How many of these famous Halloween TV specials do you remember watching as a kid?
You remember the blanket. The bowl of candy meant for trick-or-treaters. And the one night a year when the television was the main event.
If you grew up between the 1960s and the 1990s, you didn’t have a streaming queue. You had a TV guide, a channel, and one shot.
Six specials follow. Check off the ones you remember, and tally your score at the end.
It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (1966)
Charlie Brown got a rock. Millions of kids remember it.
It first aired on CBS on Thursday, October 27, 1966, and tied “Bonanza” for No. 1 in the Nielsen ratings with a 31.6, per Broadcasting magazine. It had aired in Canada the night before, Upworthy notes.
Kids felt so bad about the bag of rocks that they mailed Charlie Brown candy, the producers said. “I got a rock,” Charlie Brown tells us at every door. Producer Lee Mendelson said Bill Melendez’s watercolors and Vince Guaraldi’s score kept it popular, per Yahoo. In 2026, it’s streaming on Apple TV+.
Halloween Is Grinch Night (1977)
It was the other Grinch special.
Dr. Seuss wrote it, and Hans Conried narrated and voiced the Grinch, as Boris Karloff did in the Christmas special. ABC aired it in late October 1977. A “Sour-Sweet Wind” blows through Whoville, and the Whos lock their doors.
Joe Raposo, the “Sesame Street” composer, wrote the music, the Seuss wiki notes. It won an Emmy. Conried died in 1982, so this was his last Seuss special.
Witch’s Night Out (1978)
A Canadian witch, a disco song, and Gilda Radner.
It premiered on NBC on October 27, 1978. Gilda Radner voiced Winifred the Witch, Catherine O’Hara voiced Malicious, and Fiona Reid voiced Nicely. John Leach and Isobel Jean Rankin made it in Toronto as a follow-up to their 1974 Christmas special, Animation World Network reports.
If you watched it in the ’80s, it was probably on the Disney Channel, which aired it every year from 1983 until the late 1990s. This month, it’s back on MeTV Toons.
Garfield’s Halloween Adventure (1985)
Garfield dressed as a pirate, and the ghosts weren’t in costume.
It aired on CBS on October 30, 1985, under the working title “Garfield in Disguise.” Jim Davis wrote it, Phil Roman directed, and Lorenzo Music voiced Garfield, per the Garfield wiki. The trick-or-treat ghosts turn out to be pirate ghosts, and Odie sneezes at the worst moment.
It won an Emmy. It aired the same night, on the same network, as the Great Pumpkin, one source notes.
The Simpsons Halloween Special (1990)
The first one came with a warning.
It aired on Fox on October 25, 1990, as “The Simpsons Halloween Special.” Marge stood on a stage and warned parents it might be too scary. According to the Halloween Specials wiki, the producers meant it sincerely.
James Earl Jones read “The Raven” in the last segment. Creator Matt Groening was nervous and felt it might be “the worst, most pretentious thing” they’d ever done. It was also the debut of Kang and Kodos, Gold Derby notes.
The Halloween Tree (1993)
Ray Bradbury narrated his own story.
Hanna-Barbera made it for ABC in 1993, with Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Moundshroud, a guide who takes a group of trick-or-treaters through the history of Halloween. Bradbury won an Emmy for the script, per Cartoon Research.
It began as a half-hour script for animator Chuck Jones in the 1960s. Bradbury turned it into a 1972 book, illustrated by Joe Mugnaini, before it came to TV, according to the same source.
Your score
6 out of 6: You had the best seat in the house, and probably the TV Guide, too.
4 to 5: You were a regular. Maybe you missed one because it aired opposite another.
2 to 3: You watched what was on. That counts.
0 to 1: No problem. Most of these are streaming, and the Great Pumpkin is free on Apple TV for a few weeks every October.
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Related:
- Your cozy (or spooky!) Halloween movie, according to your horoscope
- Halloween hauntings at famous movie sets
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