Special TV-Michael Jackson’s Halloween

Well I haven’t done one of these in a very long time. But my friends, we have to talk about this one. This aired last Friday (Oct 27) and I watched it last night. Normally I would feel bad I need Wikipedia’s help with some details, but this time I really did. So here are my gut reactions after only seeing this once…..

 

I’m rushing this a bit, I admit, so forgive the lack of details. And spoilers by the way

The Plot-OK, I am going to to try to make sense of this. A young and woman cross paths on Halloween night, and the woman loses her dog. They follow him into a haunted house, and after listening to a Monkey named Bubbles (of course he’s named Bubbles) the two end up on a magical journey where they meet a scarecrow, a spider security guard. and a cat mad scientist (all three who become Michael Jackson? I missed that part) and an evil witch they all have to stop. What’s her goal? Getting ti of music and dancing. Of course it is. The thriller dance saves the day and I wont even try to talk about how the villain is defeated.  Let’s just say it was the power of love. Of course.

 

What I Liked-

Ok Ok if you’re a fan of Michael; Jackson at all you gotta love the music and references. Let me see what I can remember. We had the opening of Beat It when the villain’s idiotic machine is rolled out, the tiles light up like in Billie Jean at one point, the license plate says “Bad” or something like that, we get the white glove and that famous profile guiding the kids. And music cues abound. There are more that I am forgetting but you get the idea.

The opening set ups why the two kids are out on Halloween, and really what did we need that for? None of the people we meet, save our two main characters, are even seen again so why waste our time? I guess it was to establish the point of this quest but, did the kids even learn the lesson? I don’t know. This special is so poorly written did we really need to see some backstory for these kids?

The final number is a Thriller number and for the most part, if you ignore the horribly animated Michael Jackson, it isn’t so bad. It made me want to see the actual Thriller video. Not sure if that’s a good thing or not. In fact that final scene should have been the whole special.

What I Hated

The plot made no damn sense. It’s not so bad until the kids get into the haunted house, and then it’s basically throwing everything and anything at you. First we get some sort of Wizard of OZ world with a creepy scarecrow (voiced by Jim Parsons in another voiceover role, to bad he can’t steady work on a sitcom). Then it just gets weirder and weirder with spiders and a mad scientist laboratory….and I can’t lie, I stopped caring while I watched it.

Some would say the animation is bad but it’s ok.  Aside from the horrendous render of Michael Jackson at the end. The visuals try to be scary and it feels like Halloween. But out main characters have no character, I didn’t care a bit about either of them.

And the idea of Michael Jackson having kids in his house that had no idea how they got there like that didn’t raise a flag? Ok the guy was never convicted but they had to know people would make jokes about it.

Final Thoughts-As I write this I haven’t watched the David S Pumpkins one so I can’t say this was the worst thing to come out this Halloween. While I liked the Michael Jackson references and music, this special will not be on my “must watch every year” list. And sorry again this was rushed, maybe a second watching would fill some of the details I missed but, I really don’t want to see this a second time.