Two Awesome New Holiday DVDs

I love holiday episodes of TV series which makes me particularly excited for two upcoming DVD releases from the fine folks at Mill Creek Entertainment. First off, let me say how much I adore Mill Creek Entertainment. Besides Disney, they have got to be my favorite company putting out home video material today. They constantly have imaginative and unique titles on their slate, always at a very low beyond-reasonable price.

Holiday episode collections have become quite popular in the last couple of years, mostly with Christmas episodes but Mill Creek is getting ahead of the game with a fantastic looking collection of Halloween themed episodes of 13 different sit-coms. TV's Spookiest Halloween Episodes collects trick-or-treat fun filled episodes of a wide variety of sit-coms and offers them up in one neat package. What I'm really digging about this collection is the wide range of years this collection represents from early 60's (Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie) to late 90's (Mad About You, NewsRadio.) What's also impressive is the range of popularity of the series represented. Some obscure goodies like Square Pegs and Ned and Stacey are tucked in there along with The Cosby Show and Roseanne. To me, this collection is just about perfect. I'm not sure I ever need to watch an episode of That 70's Show, but all the others I can't wait to dig into, especially The Jeffersons, Square Pegs and The Facts of Life. This is just a solid collection I can't wait to add to my library.

Then we've got Mill Creek's Christmas edition of Holiday themed episodes with TV's Merriest Episodes. I already have an enormous collection of Christmas TV episodes on tape and DVD and I'm really looking forward to making this disc part of the yearly viewing traditions.  Again, there is a great variety as far as ages of the shows although this one is a little more heavy on the mid 80's to mid 90's. The collections two vintage episodes: Bewitched and The Flying Nun are the same episodes that appeared in Shout Factory's (also excellent) 1989 collection Merry Sitcom! But it does feature The Ellen Show, which was a great one season CBS sitcom that aired between Ellen's popular ABC sitcom and her huge hit talk show.

TV's Spookiest Halloween Episodes is released Sept. 16, 2014 and TV's Merriest Episodes is available October 14, 2004. Both have an MSRP of $9.98.

If Holiday episodes are you thing, there are also two new collections of The Dick Van Dyke Show out from Image Entertainment. Halloween Episodes Collection is available now and contains 4 episodes while Classic Christmas comes out October 7 with two episodes.

Pebbles Flintstone Costume - The Real Deal

Yabba-Dabba-Goo!

I'm very anxious to dress my daughter up in every Disney Princess costume we can get our hands on, but for her first Halloween I thought it was the perfect opportunity to dress her as the infant daughter from my All-Time Favorite TV Show, Pebbles Flintstone. Not only is she the perfect age as Pebbles was in the original television series, but she would make an awesome compliment to my super awesome Fred costume that my mom and I made 20 years ago. (Yes, I still have it!)

Before we get into Pebbles, let me tell you about my Fred Flintstone costume. My mom and I made this back in 1993 for a costume contest when I was in college. Taking a cue from all the Star Wars, Star Trek and Superhero nerds out there, I wanted my costume to be as accurate as possible. So, in the days before the internet - my mom and I designed the costume with various shots of Fred on VHS, paused on the TV while we jotted down notes. I also had a few old books that stayed true to the original design that we used. So many costumes of Fred Flintstone put an animal print on the tie and put the spots all over the outfit, when in actuality he only had a few. The spots shapes and placement on my Fred costume are modeled after the appearance in several episodes. Also, Fred's tie is pure blue and was always drawn the same way, even though you can't see it in the above picture, the tie is cut to resemble Fred's own tie.

The major difference in my costume versus the 1960's cartoon Fred is that we added some small sleeves so that my fat, ugly arms weren't fully exposed. Hey, I was in school - people make fun of that kind of stuff! But we tried to make the sleeves as minimal as possible and added a smaller version of the jagged cut that is found at the bottom of Fred's outfit.

Anyhow...the costume (along with a friend as Wilma) went on to win First Prize at the Halloween Dance costume contest that year. I've held on to this work of art for many years...I've worn it for various other Halloween events as well as in parades and even at the opening night of The Flintstones live-action movie in 1994.

Now...let's move on to Fred's daughter, Pebbles...

When we first started looking at Pebbles costumes to buy they all came in one of two varieties: a green top or an animal print top. Neither of these felt right to me, yet every picture I found of Pebbles in a book had her in the green top. I popped in a DVD and went to the episode where Pebbles was born. (Still one of the most watched episodes in TV history.) In the first few episodes that Pebbles appears in, she's in a pink baby outfit but fast forward to the next season and she's always seen wearing a brownish/orangish top with diamond and crescent shapes all over...similar to her father's wardrobe.

This time I had the help of the internet for some visual reference. I found a color picture from an actual episode and this nice black & white sketch, which is a later drawing of Pebbles but the basic look of her outfit is the same.

Now, I have absolutely no sewing skills but I figured this outfit was simple enough that I could pull it off. I went to a craft store and found a shade of brown that I was happy with. I them bought enough fabric which was double the length of my 6 month old daughter. My plan was to have enough material that the entire outfit would be the same piece of fabric, avoiding the need to sew shoulders and sleeves. I also purchased a small amount of black material to make the spots. I could have colored them on with a permanent marker, but the actual spots made of fabric look so much better. Also at the craft store I picked up a bottle of Fabric Glue a.k.a. Liquid Stitch which will take the place of any sewing that needed to be done.

Ready to make the costume (a day before the Halloween party we were going to,) my first instinct was to just trace my daughters outline onto the cloth but then I got the idea to take a dress of hers and trace that instead. I used a dress that's a bit big on her, I also folded up the sleeves for the Bedrock fashionable sleeveless look. I actually traced the dress once onto a piece of fabric that was folder over to create a two-ply effect. I also did not trace or cut out a hole for the head just quite yet.

Since I free handed the area around the arm holes/sleeves, I folded the dress across from left to right and lined up the arm holes and trimmed both sides together so they came out evenly. I cut a small hole for a head, using the fold in the double-ply fabric as the shoulders of the outfit. I didn't want the head hole to be too big for my baby so I tried it on once and it was not going over her head. I cut a small slit in the neck line on the back of the dress to give a little leeway, and that did the trick. I was planning on using a safety pin to close up the slit, but it turned out the costume didn't need it.

I used the fabric glue down the sides of the dress from under the arm holes to the bottom of the dress. Unlike Fred, Wilma and Barney, Pebbles' outfit does not have the jagged zigzag cut at the bottom. Actually, her dress usually doesn't come all the way down past her tummy. My version is a little longer, I thought about cutting it but decided to just leave it long since it was cold outside at this point in time.

The shapes on her dress are a mixture of random patterns. I like the look of the shapes in the black and white sketch pictured at the top. They have a very 1960's Hanna-Barbera feel to them, but they were hard to cut out and look that good so I just cut random shapes from the black fabric. I went with 5 on the front and an additional 3 on the back.

London as Pebbles with her cousin Lucas in his Chewbacca costume

The bone in her hair is a bone hair clip that I found in the Caveman/Cavegirl section of the Halloween store. Since my daughter does not yet have enough hair to support a hair clip, we went with clipping the bone onto a headband of hers. I suppose an animal print headband or a brown one matching the costume would have been most appropriate but I used this pink one that we had, not only because the bow was small and the bone covered it nicely but I thought the pink added a slight touch of femininity to sell that she was a baby cavegirl. In the cartoon Pebbles always wore a black diaper cover with her dress. Since it was chilly out, we opted for black leggings and a long sleeve t-shirt underneath to keep her warm.

I'm pretty proud at the way it turned out considering I had no idea what I was doing with the materials I bought. The fabric cost $4.00, if that. The bone hair clips were $7.00 for a pack of two, fabric glue was $5.00, we had the shirt and I bought leggings (which she can wear with other things) at Target for $6.00.

Besides all the work put into the costume, it was really cool to get to add my daughter to my Fred costume and obsess over a 50 year old cartoon just a little bit more!

New Halloween Special Worth Checking Out

 I don't really get Hoops & Yoyo, the stars of several Hallmark cards and other products, but my kids think they're hilarious. Hoops & Yoyo Ruin Christmas is a 2011 special that my kids watched so many times they almost burned a hole in my DVR if that was a thing you could do to DVR's. Last year, Hallmark Channel debuted Hoops & Yoyo's Haunted Halloween which I have to say was really good. In the show, Hoops & Yoyo get trapped in a mall overnight on Halloween and all sorts of spooky stuff happens to them. If you can get over the cheap computer animation, the show is filled with plenty of good gags, a little bit of satire on the state of shopping malls nowadays and a good dose of holiday fun that we just don't see on TV enough at Halloween time.

The half hour special bows on DVD this year. You can pick it up at Walmart and Target for $5.00, it's also available at many Hallmark Gold Crown stores. If you're a fan of Halloween specials - it's worth picking up. It will also probably air again on CBS and The Hallmark Channel. Keep an eye out in the listings as we get closer to the holiday itself!

Here's a promo for the show from last year. (Ignore the air date)

edTunes - Time Warp

In my opinion, the first half hour or so of The Rocky Horror Picture Show is pretty brilliant and then the rest of the film is a gosh-awful mess of a waste of time. I do love this song though. I made sure this was a staple at every high school dance my senior year...

Classic Commercial Sunday - #80

I love the voices in this one...

Yabba-Dabba-Boo!

Ebert Scared Stupid

Honestly, I would have payed double the admission price to sit with my back to the screen and just watch Siskel and/or Ebert's face while screening 1991's Ernest Scared Stupid. Just the fact that two esteemed film critics who enjoyed Merchant Ivory productions and French New Wave Impressionist Cinema ever sat through an Ernest film warms the depths of my heart.

Rip-Off Rehash

Today we're sharing a published comic strip that I had a hand in producing way back in my college days of the mid-90's. I ran this comic years ago when I started this blog, but I like to dig out old holiday stuff and reuse it so here it is again. Cleverly titled, Mr. Ed's Far Side Rip-Off this one shot comic deal ran in the late October 1994 issue of my school's bi-weekly newspaper. Basically, I wrote the joke and a buddy of mine created the artwork. At the time, there were so many professionally produced comic strips obviously ripping off the style and pacing of Gary Larson's masterpiece The Far Side I just wanted to do a comic that was completely obvious. Those other comics always had names like The Other View or Flip Side or something lame like that, so we just called it Far Side Rip-Off. I added Mr. Ed to the title thinking it would somehow be an extension of my wacky radio morning show that I did on the college radio station at the time. I'm sure nobody got the connection between Mr. Ed & The Wacky Wake Up Show and Mr. Ed's Far Side Rip-Off, but I liked to think of myself as somewhat of a media mini-mogul back in the day. Sadly, this was the only strip that ever ran in the Rip-Off series. We were just 11 strips shy of getting our own calendar.

Let The Halloween Cartoons Begin

Halloween is just a few weeks away and the kids and I have been in the mood to kick off the holiday special viewing season. So, this past weekend we decided to relax after a day of pumpkin picking and hay rides with the annual ritual of "Pulling Out The Halloween Videos."

We started things off with a screening of Bugs Bunny's Howl-oween Special, a good ol' fashioned CBS primetime offering from 1978. As with the majority of the Looney Tunes specials, this show mixes a handful of classic animated shorts with some newer low-grade animation to form one continuous half hour cartoon. Even as a young kid, the newer bits of the cartoon stuck out like a sore thumb in the middle of the original masterpieces. Sometimes the new animation was just used to link together three or four complete cartoons, other times (such as the case with Howl-oween) the newer bits are sprinkled in and out the old cartoons to try and make it seem like one whole story. When the latter approach was used, the shows feel disconnected and choppy. Animation style, character design and voices change every couple of minutes and it makes viewing a bit difficult. It's a wonder why they didn't just collect a handful of Halloween themed shorts and air them in their entirty.

I was never really a huge fan of these chop shop Warner Bros. specials, but I watched them every time they were on because that's how we rolled back in the old days before VCRs and 24 hour cartoon channels. In more recent years, I kinda had a nostalgic yearning for some of these specials and have sought some out on video and DVD. Bugs Bunny's Howl-oween Special makes it's debut on DVD this year, having not been released since a 1994 VHS cassette. The special itself features clips and scenes from nine vintage shorts including Broom-Stick Bunny (1956), Hyde and Hare (1955) and Transylvania6-5000 (1954). One of my all-time favorite Looney Tunes shorts, Scaredy Cat from 1948, is also used luckily without too much interruption.

All in all, even though the show alters the original state of the cartoons the special is entertaining and promotes enough Halloween spirit to get everyone in the mood. The new DVD also features the complete short Hair-Raising Hare from 1946. This is the one where Bugs Bunny meets the giant orange-haired monster and does his nails. Good stuff and actually worth the price of admission alone!

In the mood for more classic animated shorts, we then popped in Tom & Jerry: Hijinks and Shrieks. I picked up this DVD at a yard sale a couple of years ago (they had it priced at $3 but I talked `em down to $2...suckers!) but we had never gotten around to watching it. This isn't an old TV special, but rather a collection of 7 top-shelf Tom & Jerry shorts from 1952 to 1965. The bad news is that only two of these shorts have anything at all to do with Halloween, the good news is that they are all pretty good cartoons. The amazing thing is that after 60+ years, these cartoons are still laugh out-loud funny to kids and grown ups alike! And quite frankly, there is no greater sound than hearing your kids crackup to pieces laughing at silly things like animals running into walls and cats getting their tail chopped off!

The two Halloween themed shorts, 1956's The Flying Sorceress & The Haunted Mouse from 1965 are both filled with sufficient levels of spooky fun to carry the other 5 titles into making this a fun collection for the Halloween season. A couple of the shorts were produced in CinemaScope and of course are presented here in pan and scan. I think a DVD of just a handful of cartoons presented in their widescreen glory for new television sets would not only be an awesome addition to the WWoB DVD library, I think it would be a big seller as well!

Both Bugs Bunny's Howl-oween Special and Tom & Jerry: Hiijinks & Shrieks are available at Wal-Mart, Amazon and for rental from Netflix. Good stuff for your pre-Trick or Treat viewing!

WWoB Halloween Treasury

I hate when people declare Halloween or Christmas as their favorite holiday. Of course it is, nobody's favorite is Valentine's Day or Easter or Columbus Day...it's always Christmas or Halloween! Anywho...here's some links to some past Halloween related fun we've had here at WWoB. Enjoy!


Vintage Halloween Photos

My Halloween Costumes

Halloween Weekend Movie Suggestions

Mr. Ed's Barn of Thought 11/2/94

How The Grinch Didn't Save Halloween

DJ Chocula In The House...or Castle

I found this pretty cool looking CD in the Halloween section at Target the other day. Spooky Sounds From Count Chocula Castle looks like it might be a bit more fun than your average Halloween sound effects CD. The cover features breakfast cereal legend Count Chocula along with his sidekicks Franken Berry and Boo Berry. There was a listening station as part of the CD display rack. The very brief snippet of the CD didn't reveal if this was going to be a quality product or not. It also doesn't reveal if there are cameo appearances from Fruit Brute or Yummy Mummy. Unfortunately at $9.99 it's a bit out of my "I'll blow seven bucks on this just to see what it is" range. No worries...I'm sure I'll be able to pick it up next year for three dollars at Ollie's Bargain Mart. Until then I'll have to make do with my "Fox Family Channel 13 Days of Halloween" CD I got off a box of Count Chocula about 9 years ago!

Vampires Suck: 5 Movies EW Forgot

America is having a love affair with vampires, or so Entertainment Weekly claims with their cover story in this week's issue. Ever since that Tom Cruise movie came out like 15 years ago you could see this obsession with vampires bubbling up in the female movie going public. Everyone is crazy about this Twilight school for vampires movie, and I couldn't be more sick about everyone talking about True Blood. Entertainment Weekly has already devoted countless covers to Twilight and an endless amount of articles on True Blood. Now they've gone and killed two birds with one stake through the heart and featured both the depressed goth vampire from Twilight and the vampire with dime store Dracula teeth from True Blood on the same cover to announce their multi-page All Star Salute to Vampires!


I don't give a crap about vampires, but EW did do a nice job in a sidebar giving props to such legendary vampires as Grandpa Munster, Count Von Count from Sesame Street, Elvira and even the all-puppet Dracula spectacular at the end of Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Well played EW....well played! They also have a list of 20 Greatest Vampires. But would you believe that in all this hype about vampires they forgot to mention a few great blood-sucking movies from my home video collection!?! So now we present WWoB's list of 5 Best Vampire Movies:

Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995) EW lists Count Dooku as the best on screen Dracula of all time, but for my money you can't do better than Leslie Nielsen. Actually, when you're doing a spoof movie it's kind of lazy casting to put Leslie Nielsen in your lead role - but who's complaining!? Mel Brooks gave us this funny take on the Dracula legend almost 15 years ago...and he hasn't make another movie since! It's a shame, even though Dracula isn't anywhere near Mel Brooks' funniest pictures - it's still a good film with some really solid laughs. This film also has one of Harvey Korman's last big screen performances.


Once Bitten (1985) Before Ace Ventura, even before In Living Color Jim Carey stared in this very good film about a high school student who gets seduced by an older woman (played by Lauren Hutton) who turns out to be a vampire. At one point in time, I probably considered this one of the best movies of all time. It's really good. Also, the late great Cleavon Little appears in one of his last big screen roles.


The Flintstones Meet Rockula and Frankenstone (1979) The Flintstones and the Rubbles go on a game show and win a trip to Rocksylvania. Once there, they stay at Rockula's castle where, just as the title suggests, they meet Rockula and Frankenstone. It turns out that Rockula has a thing for Wilma, but when Wilma's not interested Rockula and Frankenstone try to kill Fred in the hopes of changing Wilma's mind. OK...this isn't really a movie, it's a TV special! But of course I'm going to squeeze the Flintstones into the list if I can!

Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948) No matter what the subject, you just can't go wrong with Bud Abbott and Lou Costello. This film started off a string of hits for the boys where they "meet" several of the monsters from Universal Pictures' popular stable of horror film characters. Here, Bud and Lou are baggage clerks who must deliver the remains of Count Dracula and Frankenstein's monster to a horror museum. Dracula is played by none other than Bela Lugosi, who played the role several years earlier in the 1931 film version of Dracula. EW ranks his performance in the original film as #3 on their list of 20 Greatest Vampires. Lugosi became so associated with the role that he had a hard time finding work. He took the role in Abbott and Costello strictly for the paycheck and found the film to be an insult to his talents. Whatever, Bela! This great movie remains, to this day, one of the more popular Abbott and Costello movies.

Tales From The Crypt Presents Bordello of Blood (1996) This is a fantastic movie, light on the gore - heavy on the laughs. Dennis Miller stars as a private investigator who ends up at a whore house populated by vampires...and then the fun begins! Miller is out of place as the lead in an action/horror movie, but he makes it work for himself and ends up being really hilarious. There's alot of great supporting talent in this film such as Erika Eleniak, Corey Feldman and yes, the Crypt Keeper! I'm proud to say I'm one of a small handful of people who went as saw this unblockbuster in the theatre. Thank you very much!

Trick-or-Treat 2007

Well, Halloween 2007 is over! We survived two nights of trick-or-treating, a 2 1/2 hour parade, a three different Halloween parties! I'm beat! Tanner has discovered the wonders of Candy Corn, while Elias has officially become of Gum chewer.

Tanner developed his own style of trick-or-treating. Instead of greeting people with "trick-or-treat", he would use his own "I want some candy, please!" He also replaced "thank you" with "I want more!" Since he's two years old, and looks adorable in his pumpkin costume he got away with it and he really did have significantly more candy than Elias at the end of the night.

Last night we went trick-or-treating in the neighborhood that I grew up in. When I was little, there were seriously hundreds of kids out going from door to door. Last night, we saw a few lone trick-or-treaters pass us by. My mom only had seven knocks on her door! Kind of sad, ain't it! Where's the spirit!

Now we get a two week break before I bust out the Christmas CD's and videos and begin Christmas 2007! Ho Ho Ho!

Also: Happy Birthday to my lone star brother! Happy Birthday Charlie!

Ya Gotta See It To Believe It

Last week I told you about my latest acquisition to my holiday television special collection, The Paul Lynde Halloween Special. In case you didn't believe me about the sheer greatness of this program, today WWoB gives the internet screen captures of this 1976 Halloween/Disco extravaganza!

You know it's a Halloween Special because there are jack o'lanterns in the background!

Witchiepoo, The Wicked Witch of the West, Betty White, and Paul Lynde - that's star power my friends!

Here's Lynde as The Rhinestone Trucker. This picture is also in the dictionary next to the word homosexual.

Here's a trucking/CB radio themed musical number. It has nothing to do with Halloween, but doesn't mean it ain't entertaining as all get out!

Witness Paul Lynde playing Monopoly with The Wicked Witch and Witchiepoo!

Mrs. Brady belts out a disco tune. And to think, she used to sing in the church choir with Cindy!

Seriously, you're not even allowed to wear a jacket like that on television anymore before 10:00.

Even Tim Conway can't believe what he's gotten himself into, and he was in a movie called The Billion Dollar Hobo.

You're The World's Most Popular Fruit. What Are You? Humble!

Here's a new one that I've just added to my collection: a 1976 ABC primetime variety special imaginatively called THE PAUL LYNDE HALLOWEEN SPECIAL. First of all, if you don't know who Paul Lynde was he was a very popular actor in the 60's and 70's. Among many other roles he played Uncle Arthur on BEWITCHED, he was the voice of Templeton the rat in the old animated CHARLOETTE'S WEB movie, and he was the center square on the old HOLLYWOOD SQUARES. (Not the one hosted by John Davidson...ya gotta go back further than that!) If you still don't know who he was, let's just say he was gayer than all the styling mousse in France and no one ever made a mention of it! He used to do primetime specials and this particular Halloween special has become legendary for it's line up of celebrity guest stars. It was thought that copies of the entire show no long existed, but the show's original producers were recently able to find the master tapes and now the show can been seen for the first time in 31 years! It just came out on DVD a few weeks ago and it is pure television magic, my friends!

The show kicks off with a rousing musical number where Paul sings the song "KIDS" a song he sang in the Broadway hit BYE BYE BIRDIE! That song has nothing to do with Halloween, but when Donnie and Marie Osmond drop in on the fun...who could care! Right? So then, Paul and his housekeeper Margaret go for a drive in the country to visit Margaret's sister. When they arrive at her house it turns out that Margaret's sister is actually Witchiepoo from H.R. PUFNSTUF and Margaret is actually Margaret Hamilton the Wicked Witch from THE WIZARD OF OZ. Mr. Lynde is creeped out and wants to leave, but the witches offer him three wishes to get him to stay! He agrees, and his first wish is to be a truck driver with a rhinestone covered jacket! (No, seriously!) So then there's a skit with Paul Lynde as a Super-gay Truck Driver and Tim Conway and another truck driver fighting for the love of Pinky Tuscadero. (I had no idea who Pinky Tuscadero was until I looked her up on Wikipedia and found out she actually a character from HAPPY DAYS!?) Anyhow...this truck stop romance turns into a big musical number!

O.K...so then KISS make their their primetime television debut playing "Detroit Rock City", there's another dream sequence where Paul plays a Shiek trying to woo Florence Henderson, and then Paul gives his third wish to the witches. They wish to go to a Discoteque...sure, who wouldn't??! So they all go to a Discoteque where Florence Henderson sings a disco version of "Strangers in the Night". KISS sings two more songs, oh...and I forgot Billy Barty is the witches butler and Betty White pops up somewhere in the middle!

As you can see, it's pure entertainment gold! As someone wrote in IMDB.com, "it's one of the best things ever committed to videotape." With the exception of THE HANNA-BARBERA ALL-STAR COMEDY ICE REVIEW hosted by Roy Clark and Bonnie Franklin, I just might have to agree!

Here's a clip...

Lame A. Tempt

We've got one video store left in town that actually rents video cassettes. All the other rental stores sold off all their VHS in the last year or two, but luckily I've still got one place to hunt down old crap on VHS. Seeing as how Halloween specials are just about completely extinct from airing on television, I wanted to dig up some of the classics to show my kids. The only thing of note that I came across was THE GREAT BEAR SCARE staring Ted. E Bear. Now, ya know things are off on a wrong foot when your main character is named Ted E. Bear. How original is that!? Oh...and get this, the monsters in the show live on Monster Mountain! See, it's a mountain...where monsters live...!?! And don't forget Ted's girlfriend Patti who is a reporter for Bearwitness News...instead of EYEwitness News, ya understand!? (I don't even get that pun!?) One more...the bears live in Bearbank...there's a city in California called Burbank, but these bears live in Bearbank. OK, that was is actually kind of funny. And this 1984 animated tale isn't half bad, while the story is kind of lame the script itself is pretty clever. But to enjoy this special you first have to get over the animation style employed here. It's not even really animation. The poses the characters move between are transitioned with very stylized fades. It kind of looks like animation, but it looks more like a cheap preschool storytime video.

And like yesterday's Grinch special we mentioned, this Halloween special is a follow up to a Ted E. Bear Christmas cartoon produced some ten years earlier....oh wait, forget that...I just thought of another one! Instead of Madison Square Garden, the monsters all meet at Madison SCARE Garden...because they are monsters and they like to scare people! Ya see how that works!?

Anywho..don't look for THE GREAT BEAR SCARE on TV anytime soon. Instead you can look forward to multiple airings of Dora's Halloween Fiesta` or some other junk like that!

How The Grinch Didn't Save Halloween

Last year I had this idea that I was going to do lots of posts here at WWoB about Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas specials. Then it ended up that I did next to none, so here's the first entry of what will hopefully be many more. Yesterday I dug out of my archives HALLOWEEN IS GRINCH NIGHT, a terrible attempt to follow up HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS with more Grinchy holiday fun. The Grinch Christmas special was based on Dr. Seuss' classic 1957 book of the same name and first aired on television in 1966. The screenplay was written by Dr. Seuss and the film itself was directed by animation legend Chuck Jones. I have read that Dr. Seuss was very proud of this production, and did not generally like film versions of his stories except for the Grinch Christmas special. Now fast forward to the 1978 Halloween special and it appears someone had a gun to Seuss' head to write this crap-o-la. Any charm, message or holiday spirit is thrown right out the window in this production.


As you may guess, I've seen alot of animation and as a viewer there is one rule you can always count on. If a cartoon's musical sequences are abstract and involve characters running around in different colors with no backgrounds, you can pretty much guarantee you're not watching a good cartoon. Case in point, during HALLOWEEN IS GRINCH NIGHT about 48 songs are sung in the course of 22 minutes. In one song, while the Grinch tries to convince a young Whoo that he IS the real Grinch, the Grinch's eyebrows fly off of him and flutter around while various Halloween images dance across the screen. Everytime this sequence is played, the ghost of Dr. Seuss jabs a Thrunkle-fork or a 3 foot pointy edge Knock-Glock-Grabber directly into his heart! I'd like to tell you the plot of this Halloween cartoon, but I couldn't make heads or tales out of it! For some reason, the Grinch decides to pay the residents of Whoo-ville another visit, he spends that next 20 minutes making his way down his mountain (again), Max the dog takes time for a song about why he's so sad, and then the Grinch meets a little Whoo whom was blown away from a storm out of his backyard while on the way to the outhouse. Yes...it's that bad.

You'd have to go out of your way to catch this vintage TV special now. It no longer airs, luckily for me I taped it off television about 20 years ago!

Garfield Holiday Celebrations

I've never been a huge fan of Garfield, but I've always enjoyed his animated outings. And of course I love Holiday Specials which makes this disc all the more attractive. GARFIELD HOLIDAY CELEBRATIONS came out a few years ago, but is still a staple in any stores holiday DVD offerings. This disc collects all three of Garfield's end-of-year holiday specials and offers them on one disc for a small price.

When it comes to Halloween, GARFIELD'S HALLOWEEN ADVENTURE is second only to IT'S THE GREAT PUMPKIN, CHARLIE BROWN. It's become pretty much required viewing each October as a double feature with Charlie Brown! GARFIELD'S THANKSGIVING is my favorite of the bunch. It's a very funny tale of Garfield calling in John's Grandmother to fix the Thanksgiving dinner. A GARFIELD CHRISTMAS rounds out the trio with a sentimental yarn about getting together with family at the holidays.

All in all, it's a nice collection of some great holiday entertainment from the 1980's.