the Grinch’s slave.  This was always my least favorite part of the special, a real downer.  Here’s a sample of the lyrics:

Why am I the slave of this grinchy old crock?

And I say how I wish I could turn back the clock

And have the fine future I had once before

And again be an innocent puppy once more

It gets even worse, with the Grinch taunting Max about missing his dear “Auntie Woofy-Woofoon.”  This version of the Grinch is much more of a bastard than his Christmas incarnation: in addition to whipping Max he destroys flowers, chases an endangered species (which looks like a living, pink Hostess Snowball) and does all sorts of other horrible things.

Meanwhile a young Who with the oddly Biblical-sounding name of Euchariah has been swept away by the sour-sweet wind during a trip to the Euphemism (AKA the outhouse).  He ends up in the path of the wagon and seizes the opportunity to prevent the Grinch from arriving at Whoville.  The Grinch first attempts to scare Euchariah by singing an impossible to transcribe song (something like “oompah doompah deepah da”…. or something) while his detached eyebrows turn into a bird-like creature and fly around.  Trust me, it gets weirder.  Euchariah is un-phased and bonds with Max so the Grinch pulls out the big guns, opening up the door to his wagon and unleashing… some stuff.

Flying eyebrows = tip of the iceberg

Now things gets REALLY trippy.  Imagine M.C. Escher on acid and you’re somewhere close to the musical head trip that follows.  Euchariah is chased around by a large variety of Seussian creatures of all shapes and sizes: giant, headless feet creatures, gnashing, disembodied teeth, stained-glass eyes.  Amid all the sheer weirdness there are some creepy moments but this is as about as Halloween-like as the show gets.  All of this set to a maddeningly infectious song that has been stuck in my head for the last twenty plus years: “Euchari-AH/Euchari-AH/Grinch is gonna get YA/Grinch is gonna get YA!” 

In a word: Yikes!

Euchariah emerges unscathed and points out to a dejected Grinch that he’s managed to stall long enough to get the Whos through Grinch night.  He then departs, with a grateful Max in tow, while the Grinch vows to make his return on the next Grinch night.

Whew!  There is a lot to digest here and I bet a shrink could have a field day interpreting all of those wacky creatures (some blue wriggly things look suspiciously sperm-like to me).  Continuity-wise it makes no sense, as Max runs off at the end, suggesting that How The Grinch Stole Christmas took place before this, meaning that the Grinch didn’t stay so sweet after his turnaround at Christmas.  Sort of disappointing, no?  And here the Grinch displays all sorts of weird powers: able to change his size and make his eyebrows float off his face and fly around.  Even at a young age I suspected the use of psychotropic drugs went into the making of this cartoon; it was the 70s, after all.  And it is called a paraphernalia wagon, as in drug…. it’s all making sense.

As you can also tell, this special does not have the usual Halloween elements, with nary a jack-o-lantern in sight save in the opening titles, substituting for the “O” in Halloween.  And not even a mention of the actual word Halloween the entire time.  I actually appreciate how offbeat and different Grinch Night is; it was always the opening salvo for the more traditional Halloween specials to follow. 

Halloween Quotient: Despite a lack of traditional Halloween elements this scores major nostalgia and creativity points, earning a 4.

See It, Skip It, Own It?

Own it and make it a part of your annual holiday viewings.  It’s currently up on YouTube and available for cheap on a Seuss compilation DVD.