Top 10 Retro Halloween Specials You Can Watch on YouTube!

As October draws to a close, we started reminiscing about all of the Halloween specials from the past. So many of them, especially those from the 1970s and 1980s, never got a VHS, DVD, or digital release. However, several “lost” pieces of Halloween-themed entertainment have popped up on YouTube.

Let’s count down (in no particular order) the Top 10 retro Halloween specials you can watch on YouTube!

#10 – Disney’s Halloween Treat

Walt’s company refuses to re-release Disney’s Halloween Treat. The special was a clip show that cobbled a vintage Disney cartoons and movies collection. A deep-voiced pumpkin puppet hosted each segment.

At the time, this VHS tape was the only access many of us had to specific pieces of animation. In the 1980s, Disney had not released films like Fantasia on home video. As a massive fan of the Night on Bald Mountain segment, this was my only way to watch it.

#9 – Disney’s Halloween Hall of Fame

Comedian Jonathan Winters also took his turn as a sentient pumpkin hosting a Disney clip show. The Halloween Hall O’ Fame debuted in 1977

#8 – DTV Monster Hits

There was a period in the 1980s when Disney loved putting licensed music over their older cartoons and films. The DTV series had several variants, usually involving a specific type of music, from Oldies to rock to Halloween-themed tunes.

The Magic Mirror hosted DTV Monster Hits from Snow White. In this version, the spirit in the mirror was played by disgraced actor Jeffrey Jones. I debated including this iteration of DTV because of Jones’s crimes, but the DTV Monster Hits YouTube Channel did a fantastic job of cleaning up and rebuilding the special, so I included it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iTYmpwsN4g

#7 – Any Magic Mirror Segment with Hans Conried!

This is a bit of a cheat, but Hans Conried is one of my favorite voice actors from Disney’s past. His Captain Hook is still the perfect representation of the one-handed sea dog. So, I’d always tape it when he shows up in The Magical World of Disney.

On multiple occasions, Conried would play the Slave in the Magic Mirror, introducing various clips. My favorite one, which happens to be one of the very few I’ve been able to track down in digital form, is when he told us all about the importance villains play in storytelling. Unfortunately, the video I found is incomplete, but it does give us just enough to satisfy that nostalgia itch.

#6 – Garfield’s Halloween Adventure

I hate Garfield. I dislike Nermal even more, but he’s not in this special. Written by Jim Davis and directed by A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving’s Phil Roman, Garfield’s Halloween Adventure is inoffensive enough if you can stomach the fat feline.

What makes this unique and memorable is the odd switch in animation quality and direction during the latter half of the 24-minute cartoon. That’s what I remember most from my childhood. It went from being your average Garfield thing to something enjoyable 16 minutes in.

#5 – Halloween is Grinch Night

If you didn’t get enough of Han Conried with the DTV special, how about a special where Captain Hook plays Dr. Seuss’s Grinch? While it may not be of the same quality as the Chuck Jones Christmas special, the 1977 ABC film Halloween Is Grinch Night delivered a lot of trippy and unsettling horrors featuring the Seuss aesthetic.

#4 – Fat Albert Halloween Special

You know what we’re missing? A Filmation special! We’ve got Fat Albert to help out with that one!

#3 – The Miss Switch Specials

On the rarer side, we have a couple of TV specials that only aired a couple of times before fading into our subconscious. One of these appeared on ABC’s Weekend Specials in the early 1980s: The Trouble with Miss Switch and its follow-up, Miss Switch to the Rescue.

Based on children’s books, the specials were produced by Ruby-Spears Productions, comprised of Hanna-Barbera alumni. Although they’re not great, the Miss Switch specials do have that HB-like aesthetic that is at the same time cheap but oddly pleasant.

https://youtu.be/Ey3IQcRHQDs?si=IrYJjiuA5k7Z9hTB

#2 – Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy in the Pumpkin Who Couldn’t Smile

Initially, I had wanted to add Richard Williams’s Raggedy Anne & Andy to this list. That animated film was terrific and filled with its fair share of nightmare fuel. However, it is not specifically Halloween-themed.

In its place, we have the Chuck Jones animated unique Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy in the Pumpkin Who Couldn’t Smile. It starred legendary voice actors Daws Butler and June Foray as the ragdoll siblings.

Fans of Jones’s style and humor will find plenty to like here, along with a heartwarming story.

#1 – Witch’s Night Out

The final spot is dedicated to a cartoon I only saw once, and it took decades to track down a DVD copy. Witch’s Night Out premiered in 1978 and could occasionally show up randomly during Halloween in the ’80s on the Disney Channel.

The story involves a bored Witch, voiced by Gilda Radner, who uses her magic to enhance the Halloween festivities of a straight-laced little town. The art style and animation are … attractive.

https://youtu.be/eNHXpbSiWB8?si=03KbDBGJ05xT5b8Y

[Source: YouTube]