OUR GANG - "Spooky Hooky" (1936)

 

This Wednesday's Countdown To Halloween featurette is the 1936 short by Hal Roach featuring Our Gang in something called "Spooky Hooky."

 

This spooky shot of the old schoolhouse is a good place to start, but before I do, does anybody but myself ever question what is wrong with the English language? Why are words like spooky and hooky which look exactly the same pronounced differently? Another couple examples are good and food, or how about safe and cafe? Then on the other hand, you have words that look completely different and are pronounced the same way like sweet and suite, or what and butt, or liar and choir, I mean who came up with stuff anyway? Why do we need three ways to say two, or too, or to??? Inquiring minds want to know!

 

While you ponder that, the Our Gang kids are pondering how to get out of school for the day so they can sneak off to the circus which just came to town.

They come up with this brilliant idea. At the end of the day, leave the teacher a note that says they are all sick, which will explain why they are all not at school the next day.

The one day that Tabonga and I ditched high school together we got caught, because we were such close friends, they thought it was suspicious that we were both sick on the same day, and called our Mothers. We got two week's detention, and then we got another week's detention for talking in detention!

We never ditched school again!

But..........as the boys are leaving school for the day, they run into the teacher who tells them she is taking the whole class to the circus the next day, so now they have come back to retrieve the now unnecessary and damning note.

Eugene Lee was the lovable Porky who was always creating problems for the older kids. Porky was replaced by Robert Blake after 44 episodes of Our Gang because he was growing up, and was no longer chubby. He never acted again. In real life, Porky and Buckwheat were also best friends.

Porky has this funny toy that makes weird noises that scare the other boys!

To my knowledge, no episodes of Our Gang ever included anything real that was supernatural. It was always just them thinking there were ghosts or goblins.

George McFarland was Spanky. He learned a lot of his mannerisms from working with Laurel and Hardy!

Billie Thomas had the role of the lovable Buckwheat, a character who has been revered by young and old for decades. The character of Buckwheat was originally a female role, and Billie was the third actor, and the first male to play the role.

The boys get into the class room through a window. They spot the note immediately, but while the window is open, the wind comes up and blows papers on the teacher's desk all over the place, making the note difficult to find.

Things that seem scary, but are really innocent start happening. These are the eyes of an owl.

What appears to be a ghost is really just Porky with a sheet over him.

It scares the heck out of the other three just the same!

The forth character is of course Alfalfa, one of the most famous of the gang, as played by Carl Switzer. Tragically Carl was shot over a dog and a fifty dollar dispute at the age of 31. At the time it was declared self defense, but testimony decades later disputes that, and to this day, nobody knows the real story.

Just to prove that crime doesn't pay, the boys get sick from being out in the cold and rain the night before, and end up staying home in bed, and miss going to the circus anyway!

BILLY AND MANDY'S JACKED-UP HALLOWEEN - 2003

Billy and Mandy were my favorite and it's hard to realize that this episode came out 19 years ago! The creator of this great series, Maxwell Atoms, was also head writer, but what really amazed me was Richard Steven Horvitz doing Billy's voice, freaking amazing and for me the best part of the show. Love this series.

Billy, Mandy and Grim are out trick-or-treating. At the first place they come to, a big, mean old lady answers the door and tells them to go away, why are you hippies bothering me?

Billy and Mandy catch a glimpse of the candy stock pile the woman has in back, just before she slams the door in their face.

Since they didn't get any treats, Mandy comes up with a trick. She puts glue on the mat and rings the doorbell. The lady comes out and steps on the mat, gets stuck, and Mandy opens the fire plug, soaking the mean lady while stuck to the mat. Mandy and the gang walk around her, go inside, and take all her candy!!

While enjoying their many treats, Billy asks Grim, why do people play tricks on Halloween. Grim is happy to tell him why...

There was this man named Jack that was constantly playing tricks on people, and one came up with a great idea, he'd send a special present to the queen, but put Jack's name on it. He even included a picture of Jack in with the present.

The queen is so happy to get her favorite threat, but when she takes the lid off, she gets a big surprise, right in the eye! She's absolutely furious and send out a knight to pay Jack a little visit.

And a visit is exactly what Jack gets, the knight raises his ax, and...

Jack got the ax in his back, and when Grim goes to take his soul, Jack don't wanna go! He distracts Grim and grabs his sythe and won't give it back (who holds it owns it) so Grim has to make a deal to get it back, he must give Jack immortally! Grim agrees but the cuts Jack's head off when he gets his sythe back, the whole thing pissed Grim off big time!

Okay, Jack had to replace his head with a pumpkin, Billy stupidly went to Jack's house to trick-or-treat and ended up letting Jack take the sythe, and now Jack has opened a portal and ghosts are coming down, taking over and mutating all the pumpkins into monsters.

Mandy is the ultimate problem solver, and when Billy spills the beans about Jack confiscating the sythe, she puts on the camouflage, tells Billy to go cause a distractions, and then sets up the scene for her tactics. 

Doing his part, Billy shows up on his giant pumpkin steed, just when Jack is ready to cut Grim's head off (for good) as payback.

As his distraction, Billy moons Jack and the pumpkin monsters, it works pretty good.

Suddenly, a knight is seen coming their way, Jack thinks it's the one that axed him in the back!

No, it's just Irwin, so, let the fun begin! To start with, Mandy has clumsy Irwin in a loop of hilarious situations, making Jack and the pumpkins laugh out loud.

Situations just get worse and worse for Irwin, and the laughs just get more hilarious, until, all the pumpkins explode and all the ghosts go back to from where they came!

Grim tickles Jack with Jack's own feather, and the pumpkin head goes the way of the ghosts.

Jack ends up in Heck and is still playing pranks, and his inmates have had enough!

BEWITCHED - "The Witches Are Out" (1964)

This week's Countdown To Halloween Saturday Night Special is from season one of the classic bewitching TV show "Bewitched."

This was episode seven titled "The Witches Are Out," and it aired on October 29, 1964.

In this episode, Samantha and her lovely witch friends are having a little tea time together! 

This is Reta (The Ghost And Mrs. Muir) Shaw as Bertha.

Another of Sam's friends is Mary played by Madge Blake. Madge was Mrs. Cooper/Aunt Harriet on 96 episodes of the "Batman" TV show.

Last but not least is the befuddled but lovable Aunt Clara as played by Marion (Mr. Peepers) Lorne.

The brilliant comedian Shelley Berman plays a man named Mr. Brinkman who has some new Halloween candy that he wants Darrin to create an ad campaign for.

What Mr. Brinkman wants is an image of a witch, a really ugly witch with a long nose and warts.

 

Never giving it a second thought, this is the witch image that Darrin creates for the new ads.

Unfortunately, this is the very subject that the ladies were discussing at their meeting, how witches are always portrayed in an unfavorable, unfair and totally discriminatory manner.

So when Darrin brings his work home and Samantha sees what he's doing, they have a conversation about how witches are constantly discriminated against. Darrin brings up the fact that why does it matter since nobody believes in witches anyway, which is a pretty good point, but he doesn't get very far with that logic!

After their conversation, Darrin tears up his artwork, and tells Samantha he's going to approach his client with a different perspective.

These are the sexy witches that Darrin has come up with. Looks like a good idea to me!

But Brinkman, being the jerk that he is, doesn't like the concept, even after Darrin tries to explain to him that he shouldn't stereotype all witches as ugly old hags.

 Brinkman says no, and so Darrin quits the project!

That night, Samantha and her friends decide to pay Mr. Brinkman a visit!

Most guys probably wouldn't mind if Samantha showed up in their bedroom in the middle of the night, but if Bertha, Mary, and Aunt Clara showed up, that's a different story!

The ladies give Mr. Brinkman a pretty good scare!

The pièce de résistance is when they turn Brinkman into an old hag with a long nose and warts!

 

Mr. Brinkman is now more than ready to talk about a different type of witch image!

You can thank the Wizard of the Airwaves for this one!