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Spongebob - “Legend of Boo-kini Bottom”
Spongebob has been the eternal pillar keeping Nickelodeon aloft for almost 20 years. Most would probably agree that it has long overstayed its welcome. The departure of Spongebob's creator Stephen Hillenburg after season 3 is often seen as the initial sign of decay for the series. So it may be surprising to hear this isn’t the first Halloween special from the series heyday, but the recent stop-motion Halloween Special from 2017. The story follows Spongebob as he goes around town hanging out with his friends as he learns to find the fun in the scare’s of the holiday until the Flying Dutchman decides to show Spongebob a real reason to fear Halloween.
I will admit some bias towards stop motion, but it's only because stop-motion really does add to the atmosphere of this episode. The uncanny and slight stiffness inherent to the technique gives everything a naturally unsettling mood, and I would like to emphasize slightly because the stop motion is polished to a tee here. All the characters are just as animated if not more so than their usual 2D incarnations. It all comes together to encompass a really energetic and inviting showcase of the holiday as all of Spongebob’s friends get enough screen time to make their friendship more believable than it has been for a long time. Only for all of it to have its feet pulled off the rug by the Dutchman’s frightening roller coaster ride, full of creative and intimidating imagery. We can likely attribute this new creative vigor with the return of Hillenburg last year, which will be sure to ensure the inevitable next decade of Spongebob with some good episodes to come.
Hey Arnold - “Arnold's Halloween”
Nostalgia is in vogue at the moment, and Hey Arnold was one of its targets when Nickelodeon released a movie in 2017 for a twenty year old franchise. If you are not aware, Hey Arnold follows the misadventures of a football-shaped headed, young boy named Arnold as he runs into the colorful inhabitants around his school and neighborhood. In this misadventure Arnold works out a plan to scare his family and neighbors after having his maturity called out, when he isn't allowed to help the adults create a spine-chilling Halloween. His plan seems to go on without a hitch as he scares the pants off of everyone with a fake news broadcast about an alien invasion, likely referencing Orson Welles’s “War of the Worlds” radio broadcast, which convinced thousands of people that the Earth was being invaded. Only for things to go off the rail as a local conspiracy program catches the wind and sparks the fire of mass hysteria across the town, which is only fanned by Arnold's meticulous planning. He even gets his friends caught up in the disaster as they came up with the brilliant idea of dressing as aliens for Halloween. This special is a bit of rube Goldberg-esque chain of events as paranoia grips the hearts of the town and leads to the development of an absurd resistance movement made to combat the imaginary threat.
Televised Treats no Tricks
By: Levitt Lin