Halloween is an irresistible subject for TV producers – it lets them get their characters out of their comfort zone and provides much-needed visual excitement with crazy costumes. In the olden days, you used to have to wait until Halloween week to catch these shows, or shell out cash for DVD box sets, but with the advent of streaming we can play them whenever we want. Here’s our list of the absolute best Halloween episodes ever aired, and where you can stream them right now.
The Hauntening
Bob’s Burgers is one of the smartest animated shows in TV history, taking its basic premise and elevating it into increasingly interesting places year after year. The season 6 Halloween episode revolves around Louise, the prickliest and most self-assured Belcher, and her inability to be scared. When the family goes to yet another haunted house, Louise thinks it’s going to be the same old song, but things quickly go out of control and get legitimately freaky fast. We won’t spoil the final twist, but this is a great episode that leans hard on well-defined characters reacting to totally bizarre situations.
Stream it on: Hulu
Who Got Dee Pregnant?
The ridiculous longevity of It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia comes as a surprise to just about everybody. Somehow, the gang of idiots and creeps at Paddy’s Pub have anchored one of the longest-running comedies on the air today. The Season 6 episode “Who Got Dee Pregnant” doesn’t start on Halloween, but instead visits it with a series of flashbacks as the crew tries to figure out who the father of Dee’s baby is. There are so many great weird gags in this one as it plays both with the absurdity of solving a mystery while everybody is wearing a costume as well as the innate fallibility of memory. The payoff of the ostrich gag is absolutely perfect.
Stream it on Hulu
Halloween
Sure, this season 2 Buffy The Vampire Slayer episode could have been titled more imaginatively, but it’s a great stand-alone episode that gave us insight into the show’s cast and introduced a new villain. When Giles’ old running buddy Ethan Rayne opens a costume shop in Sunnyvale, it’s all part of a ritual that transforms everybody wearing one into their disguise – so Buffy becomes a helpless 18th century bimbo, Xander a gun-toting soldier, and Willow an intangible ghost. Everything works out in the end but we got an interesting inversion of the series’ traditional power dynamics and a bunch of groundwork laid for the future. It’s a solid gimmick that works very well as the show found its footing.
Stream it on: Hulu
Trick Or Treat
Halloween can bring out the worst in people, and when you’re a walking ball of neuroses like Larry David, that worst is pretty bad. The absolutely brilliant Curb Your Enthusiasm second season episode “Trick or Treat” sees Larry open the door to a pair of 13 year old girls on Halloween night not wearing costumes. Naturally, he refuses to give them candy despite their protests, and this naturally results in the “trick” portion of the holiday coming into play with the girls spray-painting “Bald Asshole” on his door. The episode’s other plots, about the invention of the Cobb salad and anti-semitism, are also great, but Larry’s Halloween apoplexy is irresistible.
Stream it on: Amazon Prime
Pinkeye
South Park has aired a number of all-time great Halloween episodes, but we have to go all the way back to the first season to find our favorites. In “Pinkeye,” Kenny is killed once again, but instead of returning as good as new next week he is re-animated as a flesh-hungry zombie. After the epidemic of the undead is misdiagnosed as pinkeye, chaos breaks out and a gory chainsaw massacre of many of the town’s inhabitants results. It’s fun to go back and watch these early episodes to see how much of the show’s humor was fully formed right out of the gate, and this one still holds up.
Stream it on: Hulu
Rock Devil Rock
80s kids have a soft spot for C.H.I.P.S, the goofy drama that starred Erik Estrada and Larry Wilcox as a pair of California motorcycle cops who solved all sorts of crimes. The show’s sixth and final season saw it going off the rails in numerous amusing ways, and brought us one of the all-time great Halloween episodes with “Rock Devil Rock.” Starring Donny Most from Happy Days as an Alice Cooper-esque goth rocker named “Moloch” who is convinced he’s under a curse, Ponch and Hot Dog (Jon’s last-season replacement) must protect him on Halloween. Extra bonus points for a guest spot by Elvira!
Stream it on: Amazon Prime
Halloween III
Brooklyn Nine-Nine has quietly established itself as one of the most consistently funny shows on television, and their annual Halloween episodes give the show a chance to boost the surreal factor a little bit. Each year the precinct sees the Halloween Heist, where officers attempt to swipe an object to prove that they are the Ultimate Detective. Our favorite came in the third season, as Peralta and Holt go face-to-face for the first time to break the tie for “amazing detective/genius.” Any one of the Halloween Heists could have made this list, but the third one perfectly combines ridiculous plot contrivances, great character work, and an extremely satisfying ending.
Stream it on: Hulu
Epidemiology
At its best, Community was simply untouchable. Few sitcoms packed as much into each episode, with rapid-fire gags melding with high-concept plotlines to create something that just got better the more you watched. Season 2’s Halloween episode, “Epidemiology,” has a dynamite premise: after Dean Pelton serves tainted taco meat that he bought at an Army surplus store, it turns into a zombie apocalypse that can only be averted with air conditioning. This one is a riot from start to finish, with tons of great character material and subplots including Troy and Abed’s brilliant Aliens costumes.
Stream it on: Hulu
Boo!
Roseanne had a bunch of classic Halloween episodes, but our favorite is probably the first one. When Dan and Roseanne get competitive to see who can bring the scares hardest, things naturally escalate into some pretty hilarious moments. The Conners also set up a haunted house for neighborhood children, including the iconic “Tunnel of Terror.” This is probably the most grounded Halloween episode on this list, which is the reason that America fell in love with Roseanne in the first place. If you really want a shock, compare it with the utterly bizarre Season 9 episode that features Arianna Huffington as a witch.
Stream it on: Amazon Prime
Halloween (1 & 2)
Ryan Murphy’s American Horror Story might have a hard time keeping momentum – and making sense – through each season, but the high points are always very worth watching. The first season, “Murder House,” boasted a two-part Halloween episode that not only delivered the hardcore scares but also served as a pivot for the overarching narrative. When the Harmon family are visited by the ghosts of the gay couple that owned their house, they mistake them for interior decorators. Halloween is the one night of the year when the spirits trapped there can leave into the real world, and they take great advantage of it.
Stream it on: Netflix
Treehouse Of Horror V
You know we had to make room for the series that has done more Halloween episodes than any other. Since 1990, every single Simpsons season has contained a Treehouse of Horror episode, presenting short tales of the macabre starring your Springfield favorites and inspired by those good and gruesome EC Comics classics. Picking just one was a hell of a job, but eventually we settled on the installment that gave us Principal Skinner eating kids, Homer going nuts, and producer David Mirkin putting in more gore to piss off the censors. It manages to be both hilarious and legitimately disturbing at the same time.
Stream it on: FXX
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