The 25 Best Halloween TV Episodes of All Time
The children of Abbott Elementary riot when one student steals a bag of candy from the library. As sugar courses through their veins, the kids race around the school and terrify their teachers. While the teachers try to corral the group, Janine stresses over a Halloween party invitation. The episode caps off with a nearly perfect Avengers: Infinity War reference.
In “Jacked o’ Lantern,” the Johnsons dress up as the Obama family (Dre makes an excellent Barack, by the way) and prepare for a night of trick-or-treating through Los Angeles. There is, of course, one issue: Dre’s cousin June Bug, who used to bully him as a child, stops by dressed as the not-so-family-friendly 50 Cent.
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This season 5 episode of Boy Meets World is technically not a Halloween special at all. (It originally premiered in February 1998.) But at a time when teen slashers like Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer were all the rage, Boy Meets World got in on the action with a surprisingly emotional episode that interrogates Shawn and his guilt over the breakup of Cory and Topanga.
During detention, the main characters get locked inside the school with a masked killer on the loose. As the student body quite literally whittles down, they race to figure out the killer's identity. A combination of a supporting character named Kenny, who is the first to die, and I Know What You Did Last Summer's Jennifer Love Hewitt as a guest star, means it doesn't get more late '90s than this eerily experimental episode that is scarier than its sitcom nature implies.
After the Brady boys scare the girls with a fake ghost, the girls strike back with a taste of their own medicine. "Fright Night" is classic The Brady Bunch antics, as the whole household gets in on the fun. Never mind that at this point in season 4, there's a distinctly older Greg and Marcia who look like they should be out with friends instead of pulling pranks on each other.
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It's Halloween at Cloud 9, which is an oddly fitting time for them to find a dead body in the store. A creepy employee, likely peeping in on the women's restroom, apparently got stuck and starved to death in the walls. With hours to spend before the coroner can get the body, Cloud 9 employees and shoppers alike have to awkwardly go about their day as a rotten corpse watches over them all.
The Paddy's gang experiences a real scream when Dee gets pregnant, and everyone retraces their steps to figure out what the hell happened at their Halloween party. Leave it to It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia to turn their Halloween episode into a Rashomon scenario.
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Long before he was Deadpool, Ryan Reynolds was a sitcom star in the forgotten but outrageously funny Two Guys, a Girl, and a Pizza Place. In the show's first Halloween episode from season 2, the show breaks all its rules by unleashing a doppelgänger of Reynolds' Berg who hacks his way through the group. Unfortunately, you cannot legally stream Two Guys, a Girl, and a Pizza Place on any platform in the U.S. But the heroes at Shout! Studios have released a DVD set that deserves a spot on your shelf.
It's really the cold open with Andy and April as they plan their Halloween party that puts this episode from Parks and Recration season 4 in the Halloween canon. Andy's golden retriever energy and April's cursed black cat aura as she mutters "Blood orphans" with a smile is what made us fall in love with them together. Fun fact: While many couples dress up as Burt Macklin and Janet Snakehole, those alter egos didn't debut in any of the show's Halloween episodes.
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Without a doubt one of the greatest Halloween specials of all time, It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown champions the virtue of putting faith in the impossible, even if some things really are just made up. From Snoopy's World War I subplot to Lucy pulling the football away from Charlie Brown, It's the Great Pumpkin cemented some Peanuts hallmarks in our pop culture language and paved the way for future Halloween TV specials to come. Honestly, without Great Pumpkin, we wouldn't be here making this list at all.
Just three days before The Walking Dead premiered and became a cable TV monster, Community spoofed zombie outbreaks with its outrageously hilarious Halloween episode, "Epidemiology." At Greendale's (shockingly well-decorated) Halloween party, some bad mystery meat turns the partygoers into grotesque husks with a taste for flesh. The episode peaks in the climax, when Troy, who abandoned his Alien-themed costume with Abed, reclaims his costume in an attempt to save the survivors.
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Buffy the Vampire Slayer fans know the show is tailor-made for the spooky season. But in season 2, the show went deep into the festivities with an all-time classic, yet simply-titled, "Halloween." When Buffy and the gang buy cursed costumes, they spend Halloween night believing they are their alter egos, including Buffy thinking she's from the 18th century. It's always bad news when the hero of Sunnydale is powerless, but at least Halloween is the night when vampires and demons take the night off. Mostly.
It's Halloween in Angel Grove, and the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers spring to action when Rita Repulsa unleashes none other than Frankenstein on the city. Though the Power Rangers are superheroes who frequently battle alien monsters, it's refreshing to watch them duke it out with Mary Shelley's infamous creation. Who knew Frankie had hands?
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Few shows capture the mischievous yet chilling wonder of spooky stories from childhood quite like Stranger Things. Of course, few people spend their childhoods living inside spooky stories. This episode unfolds at the start of season 2, when Will witnesses something suspicious while trick-or-treating.
You know what's scarier than a ghost? Firing someone. In the first Halloween-themed episode of The Office, Michael Scott is forced by corporate to fire someone at the end of the day, which happens to be Halloween. The cherry on top is Dwight's hilarious costume as a Sith lord, who uses his "Sith powers" to trick Michael into firing his enemies.
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From its perfect cold open to its perfect ending, in which Jake proposes to Amy, "HalloVeen" takes the belt (sorry, cumberbund) as not just one of the best Halloween Heist episodes of Brooklyn Nine-Nine but of the greatest Halloween episodes ever made.
What is usually a filler episode in every season of Brooklyn Nine-Nine becomes consequential, as the lighthearted heist hijinks give way to Jake and Amy cementing their relationship in stone. It's also full of incredible one-off gags, including a flash mob of Handmaid's Tale cosplayers.
Friends might have some great Christmas and Thanksgiving episodes, but season 8's "The One with the Halloween Party" stands entirely on its own. As the friends throw a costume party in their impossibly large New York City apartment, Phoebe runs into her twin sister, Ursula and her fiancé (played by guest star Sean Penn). Peep some corporate synergy, as this Warner Bros.-produced sitcom dress up Monica and Phoebe as Catwoman and Supergirl.
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This show aired for only a single glorious season, so it has only one Halloween episode, but it’s a high-quality one. Lindsay thinks she’s too cool to get into Halloween, but her mom wants her to stay home and pass out candy to trick-or-treaters. Meanwhile, we get some good ’80s costumes from Sam, Bill, and Neal, who take to the streets for one last childhood All Hallows’ Eve.
Only Larry David would accuse trick or treaters for rigging the system. In this episode that dates back to the show's second season, Larry gets irritated after questionably older trick or treaters arrive at his doorstep. But he gets what's coming to him when he wakes the next morning to find his backyard vandalized. "I didn't know there was going to be felony or treat!"
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Opening with the gang watching a Hitchcock Halloween marathon in Eric’s basement, which is a reminder that watching Hitchcock is the only proper way to spend Halloween, this episode features takes on famous Hitchcock films, including a version of Psycho involving red shampoo. You also get a great revamp of the theme song.
There are umpteen "Treehouse of Horror" specials put on by The Simpsons, but it's the standalone season 27 episode "Halloween of Horror" that winds up one of the best Halloween episodes the show has ever produced. After a traumatic night at Krustyland, Lisa has difficulty getting over her new fear of everything. The episode soars when Homer, himself going through a hard time, instructs his daughter how to be brave.
Where "Treehouse of Horror" sees The Simpsons break its continuity to incorporate supernatural horror and science fiction, "Halloween of Horror" is, for lack of a better word, real, with the show staying true to its physics and exploring truths about growing up.
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