MY FAVORITE EPISODES part ten

It's been nearly two years since we updated this series, but holidays usually seem like the best excuse to dust it off -- particularly now that we're in the midst of a literal boob tube binge. And I'm sure I've said it before many times in many ways but when a TV show celebrates the same time of year that I'm currently celebrating it creates a sorta cerebral role-play that makes me feel the season in in my heart and my pants; there's magically no more walls between my harsh reality and TV Land. And depending on the age of the program, they can often times transport me back to my own seasons past; fake cobwebs and plastic fangs feel generic on their own, but when they're on Home Improvement they have much more context. 

- Paul 

ALF

"Some Enchanted Evening" (season 2)

Much to the dismay of Willie and Kate, ALF throws a Halloween party in the Tanner home, which he himself attends in the guise of... himself (but with a zipper down his front to give the impression of an "ALF" costume). The point of the party was so Willie could get in good with his boss to secure a promotion at work, but really it's because ALF was desperate to experience Halloween in any possible capacity (he was denied trick-or-treating with Brian). It's prophetic that ALF's likeness actually did become a very popular Halloween costume throughout this era. 

Hey Dude

"Ghost Stories" (season 2)

During a dark and stormy night on the Bar None Ranch, the gang is confined to the boys' bunk, playing Pictionary - which soon turns to ghost stories. Ted legitimately freaks everyone out with a story about his great grandfather, visually aided by some hokey props. The remainder of the episode is everyone trying to get back at Ted with attempts to scare him as much as he did them. Nothing about this bright and sunny series ever hints at anything in the neighborhood of Halloween, but no one ever said that all macabre material is chained to a holiday. 

Night Court

"Come Back to the Five and Dime, Stephen King, Stephen King" (season 7)

Harry finds a 50 year old case file for a defendant who dropped dead during his own trial. This starts up angry poltergeist-type activity and everyone assumes they need to commence with the trial for the angry ghost. I like Halloween episodes (and also Christmas episodes) where actual supernatural stuff is part of the plot (even if it ends up being a misunderstanding). Night Court had a ton of Halloween episodes and they were always great - specifically because of Harry's infectious enthusiasm for the festivities. 

Friends

"The One With the Halloween Party" (season 8)

Monica and Chandler throw a Halloween party in the apartment -- cue funny costumes. "Mistaken identity" is a familiar trope with a setup like this, but this one is more layered as Phoebe's twin sister's fiancé (Sean Penn) mistakes her for Ursula (the crossover character that Lisa Kudrow played on Mad About You). Get all that? Obviously a show like this wasn't gonna lean into the anything spooky but at least there's a trick-or-treating subplot (which involves Rachel writing checks to kids). 

Hunter

"City of Passion" (season 4)

This epic 3 part(!) episode plays like an Altmanesque Crime Thriller with a hundred speaking parts in several intricate plot threads that all meet up eventually. In perhaps the most integral storyline we learn of a secret society of lawyers and judges and powerful people who wear masks and robes and sacrifice prostitutes to Satan. So, there's that. But during the investigation Hunter visits an occult store owned by Carel Struycken (of Twin Peaks and Addams Family fame) and I swear to you I wish we coulda spent all three episodes in this establishment; it's like Mario's Magic Shop from Pee Wee's Big Adventure combined with The Magic Mansion from Are You Afraid of the Dark? combined with some abstract third element that makes it cooler than all the others. Maybe it's because Lurch works there(?). 

MY FAVORITE EPISODES part nine

After exhausting all of your Christmas movies year after year, you should take a look at your favorite television shows' Holiday Episodes. Often they will stand out above the rest, will give you that same warm and fuzzy feeling you're seeking, ugly cry, or piss your pants laugh. These ones move me in all directions, more than others, and I revisit them regularly. 

- Babes

The Wonder Years

"Christmas" (season 2)

Money doesn't grow on trees. Little Kevin Arnold's Dad was a miser. Christmas for most people is a time to go in debt. To overflow your living room with an abundance of meaningless crap and litter the Earth with your wrapping waste. The Arnold's wanted a color TV, and in 1968, that was be-all end-all. The Fraggle Stick Car, Turbo Man, and Tickle Me Elmo all in one. But the cheap man stayed cheap. That was just his way. As the family breaks away from each other, hateful of his decision, we are blessed with Joni Mitchell, as Kevin thinks about holding onto what matters most, as he opens his gift from his beloved Winnie Cooper. He reflects on the loss of her brother and all at once, he realizes, that the meaning of it all isn't in the expensive present, but being together. Time is precious, and some of us have less of it than others, so hold your dears a little harder.

The Bear

"Fishes" (season 2)

Mom, are you ok? On occasion, especially lately, Television surpasses film, in terms of quality, entertainment, and performance. And this particular episode leaves me breathless. The entire series is a heart attack. Each and every one of its characters is on the verge of a major breakdown, much like we all are, but clings on by a thread. Christmas often brings a lot of emotions bubbling to the top, and for the Berzatto family, this is an annual holiday tradition. Carmy's mother, played by Jaime Lee Curtis in arguably her best role, has her place in her kitchen, with a glass of hooch in hand, a cigarette dangling from her mouth, and at least ten dishes cooking at once. To add to the tension is the constant buzzing from her egg timer, that at some point has lost all meaning to its job, but is more of a continuous reminder that everything currently sucks very bad. The conflict between this family is palpable and makes me sweat. All of the things that you dare not say are said, and more so, the things you shan't do are very much done, with a climax that is more Oscar-worthy than what she earned it for last year. Watch the show, but for god sakes, save this one for Yule. 

Boy Meets World

"A Very Topanga Christmas" (season 5)

 I like you Eric, but I love this Tree. Speaking of family traditions, everyone has theirs. Ours consist of watching a new Jess Franco sex movie every Christmas Eve and waking up BEFORE the sun, to see what the good old fat man brought us. The Matthews loved their aluminum tree, nog, and listening to A Christmas Carol being read to them by Feeny. But they are hosting Topanga this year, and the way that they do things is totally different than the way that she does things. And so, Cory learns, that for the rest of his life, he will wake up at 3am, and have to talk to her. And he can't have syrup on his Christmas eve morning pancakes. They need snow. Compromise is essential to marriage. And regardless to the fact that these two are portraying dating teens, they are forever intertwined. The lesson they learn is nothing short of a Christmas miracle. We share what we have inherited from our own heritage, pick and choose what we want to carry on, and start new rituals. It's all a part of what makes it all so beautiful.

Curb Your Enthusiasm

"Mary, Joseph, and Larry" (season 3)

The Son of God is not an animal, Larry. Everything continually goes wrong for poor Larry David. Some will argue that it's karma because he's a fucking asshole. He offends his housekeeper and under tips her, he gets caught lying to Susie and gets Jeff busted, and he eats the baby Jesus cookie. And to make matters worse, he gawks at Mary in the live nativity scene in the manger, probing a fight with Joseph. But where would a Holiday Special be if it didn't have the blissful resolution. And so, everything comes out in the end.

Degrassi Junior High

"Season's Greetings" (season 3)

Merry Christmas, broom head. Few things can be described as wholesome without being sacarine. And these kids looked like the real ones we went to school with in the 80s, and their issues mirrored the same problems we had, like cheating on homework, zits, sneaking porn home, not letting your baby daddy see your kid. The small stuff. And for these children, their holiday is compromised by a lesson in tolerance. A friend is moved to the upper class, and their present is suspiciously expensive. Can he accept his gift, knowing that his own is inferior in return? Is he angry that his friend has more than he does? Of course not. We all learn that the friendship is what's most important, and obviously not the stuff. A thoughtful approach to adolescent morals.

MY FAVORITE EPISODES part eight

Throughout the 90s, the "Halloween Episode" was left largely (though not entirely) to Children's Programming. And rightly so; apart from being a kids' holiday, this was the decade when television predictably (and maybe shrewdly) shifted the focus group that much more toward the youth, evidenced by MTV, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, TGIF, and everything else that was more popular than everything else. Gone were the dry "costume balls" of Adult Dramas - now we could focus on legit Halloween parties and ghost stories and trick or treating as a narrative thread. (For the most part anyway.)

- Paul

Fraiser

"Halloween" (season 5)

Sure there were still grownup shows depicting their pompous polite versions of Halloween often utilizing the "silly costume" or "mistaken identity" or "anonymous romance" banalities, but that's almost kinda why Frasier works in general as it satirizes the stuffiness - as exemplified in the over-the-top hijinks you find in this episode or any other well-crafted sitcom. There's clearly nothing spooky going on here, but a more seasoned intellect has the capacity to recognize and appreciate ancillary modes of observance in any given season. (I hope you read that in a Frasier Crane voice.) 

Clarissa Explains It All

"Haunted House" (season 1)

Clarissa's overbearing Aunt Mafada comes to stay with the Darlings for a period of time, and Clarissa tries to scare her off with a fake haunting and a staged seance to contact Mafada's late husband Owen. Not directly related to Halloween, but the communicating with the dead prank is a hallmark of sitcom shenanigans and allows the lighting department and foley artist to break out of their respective routines and get creative. 

Blossom

"All Hallow's Eve" (season 3)

Another Halloween TV trope is the guy in drag sight gag mostly to set up the punchline of watching them get hit on by some aggressive slob who's "never seen a woman as beautiful" as them. Delightful! Blossom's brother, father, and grandfather dress as Wilson Phillips and go off on their own subplot to endure said cliché while Blossom and Six stay home to watch Halloween, Friday the 13th, and Night of the Living Dead during a conspicuously-timed thunderstorm. Meanwhile Joey is locked out of the house and trying to get back in, inadvertently scaring the girls into thinking he's some typical slasher. This thread is what a Halloween episode should be. 

Mr. Show with Bob and David

"Eat Rotten Fruit From a Shitty Tree" (season 4)

It's a sketch show so it's more of a Halloween segment, and even that's a stretch. The bit is presented as a 90s infotainment exposé exploring the origins of midcentury novelty songs about "Monster Parties" like "Halloween Shindig" and "Dracula's Pajama Party" during which there was plasma pizza, a blood balloon race, bobbing for brains, etc. The joke is that all the songs were penned by a burnt out singer/songwriter/necrophiliac claiming all the lyrics were based on personal experience. Not their strongest concept but it fits in with this list. 

Beavis and Butt-head

"Bungholio: Lord of the Harvest" (season 6)

They're always tryna get chicks which is crudely endearing, but they're also always tryna get food which is woefully troubling and raises that rare question: What's their deal? Where are their guardians? Anyway once they learn the mechanics of trick or treating they venture off in search of free candy, consistently turned away because of their age. That is until gullible old Anderson inattentively allows Beavis to gorge on his handouts, thus unleashing The Great Cornholio into the night to reign terror on children and parents, culminating into the best Halloween Episode ending of all time. 

MY FAVORITE EPISODES part seven

Was television better 30 years ago? Short answer: "yes" with an "if." Long answer: "no" with a "but." I saw some of the worst TV of my lifetime come out of 1993: Power Rangers, The Sinbad Show, Problem Child, The Chevy Chase Show, and a whole buncha wrestling programs all premiered that year, not to mention the crap that was already into later seasons. But really isn't this the case for every year before & since? So let's not get into any "Make TV Great Again" guff and focus our attention on the good and the beautiful. Here are 5 great episodes of television that debuted in 1993. 

- Paul

Roseanne

"Crime and Punishment" (season 5)

This series was pretty competent in balancing comedy and drama (until the scales tipped in the later seasons and it sank into sorrow). This episode exemplified their strength in pace changes: when it's discovered that Jackie's boyfriend has been physically abusing her, Dan quietly takes matters into his own hands in some off-camera retribution. It's needlessly heavy for a sitcom, but also becomes incidentally thrilling and inspiring for a sitcom. The tag is played for laughs when DJ's teacher spots Dan in the back of a cop car, but the real takeaway is another example (again, minus the last two seasons) of Dan Connor as the greatest TV Dad Of All Time. 

Animaniacs

"Yakko's World/Cookies For Einstein/Win Big" (season 1)

Only two episodes into the series and I already couldn't believe how much more clever and funny it was than nearly all other cartoons up to that point. As far as I know this included the first ever Pinky and The Brain segment which was an exhilarating hint as to how many original characters and ideas they packed into this series. But the real showstopper remains to be "Yakko's World" - a rhyming song that names every country in the world to the tune of the "Mexican Hat Dance." Even at 10 years old I was able to recognize the educational value of this while also being of the mind that "holy shit, this is fucking wild!" DuckTales never brought me to that place. 

The Adventures of Pete & Pete

"King of the Road" (season 1)

Their very first long-form episode and they already had mastered their tone. The Wrigleys embark on a road trip to The Hoover Dam, and en route they encounter a better, more "perfect" family that ignites a competition as to who can reach their destination in the fastest and most wholesome manner. Sounds silly on paper, but as usual it's played with an intensity and surrealism that lifts it out of straightforward sitcom (or children's programming) and into shameless absurdism. Y'know, for kids. 

Saturday Night Live

Alec Baldwin/Paul McCartney (season 18)

I was watching it pretty regularly by this point; it felt more like an event when I was a kid, but that was true of this one especially. I was not yet a Beatlemaniac but I felt the weight of Paul's presence here, especially as he popped up in several sketches and you could feel the excitement of the cast and audience. And then of course leave it to Farley to disarm the shock & awe of being in the presence of a "living legend" as he asks Macca the tough questions. 

Beakman's World

"Microscopes, Beakmania, & Healing" (season 1)

It seems silly to pick a favorite from a series that was so consistently consistent: each episode featured the same cast and the same setup, and each time I walked away with more knowledge about how the world works and I've hung onto it throughout this lengthy lifetime. But it was always presented with an extra sharp wit that still hits me from just the right angle; there's a segment here about healing wounds, and Beakman rhetorically states that when our skin breaks, something "really neat starts to happen..." at which point cohost Josie (her voice dubbed with a sinister male voice for this singular line) replies "You bleed." I'm sorry but that gag gets me every time - I'm a sucker for funny voices. 

MY FAVORITE EPISODES part six

Get ready for a very merry night of television that will prove once and for all that seeing is believing.

A "Halloween Episode" was not nearly as commonplace as a "Christmas Episode" or "Holiday Event" - usually prefixed with "A Very Special blah blah blah." The message was typically the same: family, giving, a weather crisis, that kindly old man maybe actually was Santa Claus. And it was not uncommon to borrow the entire premise of A Christmas Carol and/or It's a Wonderful Life for an entire 22 minutes. But all of this predictability and parody translated into a familiarity and warmth as even your TV heroes were doing and feeling and celebrating exactly as you were: "Hey, how do they know it's Christmas?!" And then even the commercials were saturated in the season - it all created this inescapable circus of joy that didn't invite any specific cynicism or fatigue. Not as a child, not now.

So, like anything related to a holiday or specific time of year, standalone episodes can become tradition through the magic of physical media and streaming. And as far as putting you in the mood, it works - nearly as well as music. It's a bottomless playlist, but these 5 will leave you with a satisfying variety. 

- Paul

Dragnet

"The Christmas Story" (season 2)

The Baby Jesus has been stolen from the church nativity and Joe & Bill put aside all the hippies and homicides in L.A. to track down the newborn King of Kings. Everyone else, from their superiors to the people they question, suggest they move onto more pressing criminal activity, to which Friday responds in peak dryness, "It's the principle." SPOILER: it was all an innocent misunderstanding, which leaves a little boy asking, "Is the devil going to send me to hell?" In a moment, the results of that trial. 

All in the Family

"California, Here We Are (Parts 1 & 2)" (season 9)

In the superfluous (and terrible) final season lies one of my favorite episodes of the series. Archie and Edith travel to California to spend Christmas with Mike, Gloria, and Joey - the only time we see them this season (and logically the last time on the show). It's a breath of fresh air to have the entire cast together one last time, but fan service aside, they take full advantage of the original dynamic in a two-parter that contains some of the funniest and saddest bits of their whole run. 

Perfect Strangers

"A Christmas Story" (season 2)

Bad weather has prevented Larry and Balki from traveling to Larry's childhood home in Wisconsin, thus denying him the traditions and nostalgia he requires to celebrate the Holiday properly. It's an entirely otherwise rational thing to crave on Christmas (to me anyway) but in typical Perfect Strangers fashion, we're gifted with an existential awakening that gives us a more simplistic, Balki-like outlook on life. 

Hey Vern, It's Ernest!

"Hey Vern, It's Holidays" (season 1)

Leave it to the man who literally saved Christmas that same year to know a little something about yuletide pride, knowwutimean? Except the premise here is that Ernest attempts to celebrate an entire year's worth of holidays in a single day (including the Indy 500 and something called "Meat Week"). So this installment is a bit of a Swiss Army Knife; you need something to watch next Flag Day, Ernest is your man. 

Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!

"Man Milk" (season 5)

A decidedly provocative and organized half hour of television featuring Ben Hur, Steve Brule, and the breakout debut of Tayne. More pertinently, our two handsome boys have began lactating and they have kindly (though foolishly) decided to bottle their unpasteurized man milk and gift it to their friends for the holidays, resulting in a creamy white orgy of dairy death. Great job!

MY FAVORITE EPISODES part five

Good evening, and welcome to a very special edition of MY FAVORITE EPISODES. Tonight we'll be going back to October 30, 1991 to revisit the 7th episode of the 4th season of Unsolved Mysteries - an intense hour of television, but notably one of the most pivotal moments of my entire life. Join me and perhaps you may be able to solve a mystery. Or perhaps you may encounter one that simply cannot be explained.

I hope the italics helped you to hear that in Robert Stack's voice.

It's fun to reminisce on old TV and bask in the enduring sentimentality of the program blocks that built my castle. But this is bigger and badder than some arbitrary Brady Bunch or Beakman's World, because this brought on a chain reaction following my first (and only) viewing that a more dramatic person could refer to as "past trauma." 

Around this time, both Unsolved Mysteries and Rescue 911 were huge -- in general popularity, but more specifically with me. They were pretty similar in tone and subject matter (and coincidentally hosted by Airplane! alumni) and I'd certainly not seen much like them before; I suppose they were kinda "Docuseries" or "Reality TV," but personally, the concept of "based on true events" always hit me in profound ways. Both series played out like mid-career Scorsese flicks, with voiceover testimony describing the onscreen action - and done with nearly the same amount of finesse. And while 911's standout achievement was its phenomenal stunt work (some of the best I've ever seen to this day actually) the reenactments on Unsolved Mysteries were largely focused on detail and mood (understandably). Both shows were terrifying in cautionary ways ("don't play with fire" vs. "don't talk to strangers") but the cerebral horror of UM is what kept me up nights. So for several years, I apprehensively allowed it to earn my trust, and the night before Halloween in 1991 when I was 8 years old, it took advantage of that trust.

Episode 7 of Season 4 told us of a missing person, a wanted thief, and some psychic phenomena (all par for the course). But I don't really remember any of those, because the episode kicks off with a segment called "St. James' Ghost," and nothing in my life after that felt interesting or relevant. I don't particularly recall any ghost-related "mysteries" up until this episode - and the thorough effect it had on me further confirms that. 

The St. James Hotel in Cimarron, New Mexico was built in 1880 and accumulated a history of a kinda Wild West violence involving gunslingers and gamblers and lawmen and loose women. It was bought again and refurbished in 1985, and the new owners and staff immediately and consistently began "having experiences" involving sounds, voices, moving objects, electrical curiosities, and actual apparitions. 

I'd never heard grownups confess with such conviction and legitimate fear that they'd believed in, interacted with, and were afraid of ghosts. This show had been about real people, real crimes and tragedies - and now it was telling me real ghosts; the thing from movies that I was assured was a product of fiction. There was always a chance that Freddy would suck me into the bed and turn me into a geyser of Ocean Spray, but intellectually I knew that wasn't possible. I had questions: what are ghosts? What do they do? How do I deal with this? And within a matter of minutes, this abstract psychological awakening brought on by this show presented a very explicit and vivid image that left a prominent scar. 

Although "scar" would indicate healing - really it's still an infected open wound. A janitor at the hotel testifies on camera to seeing a deformed child in the empty barroom early one morning. And the reveal in the reenactment became one of those things - a face on the Mount Rushmore of my own personal kindertrauma. And while it wasn't much more than a crude mixture of colored lights and stage makeup, the clout of the context crushed one of the remaining corners of my childhood innocence. The Boogeyman was real, and I'd found him. 

As I stated, the remaining segments in the episode aren't anywhere in my memory - not because the power of the St. James story was so distracting, but because the rest of the evening evolved into a family discussion immediately following the trauma that occurred. This is the part I've already told you about some time ago (which you can/need to read here), but it was during this, my most vulnerable existential crisis I'd yet to experience, that my closest loved ones chose that moment to assure me that Unsolved Mysteries was not lying; that there actually was such a thing as ghosts. They regaled me with amazing stories of their own experiences with the paranormal - all of which occurred in the apartment that we lived in until I was 3 years old. 

Naturally their vivid descriptions and the graphic images from the TV were inseparable in my mind, and I was shackled with an uneasiness that never entirely lifted over any course of time. I was led to believe that this is what ghosts looked like, and I'd apparently spent a portion of my life living in close proximity to these monsters - during my most defenseless years, no less. I couldn't help but wonder if my soul had been compromised at some point by these unseen forces that occupied my living space. My psyche may've been molested, or possessed, or replaced by the boy in the bar of the St. James Hotel in a splash of neon lights and ectoplasmic residue. How could I ever sleep again? 

The series is streaming just about everywhere right now, so if you or someone you know Wants To Believe (or at least get a visual sense of the most menacing campfire tale I've ever been told) then seek out my favorite episode... of Unsolved Mysteries. (cue music)

- Paul

MY FAVORITE EPISODES part four

Winter presses on. It's been going for like 8 months now, and at times it's been merciless. The novelty of drinking J&B and playing computer chess like R.J. MacReady wears off after the first few snowstorms, and the Groundhog Day quotes ran dry long ago. Fortunately, there's television! And I don't mean binging the new baloney - where do you think you are? This is more of the episodes we've loved since forever, and the theme of this chapter is: funny. Most if not all of these are my favorite eps from these particular series, but more than that, they deliver the yuks at a superior rate. And we could all use a good laugh.

- Paul

The Dick Van Dyke Show

"One Hundred Terrible Hours" (season 4)

Immediately prior to writing for The Alan Brady Show, Rob was a disc jockey for WOFF Radio - during which he once performed an on-air stunt where he stayed awake for 100 hours. What transpires is a collaborative miracle of writing and performance as we get the most creative interpretation of mounting sleep depravation that's ever been broadcast. A lot of series have used various forms of intoxication as an excuse for some hijinks and that can usually get kinda predictable, but this concept allows some surprises - most notably a broad spectrum of childlike silliness and soul-crushing melancholy that is all equally and stupendously hilarious. 

Mad About You

"The Billionaire" (season 1)

I thought this show was consistently amusing for the bulk of its run, but it reached what I consider to be a pinnacle of comedic genius in this very early episode. Like most popular sitcoms, it had its parade of guest stars, but there's never been more inspired casting (or a more mad experiment) than pairing Jerry Lewis with Steven Wright: two giants with polar opposite comedic styles. In the context of the episode, they only share one brief interaction, and it's a catch-your-breath competition between an unstoppable force and an immovable object. This is where I typically suggest that they shoulda had their own series, but frankly we didn't deserve that and still don't. 

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

"Cowabunga Shredhead" (season 3)

80s Action 'toons were intensely boring to me -- unless they were funny. And few were funnier than the world's most fearsome fighting team and their hapless assailants - particularly the evil Shredder, who's taken a laser blast to the head which causes him to think he's Michelangelo. (This is the kinda storytelling that speaks to me.) It's amazing: it's animated, yet Shredder's "performance" as a Ninja Turtle is way over the top - to the point of parody, which is a hysterical revelation this early in its cultural impact. 

Seinfeld

"The Postponement" (season 7)

Soup Nazis and puffy shirts aside, the funny bone of this show is the four characters and their respective existential struggles - which are maybe best-defined in this singular episode. To be even more thorough, the real foundation is the Jerry/George relationship, which is established here in the most well-written, well-acted scene in the series as George presents his detailed desperation to Jerry, who placates him with his typically condescending finesse. 

M*A*S*H

"Adam's Ribs" (season 3)

Hawkeye reaches a boiling point with the options from the mess hall and embarks on a mission to have ribs flown in from the States. Whatever age I first saw this, I'd never had ribs or really even knew what they were in terms of consumption, but I knew I needed them. And after however many decades, I still approach most situations with the protest of "We Want Something Else!"

MY FAVORITE EPISODES part three

We should just make this a Halloween series... It's been roughly a year since the previous installment when Jess listed her favorite spooky shows, and I've been consumed with jealousy ever since. So now, here we are.

There's been no shortage of "Horror series" over the decades, but I always found it more exciting when the mainstream shows decided to get weird for a minute. Plenty of series were bold enough to have at least one "Halloween episode" (Roseanne certainly comes to mind), but once in a while, the laughter and love could get scary for no discernible reason other than the writers wanted to get creative. I liked when that happened, and so you're gonna hear about it.

- Paul

Saved by the Bell

"Close Encounters of the Nerd Kind" (season 2)

Maybe the most overplayed episode of the series - but as a fan I didn't care. Actually, I was delighted; the entire premise (Screech is mistaken for an extraterrestrial by a U.S. government official) is rooted in makeup effects and rubber masks, and I was (and still am) all about that. And as much as I love that expensive-looking alien mask, I still wanna get my hands on one of those cheapo Kmart Dustin Diamond disguises.

Punky Brewster

"The Perils of Punky (Parts 1 & 2)" (season 2)

If you watched the series, you still remember what an assault this episode was on your expectations; anyone who saw it never forgot it. Punky gets separated from the group in a haunted cave, and they all periodically return to her in freakish, grotesque styles of their normal selves. It's got poltergeists, possession, body horror, and everything else kids love. The series already had a dark, melancholy tone, so when they hurled this at us, it demanded that we take it seriously. 

The Ren & Stimpy Show

"Haunted House" (season 2)

Their drifter lifestyle finds the dog & cat team at a spooky old house, and they verbally agree that it seems like a good place "to kill twelve minutes." The bulk of the short is from the point of view of a mild-mannered (though arrogant) ghost who prides himself in his scare tactics. Of course, Ren & Stimpy are too dumb (or smart?) to fall for the traditional (and some wildly untraditional) haunted house tropes; my favorite (in a scene inexplicably cut from the DVD release) being a sequence in which the Bloody Head Fairy flies in to collect its aptly-named bounty and leaves to U.S. dimes in Ren's ear (resultng in the only time in the episode when either title character displays true terror).

Married... With Children

"Damn Bundys" (season 11)

This is a good time to point out that this particular list is certainly not my favorite episodes from each of these respective series, but rather notable moments of television that fit in with this time of year. Case in point: this final season farce that finds the Bundys and the D'Arcys in Hell after Al makes a deal with the devil (Robert Englund) was only slightly better than the quality of the content they were squeezing out of this last year of the show. All that aside, even though this aired in 1997, watching Al Bundy and Freddy Krueger try to out-ham each other is crossing the streams of the 1980s in a not bad way.

The Critic

"Miserable" (season 1)

The series was about making fun of movies - that's why it spoke to me, it came out at just the right time. Typically most episodes would have an original story with satirical references to films here & there, but this particular episode is almost entirely a parody of Misery (specifically the movie version). So much so that I needn't describe the premise - you already know it. But like its creative parents (The Simpsons) the inventiveness and the humor came through in the gags more than the premise - like funny newspaper headlines or a well-timed fart joke.