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When it comes to Halloween entertainment there are perennial television special favorites. Like most fans of the holiday, I would rank Charles Schulz’ It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown (1966) and Rankin and Bass’ Mad Monster Party (1967) near the top of the list. A few years ago, however, a friend sent me a slice of heaven in the greatest ever hour of Halloween entertainment : The Paul Lynde Halloween Special (1976). Lynde, for the unenlightened, was a comedic entertainer who got his break in Bye Bye Birdie (1962), which lead to his popular role as the warlock Uncle Arthur on Bewitched (1964), to the The Paul Lynde Show (1972), and most famously to his entrenchment as the “Center Square” in the game show “Hollywood Squares.” Lynde’s Halloween special is so stunningly beautiful, so representative of its era (and what an era the 70s was: the last great decade of American pop culture), that I felt a pronounced nostalgic lump in my throat. This Halloween bash seriously belongs in one of those time capsule thingys that we occasionally shoot into space for Martians to peek at.
Of course, with the banality of reality TV and unimaginative attachment to hyper-realism, some will pooh-pooh my blushing exclamation as misplaced nostalgia. Others may see the show as a bizarre curio from a long gone era (these are the boring and predictable types who think of everything pre-existing their entry into the world as relics from tens of thousands of years ago). On my end, I will utterly dismiss the naysayers as being hopelessly constipated. You know the type. They prefer angst-ridden X-Men to Jack Kirby’s fun lubbin’ Jimmy Olsen who teamed up with Goody Rickles and the Hairys. Stay far, far away from these people. They will only bring you unhappiness. They will turn you gray, incorporate you into their bourgeoisie, status-quo painted white picket fence world, or, heaven forbid, get you a job in a faceless institution. Lions, tigers, and bears, oh my!
Now that we have that settled, you can kick back and immerse yourself in the glories of quintessential 70’s camp! Just think of The Paul Lynde Halloween Special like one those Roselyn Bakery Cakes with six inches of icing atop an inch of cake and indulge in this one-of-a-kind hallucination.
Paul bitchily rummages through the closet because he knows there’s a holiday of some kind around the corner. Nope, it’s not Santa (love the wig). No, it’s not Peter Cottontail (Lynde literally becomes a flaming bunny!). Dagnabbit, Continue reading THE PAUL LYNDE HALLOWEEN SPECIAL (1976)
So Wildmon and his silly cult bedded with the Pharisees and killed Bakshi’s child. This was one of many offenses they perpetrated. I am sure the good Reverend has several trophies on that triple chinned ego of his mantle. With too few exceptions,”Mighty Mouse” was one of the last times in which television has shown any inclination for imagination, creativity and style. In its place we have reality TV and trash TV that dumb down to the lowest common denominator. Thank you, Rev.Wildmon, for your gift. Yes, there might be a few clever television programs among the dreck, some worthwhile dramas, but aesthetically ground-breaking television, especially aesthetically ground-breaking children’s television, damn near died away when Bakshi’s “Mighty Mouse” went the way of Lenny Bernstein’s “Young People’s Concerts.”