5 Fandom Friday is a weekly prompt challenge hosted by The Nerdy Girlie and Super Space Chick. This week's #5FandomFriday topic is Favorite Halloween Episodes, and it didn't take me very long at all to make my list! I've looked forward to Halloween episodes of my favorite TV shows since I was a kid (the 90's were prime Halloween episode years, y'all!). You can see the upcoming prompts here at the Female Geek Bloggers community.
5. That 70's Show, "Too Old for Trick or Treat, Too Young To Die" - I watched That 70's Show in syndication every day after school in high school, and this episode is great on so many levels. First, there's Fez's Dr. Frank N. Furter costume from The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which he tells the gang he chose just to freak out his conservative host family. As the kids are griping about the fact that they've aged out of their prime trick-or-treating years, Kelso says he wishes they could be in the Alfred Hitchcock movie marathon that's on TV. The rest of the episode features funny tributes to Rear Window, Vertigo, the Birds, Psycho, and North by Northwest. The best 70's Show episodes were the ones with crazy dream sequences and concepts, like the Wizard of Oz, Star Wars, and musical episodes, and this Halloween episode is one of the most memorable.
4. Parks and Recreation, "Halloween Surprise" - Parks and Rec always had great Halloween episodes. This one features Ron and Andy taking Diane's kids trick-or-treating so she could deal with a middle school emergency, Jerry's "fart attack," Donna live-tweeting a movie called Death Canoe 4 ("In the fifth one, the canoe is actually the hero!"), Tom inventing Rent-a-Swag, Ann helping Leslie with house hunting, and of course, the best Halloween surprise ever from Ben.
3. The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror #1 - The "Treehouse of Horror" episodes of the Simpsons are great because they're a chance for the writers to really play with the characters and get creative without messing up the continuity of the show. The first installment is still my favorite because of the show's version of "The Raven," narrated by James Earl Jones and presented in a way that actually helps kids understand a great piece of writing! My students get really excited when I show the clip in class during our Gothic literature unit.
2. Roseanne - I remember really looking forward to Roseanne episodes as a kid - I always wanted to be invited to the Conner family's haunted house and Halloween party, and Roseanne, Dan, and Jackie always had the most creative costumes. 90's Halloween episodes led little me to suspect that Halloween would be even more fun as an adult than as a kid.
1. Boy Meets World, "And Then There Was Shawn" - I grew up with the Boy Meets World characters, and like any red-blooded American teenage girl all I wanted was for Shawn Hunter to be happy. The highs and lows of Shawn and Angela's romance caused me inner turmoil, and Shawn's angst is behind the Halloween episode where the students are trapped in John Adams High ("where you're all gonna die") along with Eric, Jack, new student Jennifer Love Fefferman ("Feffy"), and a kid named Kenny's who's obviously just there so the gang can make a South Park joke when he dies.
I adore that episode of Parks and Rec...it made my list too :)
ReplyDeleteI love that Simpson's one to The Raven is brilliant such a classic xoxo
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