The most notable TV Halloween specials

The title is dumb, but also very “Shrek.” In 2010, the same year as the fourth “Shrek” movie, this Halloween special hit NBC. It’s your classic “Everybody tells scary stories” setup, and it’s fine, with notably only Eddie Murphy among the main cast not lending his voice.

It actually makes sense that “Toy Story” got the Halloween special treatment. One, it’s long been a massively-popular franchise. Two, the world of the films lends itself well to light horror. After all, the toys at Sid’s house in the first film have a horror movie element to them. The toys, are revved up from secretly watching a horror movie, find themselves at a roadside motel, and when Mr. Potato Head goes missing, the horror-riffing action (and comedy) begins.

People talk about “Space Ghost Coast to Coast” presaging the adult swim era, but “The Scooby-Doo Project” was just as important to that. The story goes that Cartoon Network wanted a few animators to make promotional material to air for a “Scooby-Doo” marathon in 1999, but then “The Blair Witch Project” came out and the animators asked if they could just make one Scooby Spoof of that film. Thus, on Halloween of 1999, we got “The Scooby-Doo Project.” It’s what it sounds like, and it’s actually worth a watch.

Of course there was a “Flintstones” Halloween special. They did a Christmas special in a show that takes place before the birth of Jesus! And, of course, the special’s writers did another classic “Flintstones” thing, coming up with the laziest rock/stone puns possible. They even travel to Rocksylvania instead of Transylvania. There is nothing creative to be found in this 1979 offering.

Like many “Looney Tunes” TV specials and/or shows, there was a lot of repackaging old theatrical shorts. In Bugs’ “Howl-oween Special,” nine theatrical shorts are included. However, the wraparounds were all new, and one assumes in 1977 a lot of kids at home had never seen any of these shorts.

Garfield, like the Flintstones, never met a holiday he wouldn’t turn into a special. Jim Davis himself actually wrote “Garfield’s Halloween Adventure,” which interestingly has a pirate theme to it. The special won an Emmy and became a Halloween staple, so clearly that worked.

Halloween specials are not, inherently, animated. While variety shows are effectively dead, a holiday special often took the form of a variety show. Paul Lynde is the exact kind of celebrity who would host a special like this back in the day. A special where Donny and Marie perform, Kiss shows up, and Pinky Tuscadero, the character from “Happy Days,” is there for some reason. It’s now a cultural curio, but a fun one for what it is (campy nonsense).

To celebrate the 15th anniversary of the musical’s broadway run, and given that it could be tied to Halloween through witchery, there was a TV special in honor of “Wicked” that was hosted by the wickedly talented Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth. It’s slight, and mostly just singing songs from the musical, but notably Ariana Grande was one of those performers. This was 2018, years before the first “Wicked” movie.

“Monsters vs. Aliens,” the movie, wasn’t a big hit. However, that didn’t stop Dreamworks from producing a Halloween special in 2010. We’re glad it exists, if only for the subtitle “Mutant Pumpkins in Outer Space.” Eventually, they would actually make a “Monsters vs. Aliens” TV show.

We all know that the Grinch once intended to steal Christmas. Then, his heart grows and such. Given the massive success of that Christmas special, though, it’s a little surprising it took over a decade until they tried a Halloween special. Maybe that’s how long it took for them to realize they could make a prequel and get around the whole “But the Grinch isn’t grinch-y anymore” thing.

Yes, NBC milked David S. Pumpkins for a TV special. Well, in a different era we would have gotten a David S. Pumpkins movie, so maybe this was better. Of course, it’s obvious why they would do this. David S. Pumpkins was played by Tom Hanks in the “SNL” sketch, and they got Hanks to reprise the role for the special.

“The Halloween That Almost Wasn’t” won an Emmy. It reran on the Disney channel throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s. That’s all surprising because, well, it’s terrible. Laughably bad. That’s a little unexpected, given that Judd Hirsch and Jack Riley are among the cast members, but this special is so bad RiffTrax riffed it, and reasonably so.

The “Mickey and Friends” era of Mickey Mouse is for the Disney Jr. crowd. That is to say, “Trick of Treats” isn’t for older kids, or for adults who want some family-friendly entertainment. There is a witch, and there is a spooky mansion, but “Trick or Treats” is for easing younger children into Halloween. On that front, though, it got good reviews.

Hey, they made an entire TV show, and then several movies, based on the single-panel “Addams Family.” Why not a TV special based on “Far Side?” The special aired in 1994 and, fittingly, is an anthology. It’s a bunch of short, punchy, “Far Side” cartoons turned into animated shorts. Which tracks, given that usually a “Far Side” gag is a single image.

A few years earlier, a stop-motion studio that specialized in clay figures did a Christmas special. In 1991, they released a Halloween special. Of course, stop-motion animation takes a while. To that end, they started making the special in 1990, and when all was said and done this Halloween special was, um, aired in May. The first time around, at least. In the future, it could air in October, where a “Comedy of Horrors” belongs.

An author and artist realized that “Scary Godmother” rhymed with “Fairy Godmother,” and a children’s book series was born. Eventually, this book series got a stage show, and that stage show got a Halloween special. The “Halloween Spooktacular” was made in Canada, but it aired on Cartoon Network in the United States, and it aired for a few years.

Now, this Smurfs story, obviously a riff on “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” was first released on DVD. The DVD came out on September 10, 2013. However on October 27 of the same year, it aired on ABC Family. As such, this feels more like a TV special that happens to get a DVD release because it was 2013, as opposed to a movie intended to be watched on DVD first.

The Muppets have been trying to figure out their future under the Disney umbrella, but there have been some high notes. “Muppets Haunted Mansion,” a 50-minute special on Disney+, is the highlight to date. It’s good, better than any “Haunted Mansion” movie made to date. It centers on Gonzo and Pepe and Taraji P. Henson absolutely crushes it as The Bride.

If you are of a certain age, had we not mentioned “Halloweentown” you probably would have been annoyed. Sure, this is a proper made-for-TV movie, one of those Disney Channel Originals. Again, though, some people don’t mess around when it comes to “Halloweentown.” They have now made four of these movies, after all.

Of course, we had to include, and in this case end, on “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.” Next to “A Charlie Brown Christmas” this is the quintessential “Peanuts” special. The world of Charlie, Linus and, of course, Marcie is one that tends to appeal to people when they are young children, and then again as they get a bit older. That is to say, if you haven’t watched “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” in a while, why not give it a shot?