Y'wanna hear some neat trivium? This here 1979 Halloween special from ABC was in competition for a few Emmy Awards! Even went and won one! Course, there's a little bit of weirdness going on - between 1968 and 1972, and again from 1977 to 1982, the Emmys split the category for Outstanding Achievement in Children's Programming into two categories, one for the outstanding achievement in general handed to the producers, and one for outstanding individual achievements, awarded to higlighted cast and crew. The latter category is rather interesting to look through, as it allowed craftspeople and actors who wouldn't normally get a shake (due to children's programming only hosting the one category for producers in the years before and after) a chance to have their work honored. From what Wikipedia shows in their tables for the category, it didn't work out every time, as the award was juried and required one nominee to receive 50% of the ballots to justify a win, which often meant nobody earned any honors. There were even a few years where the category judges only nominated two people, and the jury still couldn't come to a 50% consensus. Imagine having only two options and somehow not achieving a majority consensus in either direction.
Anyhow, The Halloween That Almost Wasn't was pretty well set to win the individual achievement category in 1980, as it had three contributors nominated, compared to Sesame Street in Puerto Rico's two. Arthur Ginsberg was nominated for his editing, Mariette Hartley for her performance as the Witch, and Bob O'Bradovich for his makeup, which won the award. I wish I could speak more to Ozzie Alfonso's direction and Nat Mongioi's art direction on the Sesame Street primetime special, but unfortunately nobody has it anywhere, save an upload of the first episode containing segments that aired over the following week. S'in pretty poor quality anyhow, so I'm not sure I could much judge it none too well. Something tells me I might feel just a touch biased towards wanting to say one of the two deserved the award sight unseen, since O'Bradovich's winning make-up is... what it is, and it feels more right to say a piece of programming from Sesame Street in its prime is more deserving of accolades than something comparatively lighter and fluffier.
Also wish I could give Sesame Street the same consideration for the overall Outstanding Achievement in Children's Programming category; however, balked as I am there, I CAN give such consideration to the winner, Benji at Work. Of the two programs I can judge, I think it fair to say Benji's little documentary was more deserving of the win. It has some weaknesses in how it keeps up some dishonesty around the realities of Benji's life, as it feels a little weird how they constantly insist on calling the female Benjean a he to maintain the illusion, even as Mr Rogers was more than comfortable showing children the faces and processes behind other beloved fictional institutions. On balance, though, it's a nice enough look into how Frank Inn worked with his animals and collaborated with filmmakers to get the hero dog acting so well. Regardless of how the film they're documenting turned out (quite the stinker, as I understand), the special makes a fair mix of entertainment and education for children, and has an endless parade of shots showing Benjean acting like a cute pupper. The thing's got my approval, even as I could personally do without Adam Rich as host.
S'more trivium for you! The actor playing...
...oh right, we're supposed to be reviewing The Halloween That Almost Wasn't. Truth be told, I've been dodging around doing so. Applying my usual standards for critique here just doesn't seem fair or proper. It's a light piece of children's entertainment from 40 years ago, and while I can certainly identify flaws aplenty with its concept and execution, ragging on it like something produced with any higher ambitions than keeping kids entertained with silly puns and goofy costumes for half an hour seems in bad sport. Still, this is a review site, and I did put it on the list with the intention of providing some semblance of a discussion, so... why not? Just a little critique, in bullet points.
-Without Judd Hirsch, I'd probably tear into this program quite a bit more. He's quite plainly having a very good time playing Dracula, leaning into the character's pompous attitude and flustered reactions to his fellow monsters having gone soft and/or unionizing. The jokes and pratfalls he's running through may be juvenile for even his audience, but they're functional enough and earn laughs - though I must admit, my laughing at a Young Frankenstein reference comes entirely from the thirty-second "did he really just..." process that followed rather than any real cleverness. Honestly, if I had to choose an actor to nominate for their performance from this, he'd be they.
-This said, Mariette Hartley doesn't deliver a half-bad performance as the Witch. The writing on her is a bit shaky, oscillating between "I want to break Halloween because you don't respect me enough or share your controlling interest with an equal business partner" and "I want to break Halloween because people think I'm ugly and mean, and I don't want to be that anymore," with neither taking over long enough to get a clear picture of the intent beyond "Witch bad, gotta stop her." As such, her sharp-tongued, smarmy Brooklyner approach to the character gives it an appreciable, endearing quality where the writing lets her down. She has a sweet scene with a little girl who loves witches towards the end, so y'know... it works out to something good enough to praise.
-The other monsters are drastically underserved by the structure. The Wolfman and Frankenstein's Monster at least get highlighted entrances and a few one-liners when Dracula chews them out for giving into corporate marketing deals. Zoltar the Zombie King and the Mummy are barely afforded time for Igor to speak their names on arrival before they shuffle out of frame, and for the rest of the picture they're only allowed to stand around looking kinda bored without delivering any dialogue. And for as much as the first two monsters get to do during their introduction, they too fall into the background as part of the indistinct crowd behind Dracula as he and the Witch spar it out. I think the writing team only had one good joke for the Creature, the one about how his feet aren't his, and didn't know how to make the other undead monsters work without repeating the concept of detachable body parts. The Mummy gets to pratfall at one points, but it's slow and awkward and does nothing for me, so that's a bust.
-I can appreciate the suburban family watching TV as the news comes in that Halloween may be cancelled forever if Dracula can't get his act together, insofar as they're a semi-absurd element of blissfully modern stuff intruding on what's supposed to be an evocation of Gothic Eastern European stylings. They don't come back into it past the introductory scenes until the ending, and I think it would've helped the special feel a little more cohesive if there'd been a beat of Dracula or Igor or someone realizing they need a different tact to get the Witch back on their side. At very least, the dad should've come back in with his children, just so we could get some more good ol' gum-flappin', square-lookin' all-American 70s sitcom dad goodness.
-The ending of this movie is probably why disco is dead. John noted that it works on some level, since undead monsters probably only listen to dead music. I don't know if I agree, but it seemed an interesting enough observation to share.
-Rating films gets tricky sometimes, as the definite number attached to a review is so easy to take for the total opinion when it's more a general barometer for where I am on work, with the lengthier passage serving to fill in details. I'm going with a 2.5 for The Halloween That Almost Wasn't, which is normally one of my bad scores, typically dolled out to films I find sink juuuuuust below the barrier of quality to be called good. Again, though, I think it highly unfair to treat this slight lil' thing as a full effort with all that implies - yet I also can't exactly say its problems don't bother me or prevent me from having as good a time as I'd like, children's show or not. To this end, I'm keeping the 2.5 rating, but additionally noting how it's a 2.5 that could very easily transform into a 3 if I'm feeling the tiniest bit more generous at some point.
So, like I was saying, one more fun little bit of trivia here. The actor playing Frankenstein's Monster here, John Schuck, went on to play Herman Munster in the late 80s Munsters revival series, The Munsters Today. If that ain't enough neat connections to other noted light horror-adjacent TV, consider how Igor's actor, Henry Gibson, voiced a character for the 1973 Munsters animated telefilm, The Mini-Munsters. Or, my personal favorite of the connections, Wolfman actor Jack Riley played Gomez on the Addams Family Fun House variety hour, which I STILL want to see for the purposes of tormenting friends.
Writing about old, idle-watching TV ain't my strength, and the next entry in this year's Halloween marathon is gonna test my ability to pull together a coherent piece even more. Fun!
2.5/5
No comments:
Post a Comment