The Disney Halloween Specials

Back in the 80s Halloween meant, among other things, lots of Halloween specials on TV. One I made sure to catch every year was A Disney Halloween. It was on in the background at Halloween parties, at Cub Scout meetings as we stuffed scarecrows to decorate our front porches, and after coming home from a night of Trick-or-Treat.



After doing a bit of research, I discovered that when I think of A Disney Halloween, I’m actually remembering bits and pieces of three different specials: Disney’s Halloween Hall O’ Fame, Disney’s Halloween Treat, and A Disney Halloween. A Disney Halloween was the longest, and more or less incorporated all the material from the other two, so for the sake of convenience I’ll use it here to refer to all three shows. Essentially the show was a compilation of a whole bunch of scary moments in Disney shorts and movies from the 1930s all the way up to the 1980s. In an era before most of these movies were easily available on VHS, it was my first exposure to a lot of the classic Disney movies: The Sword in the Stone, Peter Pan, Snow White, The Aristocats, and many others.

Watching these specials now, it’s fun to see how freaky and weird a lot of these old cartoons were. In one episode, for instance, Donald Duck takes gleeful, sadistic pleasure in handing out firecrackers to his own nephews for Trick-or-Treat. How they survived such reckless abuse is far beyond me, but in this particular cartoon they get back at Donald through the help of a devious witch named Hazel and cheerful pop-swing music.

In another cartoon Pluto is condemned to death by a council of vicious cats (who live in a giant stone cat head not at all unlike the Cave of Wonders in Aladdin). After being found guilty, Pluto is nearly burned alive by demonic, pitchfork wielding felines before waking from the dream. I’m glad to see children’s programming that’s not afraid to be so out there. I could be wrong, since I'm looking at it from an adult's eyes, but I feel like kid's entertainment has gotten tamer over the years.

But I didn’t watch the specials for the weird 40s cartoons, or even the clips of Disney villains through the years. What I looked forward to the most were the two segments that scared my Kindergarten mind the worst: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Night on Bald Mountain.



I’ll admit that these days Sleepy Hollow feels a little tame. The final chase with Ichabod and the horseman is still thrilling. (The TV specials tended to cut out the rather grim ending of the tale where Ichabod vanishes forever, perhaps spirited away to hell by the horseman). Disney’s Horseman is clearly supernatural. No matter how many times my parents tried to calm me by insisting the Headless Horseman was just Brom Bones in disguise, I didn’t believe it then, and I don’t believe it now. The Headless Horseman is real, damn it!

The rest of the segment hasn’t aged well; most of the time it has nothing to do with the Horseman or the actual “legend” of Sleepy Hollow. Instead we get the chipper voice of Bing Crosby as our narrator and several 1940s era boogie-woogie music numbers that blunt a lot of the terror. It’s hard to be frightened by the Headless Horseman when we learn about him through a jaunty Bing Crosby sing-along.

Night on Bald Mountain, on the other hand, remains just as beautiful, frightening, and eerie as it did when I first watched it. Originally the climax to Disney’s Fantasia, I was first exposed to the segment on A Disney Halloween, and while other kids found it boring, stupid, or slow (criticisms which are unfairly lobbed at the whole of Fantasia to this day) I was transfixed. The animation is phenomenal—I’d say it’s one of the most beautiful hand drawn shorts ever: from the ethereal movements of the ghosts to the spastic flight of the harpies and the impressive, powerful movements of Chernabog atop the mountain, the segment pushed the boundariess of what cartoon animation had been up to that point.



Unlike so many of the other cartoons, there are no heroes in Night on Bald Mountain (described as “the world’s first Halloween party” by the show’s narrator). There is nothing to stand up against the evil of the demon Chernabog. Indeed, he has this night, and presumably every night, free to do what he wants, to raise the dead and cavort with flaming demons and flying harpies without a soul to oppose him. With power like that at his disposal, what earthly force could stop him?

In Fantasia, Chernabog is defeated at dawn by the ringing of the church bell and horrible night of Bald Mountain gives way to the gorgeous Ave Maria sequence. In the Disney Halloween specials, oddly enough, they would cut away before Chernabog’s defeat, leaving him in power on Bald Mountain and presumably prepared to destroy the town and the world. As a kid who was already plenty afraid of the night, it gave me the sense that somewhere in the world something like this could happen unchecked—that the night brought on things so frightening and so otherworldly that it was never a good idea to venture too far from home after dark. Who knew which of the mountains I could see from by bedroom was home to a terrible demon and the dance of the dead?

And while I no longer believe there are mountains where demons dance to classical music, Night on Bald Mountain still reminds me of the days when I did. From that beautiful nightmare to Huey, Dewey, and Louie’s quest for candy, there’s something about A Disney Halloween that perfectly captures the fun and fright of Halloween in the 1980s for those of us who were there. I wonder what the kids are watching now?

It's Back! (Insert Your Own Futurama Reference Here)

Finally! After years of hints and hopes, Futurama is finally coming back to TV, and in the form of real episodes instead of mediocre movies!

I'm a huge fan of the show and have been praying to the TV gods that this would would happen for a long time. The direct to DVD movies were decent, but they never quite captured the spirit of the show. This time we've got 26 actual episodes on the way, and the writers won't have to be tied down to the four episode=one movie formula. The show will be free to really grow creatively again, bringing back more characters and going in new directions. I'm eager to see where Groening, Cohen and co. take us next.

Sadly, Futurama is the second major show in recent years to be resurrected from cancellation, the first being the far inferior Family Guy. That show is funny, sure, but lately the strings have really begun to show. They long ago abandoned characters and stories in favor of random and cruel frat-boy quality humor. Even when it was good, Family Guy could never hold a candle to Futurama's well drawn characters, fully realized sci-fi universe, and overall storytelling quality. A subtle joke with amusing characters is a thousand times more effective than an over the top shock-seeker with no grounding in anything. I have enjoyed both shows, but Futurama is in a league all its own.

And yet Family Guy surged back to Fox after only a two year hiatus, bringing with it throngs of cheering fans and an undeserved reputation as the beacon of animated comedy. Now that the show has gone so far off the rails, even long time fans are starting to realize that there was never very much to stuffing a show with 80s references and obscure pop culture nonsense. But for a while, it did seem that Family Guy would be remembered forever and Futurama relegated to animated obscurity.

No more. Come 2010 we can look forward to more nerdy humor than we'll know what to do with. More of Fry and Leela's romantic fumbling! More of Bender's ruthless antics! More Zoidberg!

Conan's taken over the Tonight Show and Futurama's coming back to TV. Could it be good things are in the air?

UPDATE (7/31): Looks like this post will not become tragically ironic, as I'd feared: The whole voice actor madness has apparently ended. Everyone will be back for the series! Huzzah!

Jay Leno Never Knocked Tom Hanks Over With A Prop Meteor

I'm just saying.

Now I'm not one of those people who thought Jay Leno was absolutely worthless, but he was safe and predictable. On the other hand, I've been a fan of Conan O'Brien since before I knew who he was (with the first airing of Marge vs. the Monorail, to be specific) and he's been a huge comedic influence on me ever since. He's perfected the comedy of insane nonsense, and I wish him great success winning over the non-believers in the new time slot. This is a guy that reached my ultimate life ambition of being a professional writer when he was 25 and just kept going higher from there.

It's a general rule that you've got to be really smart and serious about comedy to be as silly and stupid as Conan. It takes a lot of practice and a lot of patience for sifting through bad ideas. It all pays off though, when you end up with gems like Tom Hanks getting hit with a meteor. The first new show might have been a little rocky, but Conan is really settling in now, and I very much look forward to seeing him on TV for years to come.

Just in case you missed it:



Tom Hanks falling over = comedy gold. No matter what.

(Also, there's a nice in depth article about the Tonight Show, Conan's comedy, and the whole transition here. Worth a read.)

Curse you, Lost!

Lost is one of those shows that intimidates me as an aspiring writer. I don't think I'm a bad writer by any means, but when I see something that is so well plotted, so intricate, and so entertaining week after week, I can't help but get a little nervous. I'm just not sure I'd ever be able to do something like that.

But who knows. Part of the appeal of Lost is the myth that it's all perfectly constructed and planned out (much the way George Lucas insists on claiming Star Wars was all perfectly constructed and planned out). It's part of what makes the show fun. What we don't see, though, is the team of writers banging their head against the wall every week, tossing idea after idea into the trash, and generally despairing of ever coming up with a satisfying moment. The pressure these guys are under must be enormous.

Writing, thank God, is not like landing a plane. You get a lot of chances to get it right, and in the case of TV writing, a lot of colleagues to bounce ideas off of. What seems brilliant now came from a lot of false starts, dead ends, and bad ideas. One of the real tricks in writing is knowing when you're done, when you've finally got something as good as you can make it. This is where the Lost writers excel. Writing is a process--just because we're lucky enough to see the end result doesn't mean the road to get us there wasn't bumpy, chaotic, and filled with mediocre ideas.

I was actually going to post my thoughts on this season's finale, but the internet is already awash with plenty of opinions and theories. This article goes into more depth than I would ever have time to. Suffice to say, the series will once again keep me interested all through the summer.

Bye Scrubs!

It’s taken a few days to sink in, but I’m really going to miss Scrubs. If the ratings are any indication, the show hasn’t been popular at all for a very long time, and I’ll admit it probably lasted a season or two longer than it should have. Even at its worst, though, it was a great example of a show that perfectly blends real drama with the most off the wall sort of comedy.

These days every show and movie tries to shoe-horn drama into their comedy, and personally I’ve been Apatow-ed out for a while now. I don’t always want a happy moral at the end of my story. I’m not big on characters that spent the previous ninety minutes making fart jokes suddenly trying to tell me that all I need is love.

So why did Scrubs work for me? The drama never felt forced, and the characters always felt real. People think of drama and comedy as two separate genres, but the best entertainment understands that life is as silly as it is sad as it is sweet. Sometimes Scrubs got very silly, but the silliness was almost always confined to fantasies and flashbacks. Sure, the Janitor was insane (and who would have it any other way?) but even that crazy character had a shade of humanity that made it work.

The best shows, the best movies, the best art in general comes from a real place. If it’s ridiculous, if it’s depressing, if it’s horrifying, if it comes from reality it makes sense. Even my other favorite Bill Lawrence show (and possibly my favorite show ever behind The Simpsons) Clone High, understood that zaniness is better when you’ve got solid characters. Compare any random episode of Clone High to any random episode of Family Guy, and I challenge anyone to argue that the greater attention to character and plot on Clone High don’t help it come out ahead.

When a great show leaves, you miss the characters like you miss your friends. Scrubs was a great show, no question about it. Any doubters need only take a look at the last five minutes of the finale. Not since the last episode of The Wonder Years have I gotten quite as emotional at the end of a TV show.



This is why people get into the entertainment industry—in the off chance that maybe someday, something they create will mean something, will make other people smile, even if it’s just for a little while. So thanks Bill Lawrence and Scrubs for making me smile, and, more importantly, for always reminding me why I’m here in LA, where things can seem pointless all too easily. But if it’s possible to create something that can mean to someone else what Scrubs has meant to me, well, then it's worth every bit of the trouble.

UPDATE (5/15/09): So it looks like Scrubs will probably be back again next year. Quite a shame to end the show so well and then just drag its corpse around for who knows how much longer, but that's the way the industry works. "Always leave them wanting more" has been replaced with "Make them beg you to stop."

Ten Great Simpsons Episodes (Part 2)

Here we go: my top five Simpsons episodes. (On a related note, one of my favorite words, 'meh' has finally made it into the dictionary. Check it out.)

5. Treehouse of Horror V
Originally Aired: October 30, 1994

Written by Greg Daniels, Dan McGrath, David X. Cohen, Bob Kushell
“Acchh!! I’m bad at this!”

In truth, any of the first six or seven Treehouses of Horror would probably rank as one of the show’s best episodes. I might even like IV a little better than V. But V has one thing the others don’t: Groundskeeper Willy. I’m sorry, but seeing the well intentioned Scotsman repeatedly axed in the back by a variety of characters is pure brilliance. Sure, a future world ruled by Ned Flanders is funny—ditto the idea of ‘The Shinning’ or the fact the Grandpa Simpson gave Homer time travelling advice on his wedding day. But c’mon. Nothing beats cold hearted, nonsensical murder for comedy gold.

4. And Maggie Makes Three

Originally Aired: January 22, 1995

Written by Jennifer Crittenden

“Hey wait a minute. What are all these presents? It looks like you’re…showering…Marge with gifts. Hm…with little, tiny, baby-sized gifts. Well, I’ll be in the tub.”

This might not be one of the funniest episodes, but it’s hard not to feel some sympathy for Homer. He finally fulfills his dream of getting a minimum wage job at the bowling alley, only to be forced to give it up to support his new surprise, Maggie. Homer’s touching decision to put his family first and “Do it for her” is in such sharp contrast with the selfish jerk the character has evolved into that it almost makes me wish the show had ended right here.

3. Cape Feare
Originally Aired: October 7, 1993

Written by Jon Vitti
“Yeaaaaagggrrrrrr”

That’s the sound of Sideshow Bob stepping on a rake. Like the Treehouse of Horror episodes, there are plenty of good Sideshow Bob episodes to choose from. This one wins because of the great parody of Cape Fear, Homer’s consistent ineptitude at seeing the severity of Bart’s crisis, and Kelsey Grammer’s delightful singing voice. At the time this episode came out I had a friend who was actually frightened by it, and I must say that the idea of a grown man trying to murder a ten year old boy could potentially be pretty freaky. Thankfully, great writing and a street full of rakes transforms the idea into something hilarious.

2. Lisa's Wedding
Originally Aired: March 19, 1995

Written by Greg Daniels

Homer: I just want you to know I’ve always been proud of you. You’re my greatest accomplishment and you did it all yourself. You’ve helped me understand my own wife better and taught me to be a better person. But you’re also my daughter, and I don’t think anybody could have had a better daughter than…

Lisa: Dad you’re babbling.

Homer: See? You’re still helping me.

Growing up with the show, Lisa was always the character I related to the most. I wasn’t a troublemaker like Bart and thought too much to be like Homer; like me at that age, Lisa was thoughtful, good at school, and something of a loner. Many fans I've spoken with share my affinity for Lisa, and I get the feeling many of the shows writers do as well. This episode has great gags: the propensity of future robots (from the year 2010!) to malfunction and the absolutely incompetent take on history at the Springfield Renaissance Faire; it’s also great to see the future fates of some of our favorite Springfield residents, especially Milhouse. All of the jokes aside, however, it's Lisa's commitment to her family that makes this episode memorable.

Throughout the series, Lisa’s intellectualism has sometimes made it difficult for her to relate to her father. Here, Lisa gives up her fiance for Homer's sake, and despite how ridiculous these characters sometimes act, their humanity shines through during the last five minutes of this show. (This is the exact same sort of sensibility Greg Daniels would later bring to The Office.) I've seen this episode a hundred times, and it’s still hard to keep my eyes dry when I watch eight year old Lisa’s face light up with excitement at learning just how much she loves her dad.

1. Marge vs. The Monorail
Originally Aired: January 14, 1993

Written by Conan O'Brien

Marge: Homer, there's a man here who thinks he can help you.

Homer: Batman??

Marge: No, he's a scientist.

Homer: Batman's a scientist.

Marge: It's not Batman!

This was an easy call. There’s not much to say about this one that hasn’t already been said. If you haven't seen it, all I can feel for you is pity. From the moment Homer crashes through his car window until the last person falls to their death off the Escalator to Nowhere, there’s not a second in this episode that isn’t hilarious. Every single line is quotable. Almost sixteen years later, this is still the funniest thing I have ever seen on TV. No joke.

Ten Great Simpsons Episodes

I realized I was focusing on the show's dismal later years in my last post, so I went ahead and put together a list of ten Simpsons episodes that I think are some of the best that have ever aired. Naturally the list is totally subjective, and keep in mind I’m pretty prejudiced against anything that aired after the 7th season.

It was incredibly difficult to narrow it down to ten, and there are probably another 30 episodes just as deserving. I would love to have included “Lisa on Ice”, “Kamp Krusty”, “Bart on the Road”, or “Who Shot Mr. Burns”, just to name a few. Anyway, on to the list.

10. 22 Short Films About Springfield
Originally Aired: April 14, 1996

Written by Richard Appel, David X. Cohen, Jonathan Collier, Jennifer Crittenden, Greg Daniels, Brent Forrester, Rachel Pulido, Steve Tompkins, Josh Weinstein, Bill Oakley, and Matt Groening

“Professor Frink, Professor Frink, he’ll make you laugh, he’ll make you think…”

This episode came out towards the end of the show’s golden age, a time when the expansive cast of ancillary characters was just starting to come into their own. One of the great touches was that many of the sketches came with their own theme song. Yes, I suppose you could go through life without knowing all the words to the “Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel” theme song. But who would want to?

9. Homer Badman
Originally Aired: Novermber 27, 1994

Written by Greg Daniels

Marge: Homer, that’s your solution to everything, to move under the sea. It’s not gonna happen!!

Homer: Not with that attitude!

An incident with a gummy Venus de Milo turns the whole world against Homer. In the mid 90s, round the clock news coverage of every minor scandal was a relatively new thing, but TV’s obsession with the minute details of our lives would only get worse from here. This episode features a great appearance from Groundskeeper Willy and the classic poorly edited video of Homer on “Rock Bottom.” What makes "Homer Badman" stand out is the way it insists on Homer’s inherent goodness: he loves candy and TV with such an innocent, childlike passion that something as serious as sexual harassment is simply beyond his capabilities. I miss that Homer.

8. Lisa's First Word
Originally Aired: December 3, 1992

Written by Jeff Martin

"Can't sleep...clown'll eat me...."

There’s a lot to love here—seeing Bart grow up as a child of the 80s, Krusty’s catastrophic Olympic Sweepstakes, Bart’s terrifying clown bed, and Homer’s first meeting with Flanders. What really sells this episode, though, are the emotions: Bart’s jealousy of newborn Lisa, Lisa’s admiration for her big brother, and the start of Homer’s special relationship with Maggie.

And let’s not forget the way the whole family shares a joyous laugh when they recall shipping Grandpa away to the old folk’s home. Laughing at the sad fate of the elderly will never go out of style.

7. Radioactive Man
Originally Aired: September 24, 1995

Written by John Swartzwelder

“My eyes! The goggles do nothing!”

I loved this episode growing up, but it did not become one of my favorites until I moved to Los Angeles. The portrayal of the film industry is spot on, from Krusty’s complaints to the producer about the quality of the coffee on set to the utter destruction of the Simpson’s house by a careless film crew.

Then of course there’s Bart and Milhouse’s star struck reaction to the arrival of Mickey Rooney, “modern editing techniques” used to “fix” the Radioactive Man movie after the departure of Milhouse, and Rainier Wolfcastle’s dismal failure to deliver Radioactive Man’s signature line. A classic from start to finish.

6. Lemon of Troy
Originally Aired: May 13, 1995

Written by Brent Forrester

“So this is what it feels like…when doves cry.”

I’m a sucker for Milhouse. Perhaps he reminds me a bit too much of myself as a child. I may have even fantasized about using a camouflaged outfit to hide from my enemies. This is a rare episode that focuses almost entirely on the kids, and in a way that is (somewhat) realistic. I remember going on adventures like this as a kid, and while they never quite reached this level of ridiculousness, there’s something oddly real about two groups of kids fighting over a lemon tree.

Numbers 5 through 1 are on the way!

Coranon Silaria Ozoo Mahoke!

A fine mahoke to you all.

I was originally going to write something about politics, hence the image, but in watching my Simpsons DVD for the correct spelling of “mahoke” I was reminded of just how brilliant that show used to be. I’m beating a dead horse here for sure, but for me The Simpsons was such a huge influence that I can’t help but be saddened when I think of what it has become. I remember sitting down as a seven year old child to watch the Christmas special in 1989, the rush of merchandise that came with the show’s rise to popularity in 1990, and watching the show with my dad as a 5^th grader on January 14^th 1993: the original airdate of the “Marge vs. The Monorail” episode and the precise moment when the show attained comic perfection. For the next several years it would only get better.

So what happened? After about the 8^th season, the show started to fly downhill. At first it was difficult to notice—it happened so gradually that I was still rushing to watch the show every Sunday night well into college. But at some point every fan of the show had to admit that the gig was up. The characters and situations had become ridiculous, the stories increasingly nonsensical—the characters even looked a little different. What started as a satirical look at America in the early 90s became by slow degrees a slapdash concoction of random jokes and physical comedy—exactly the kind of nonsense the early show mocked.

I’ll avoid going on a long anti-Simpsons rant (if anyone needs proof of the show’s decline, just compare the second season episode “The Way We Was” with “That 90s Show” from January 2008) but let’s just look at the Republican Party HQ joke from where this post gets its title. The great thing about this joke is not that it portrays Republicans as evil rich guys (and vampires) living in a foreboding castle (though that is great), but that it is also a commentary on the way liberals sometimes perceive and portray Republicans. It was this basic thesis—that all members of society are equally ridiculous, that made the show so wonderful. That snarky attitude is gone now.

What makes me saddest is that the show was only at its height for the 4^th, 5^th, 6^th, and 7^th seasons (it was getting good during the first three, but the fourth definitely marks the start of the show’s maturity). I’ll be generous and add the 8^th season to that list: that gives us five good seasons. Since the show has been on for 20 seasons now with no end in sight, then at best the good years represent 25% of the show’s run. Will future generations remember the show for its witty social commentary, or for the new “Angry Homer” and his loveable catchphrases like “Help me Jeebus!”?

Let’s hope that the show’s legacy remains the 90s. This is when the show was at its height, and perhaps it is permanently linked to that time period. Homer and Marge will always have met in the 70s; Bart and Lisa will always be members of "The MTV generation." It is probably too much to ask that something remain relevant forever outside of its era of origin. All of the people that made the show great have gone on to bigger things (Greg Daniels, Conan O’Brien and Brad Bird, just to name a few) and us fans have plenty of other comedy shows to obsess over. But there has never been and probably never will be a show, movie, book, or anything that has had as much influence on me as The Simpsons. I owe so much of my attitude, my world view, and most of all my sense of humor to the show; I can honestly say that if not for The Simpsons I would be a different person today, and not a better one.

For those of us who dream of making people laugh for a living, there’s no better benchmark than The Simpsons in the 90s.