Toons of Terror (Part 5: Dem Bones)

Yesterday’s blog was a little heavy, so let’s lighten things up with the happiest place on earth during the scariest time of year. It’s time for Disney’s take on Halloween! Today we look at two old school, black and white Disney shorts. Both featuring dancing skeletons! HORRAY!!

One being the Silly Symphony, Skeleton Dance (1929) and the other being a Mickey Mouse cartoon Haunted House (also 1929.) What are the chances of two Disney shorts involvine dancing skeletons coming out in the same year? Probably pretty good, actually. I’m not sure which came first, but there is some borrowed animation between the two, so there definitely was some collaborative brainstorming going on at Disney. Probably someone said, “dancing skeletons! Let’s do a short about that” And someone else said, “are you kidding?! There’s waaay to much material with a concept like that! We gotta do two!” As least that’s how I like to think it went down…

I’m grouping these two together, because they’re both very similar. One just happens to involve a very popular mouse. The imagery in both is actually pretty creepy for Disney. Being an older cartoon, they were able to actually get away with a little more artistically, I find. But even though the art is chilling, being Disney, these shorts never loose their sense of fun. It’s a kind of “playful scary” vibe that Disney later used in full force on their Haunted Manson ride. 

 

They’re both excellent cartoons. Skeleton Dance may be the more classic of the two, but I personally love the Mickey one a tad more. There’s something great about seeing this character so terrified that I always loved. And it’s also great that these ghouls just scared the hell out of him so that he would play the organ for them (probably cause skeletons don’t have any organs! Ba-dum tish!)

Ok enough of that. Just check out these shorts, they’re not very long, and even though they look old, the quality of the animation and storytelling hasn’t aged a day. 

- Moo

Toons of Terror (Part 4: Fear Bending)

I am a stone cold advocate of seeing animation as a medium, and not as a genre. Animation has the potential to do any genre in its own unique way that only animation can do. Yet, with that said, there are certain genres it does have trouble with or that I feel haven’t been explored well enough within the medium. One of those genres is horror. I love horror movies, and I love animation, but the amount of truly scary pieces of animation I’ve seen are far to few. So today for our Toons of Terror segment, let’s view a Halloween special that’s dripping with the tropes and tricks used in classic horror filmmaking. The show is Avatar: The Last Airbender, and the episode is simply called The Puppetmaster. 

I’ll try to keep this review as spoiler free as I can, as this episode is in the final season of the show, and at this point is rather deep into the overarching story. But let me say this: if you haven’t seen this show already GO WATCH THIS SHOW!! It’s one of the best cartoons I’ve seen in recent memory, and one of the best adventure shows of all time.

Now, with that said, this episode in question, while not technically a Halloween special, did premiere around Halloween of 2007 and is creepy as shit, so I’ll let it slide. The episode centers around the Avatar crew as they attempt to solve a mystery of people disappearing from a town every time there is a full moon. It’s a simple set up, but what separates this episode from being less Scooby-Doo like and more like a true horror film is the way they execute the events. It’s all in the delivery.

Now, since this still is an all ages show, they couldn’t get away with anything too gruesome, but that doesn’t mean they wern’t allowed to create the same atmosphere as done in a live action horror movie. In horror, what we can imagine is usually what’s the most frightening. Often times in film (especially early and indie horror filmes,) the budget would usually limit what you could show the audition, and that would actually be beneficial as the audition would fill in the blanks with their own fears. In animation, it’s a lot easier to just show big flashy things, cause it would essentially coast more or less the same than other scenes. But here in this episode, they wisely choose to show less, and tell more, letting our imaginations run wild. The very first scene is the kids telling each other ghost stories, and then Toph (the blind one of the group) tells others she could hear people screaming under the mountain followed by silence. They don’t show any of this, we’re just told. Our imaginations fill in the rest, and that’s just the first 5 minutes of this amazing episode. Creepy sounds and music (or sometimes lack there of) would make things feel very ominous. The storyboarding would show us just enough to wet our appetite for curiosity. Hell, there’s even some very sublet (almost subliminal) creepy imaginy, such as a random old woman’s face in a head of cabbage. 

And if that weren’t enough, the episode is also a big character moment for the character of Katara, and it actually answers some big questions I had about the show’s premis of “water bending.” But that’s getting into spoilerish territory, so again I’ll just say go and watch this one if you haven’t already. It’s a bold move for a “kid’s show” to do a episode meant to be frightening, and I feel it paid off for them in a very, very big way. 

- Moo

Toons of Terror (Part 3: Hey Aliens!)

Trick or treat is a simple concept. You either get tricked, or you get a treat. However, often times the alluring promise of free candy overwhelms the whole “trick” element of Halloween. So, I went looking for a Halloween special whose main focus was a really solid Halloween prank. And oh did I ever find one in Hey Arnold!’s halloween special, simply titled Arnold’s Halloween.

While there’s been many “spooky” episodes of Hey Arnold!, featuring ghost stories and other urban legends and tales, this is the only proper Halloween special that the show seemed to have. And lucky for us it pays homage to one of the greatest pranks ever, Orson Welles’ radio drama War of the Worlds. 

For those not in the know, War of the Worlds was a radio drama adaption of a piece written by H.G. Wells, directed and narrated by Orson Welles on October 30th 1938. The drama depicted an alien invasion as told from the perspective of a radio broadcaster. However, many people who missed the beginning of the piece (where it started it was fiction) kinda lost their shit thinking that this was a real alien invasion. People called the media and police, fled their homes, claimed they smelt poison gas and saw the flash of lights from the alien’s mothership. Mass hysteria! 

Arnold’s Halloween is a full homage to the classic radio drama and its fallout. After Arnold’s grandfather refuses to let Arnold and Gerald in on the planing for his anual Halloween pranks, the two decide to pull a prank of their own War of the Worlds style, faking a alien invasion broadcast. Even going so far as to have their classmates dress up as aliens. The prank however worked too well, and once the local media picked up on the broadcast, the whole town’s a panic. Again, mass hysteria! The fun is simply watching this good natured prank spiral out of control, having the kids flee for their lives in their alien costumes, and watching the adults totally lose their shit as the city goes into a complete panic. The cherry on the top of this cartoon sundae is voice actor Maurice LaMarche who not only voices one of the show regular antagonists, Big Bob Pataki, but is able to reuse his killer Orson Welles impersonation (that he perfected as The Brain in Pinky and The Brain) as Donald Wells, a report obsessed with alien conspiracies. 

The story of the fallout of The War of the Worlds has such natural comedy potential, it’s pretty surprising nobodies used it before. It’s a fun, panic filled story with tons of little moments, like Principle Warts planing to surrender willfully to the supposed invaders. I consider this one to be a hidden gem of animated Halloween specials. If you haven’t seen it before, give it a gander.

- Moo

Toons of Terror (Part 2: Horrorstar Runner)

Let’s keep the Halloween toons a coming with something a little more indie, shall we? Back in the 2000s, the internet was littered with Flash cartoons. You don’t see them nearly as much anymore thanks to the convenience of online video players and youtube, but a decade ago (yes, I just made you feel old) many websites would be entirely constructed using Flash, and the notion of a weekly webcartoon was quite a reality. Sadly, the time and effort to put into a weekly cartoon was an incredibly daunting task for the creators, so not many stuck around all that long. But out of all Flash cartoons that dominated the web at the time, no website was more diligent than Homestar Runner. And because they became known for their ability to release new shorts on a reliable schedule, you began to look forward greatly to certain anual traditions and trends that would pop up. Personally, I always looked forward to October, cause that would mean we’d get some sweet Homestar Halloween lovin’. 

So what made the Homestar Halloween specials such a treat? 

Well, it has to do with my personal favorite part about the holiday: dressing up. There are a grand total of 10 proper Halloween toons (as well as some bonus Halloween shorts some years) and every year the abstract cast of character would get dressed up in some of the most obscure, and sometimes very creative, costumes I’ve seen in animation. The cartoon’s writing was always a good mix of bizarre, quirky characters with a tad of popculture references, but on Halloween the popculture references would just go through the roof! Whether it would be Homestar dressing up as tennis player John McEnroe, or Strong Sad as a member of Devo, or Strong Bad as Cesar Romero’s Joker (complete with makeup over the moustache) seeing these characters in costume was just a blast year after year.

 

What I love is that each special is really different storywise, yet constant in theme, which made for some really creative shorts. Some of my favorites include a horror film spoof Jibblies 2, and Strong Sad’s time to shine in his Poe inspiredDoomy Tales of the Macabre. Another thing the site excelled in was the use of Flash’s interactive features, which allow the viewers a chance to find secrets and directly partake in the cartoon. No toon on the site did this better then the Halloween specials The House That Gave Sucky Treats and Halloween Potion-Me-Jig. And that’s not even touching the bouns shorts the website released over the years for Halloween! This included a rather unsettling marshmallow ad, an adorable interaction between puppet Homestar and a little girl, and the judging of real Homestar related costumes by Strong Bad himself (something that would also turn into an anual tradition on the site.) 

There hasn’t been a new Homestar cartoon in about a year, but their website is still up there, complete with all the Halloween goodies I mentioned and many more. I don’t know if Homestar will ever grace this good internet again, but for a good decade I had the joy of receiving sweet, sweet Flash animated treats every Halloween, and I adored the amount of detail and effort that went into every one of them.

And now a picture of the goblin dressed as a Santaman…

HOORAY!!!

- Moo

Toons of Terror (Part 1: Pumpkin Messiahs)

I adore Halloween. I adore cartoons. So hey! Tis the season! I think it’s time to hunt down and talk about some of my personal favorite spooky toons. So with each day leading up to Hallow’s Eve this week, I’m gonna highlight some classic Halloween toons, as well as some not so classics that need some lovin’ too. This isn’t a ranking of favorite Halloween specials in any way, but just a random list of Halloween goodies. And what a better goodie to start with than good ol’ Charlie Brown’s Halloween special, It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. 

Almost as cherished as the Christmas special that came before it, this Peanuts gang holiday special mainly follows the exploits of Linus as he awaits the arrival of a supernatural gift-giver known as “The Great Pumpkin.” So what’s so special about this special? What’s so great about this Great Pumpkin?

Well like I mentioned, this special mainly follows Linus, who I’ve always been able to relate to more then the self-pitied Charlie Brown. The only thing ol’ blockhead contributes to this piece is receiving rocks instead of candy on Halloween, which only confirms my beliefs that not only are the children jerks to Charlie Brown, but the adults aren’t much better.

No, here we have the blissfully sincere Linus: the only existential philosopher who carries around a blanket (that I know of.) I find it interesting that while his unrelenting believes and faith proved to be the resolution to Charlie Brown’s woes at Christmas time, here at Halloween Linus’ uncompromising beliefs and spirituality is the entire conflict! His belief in The Great Pumpkin is indeed a cleaver metaphor for religious fanaticism and the bigger questions and dilemmas that comes with spirituality. To a kid, Halloween is a night that you want to get the most out of in every way possible. To Linus, these blind promises of a pumpkin Messiah is what he believes is the best use of his time, and even talks Sally into joining his quasi-cult as they wait all night in the cold pumpkin patch while the others enjoy their well earned candy and their Halloween party. 

A crisis of faith isn’t exactly the first thing you’d think of when writing a Halloween special, but that’s what really makes this special stand out. And that’s why I love these Peanut specials in general. It combines some pretty deep questions about humanity with the charm and fun of kids at play. It’s a melancholy special, for sure. But hey! That’s Peanuts for you. 

If you haven’t seen this special since you were a kid, I highly recommend you rewatch it now. You may pick up on a lot of subtle humour that may have passed right by you as a kid, and the charm of these timeless characters are always a joy watch. At the very least you can laugh at Charlie Brown missing that football again… I know that always makes me feel better about myself! 

- Moo