Oh the 80s were a great time. When we were too young to enjoy the more hardcore horror movies, we got plenty of good episodes from our favorite cartoons to give us that us in the good ol’ Halloween spirit.
It is the Halloween season again, and I thought it’d be fun to take a look back at our favorite 80s cartoon shows and pick out the episodes that put us in the mood for Halloween!
Because the classic Thundercats had a couple episodes that came to mind, I decided to post this list here and get answers from the fans here.
10) GI Joe Episode “The Phantom Bridgade” = In another one of his hairbrained schemes to defeat GI Joe and rule the world, Cobra Commander decides to raise the souls of three dead warriors to fight the Joe forces. With the use of magic, ghosts, and other non-traditional elements associated with GI Joe, this one is a lot of fun to watch at Halloween. I should also bring attention to the “Arise Serpentor, Arise” Five Parter. While I hate Serpentor, we do get to see Cobra search, I’m not kidding, the TOMB OF COUNT DRACULA to get DNA for Serpentor, and the whole creation of Serpentor does invoke memories of Frankenstein.
9) Transformers Episode “Dweller in the Depths” = Hard to imagine that a show about warring robots could invoke more horror themes, but in the Post Movie Era of the show, they did a lot of experimentation. This particular episode featured both Autobots & Decepticons being trapped in the depths of Cybertron with a group of cyberorganic monsters and an energy draining beast that turns the Transforemrs into Energy Vampires! It is like monsters, vampires, & zombies all rolled into one and all mixed with that good ol’ Transformers goodness!
8) Any Episode of Inhumanoids = A bit of a cheat, but with 13 episodes of nothing but Monster action, I have to include the whole show. D’Compose was my favorite Inhumanoid because his character brought about many disturbing images and great horrifying scares, especially when compared to other kids shows at the time.
7) Duck Tales Episode “The Ducky Horror Picture Show” = Oh I love that title, ha ha. Anyways, Duck Tales featured so many different elements that you could pick out a lot of Halloween-esque episodes with them. However, this episode features duck versions of many classic movie monsters like Frankenstein, Dracula, The Wolf Man, and the like. It is great to see those classic monster movie designs fit in with the world of Duck Tales and made for a very fun episode. The ending is really cute too as the monsters do a musical number in front of an adoring audience of kids that legitimately love them.
6) Duck Tales Episode “The Curse of Castle McDuck” = Another great Duck Tales example. Like I said, there are alot of Duck Tales episodes that would fit here (especially when you consider that Magica DeSpell was a main villain) but this one stands out to me a lot. Scrooge and the kids go to the McDuck family castle and have to uncover the curse that haunts it. It is a very creepy episode, at least by the standards of a cute kids show, and its Duck Tales, so you know its fun.
5) Any Episode of The Real Ghostbusters = Again, I’m cheating, but whenever you watch Ghostbusters, movie or show (and just for the record I watch both every Halloween), you can’t help but get into the mood of the season. With so many creepy ghosts, fantastic creature designs, and great characters like our main heroes, Ghostbusters was a huge part of any kid’s childhood at any time of the year, but especially during Halloween.
4) Thundercats Episode “Spitting Image” = Yeah, here we go! Thundercats Hoooooo! Well again, there were a handful of good episodes for this kind of category, especially when you consider that Mumm-Ra himself looks a lot like Karloff’s Imhotep from the classic Mummy movie (compare the two faces…I can’t help but notice the similarities). In this episode, we not only get some creepy shots of Mumm-Ra, but we also see him raise the dead spirit of Hammerhand and perform a Frankenstein-esque experiment to clone Panthro using the ghost of the dead Berserker! It is some really creepy stuff and really shines whenever the story focuses on Mumm-Ra (seriously, that lab is freakin cool). It breaks continuity with the show since we would see Hammerhand return alive and well in the future and they never do explain where the heck the laboratory came from, but it is still a nice spooky episode from this classic series.
3) Thundercats Episode “The Ghost Warrior” = Well first off, it is my favorite episode in the series, so I praise it for a lot of things. In keeping in with the theme of this thread though, we get to see a dead Thundarian’s ghost come back and literally haunt The Thundercats. That is pretty awesome, and the episode has a fantastic climax as we see two Thundercat ghosts having a duel for the ages, one of the finest moments in the entire show. Grune has always been one of my favorite characters in Thundercats, and his first appearance really left an impression.
1-2) He-Man & The Masters of the Universer Two Parter “House of Shokoti” = I am counting it as two since it is a two partner. This was an easy choice for me. When I was a kid, I watched this episode every year on Halloween. It was my go-to. It is easily one of the most remarkable moments in the original MOTU series since it is the only two parter and is so different from the rest of the series. There is no Skeletor, Castle Greyskull & The Sorceress are barely featured, and Teela & Man-At-Arms are left out entirely. It is just a different kind of adventure for He-Man with a spooky atmosphere throughout. Part 1 features many different creatures and monsters, most notably the main villain, the shadowy and mysterious messenger of Shokoti, Lord Masque. He looks like Darth Vader adapted for MOTU and is always featured in darkness and is actually quite imposing when compared to the usual He-Man villain. And then in Part 2, we actually go inside Shokoti’s temple and see even creepier images as we meet the evil sorceress herself and the full extent of her power. Again, most of it is done in darkness and there are many creepy images throughout, like the boy being sucked through the door and that always memorable “TO BE CONTINUED” at the end of part 1, that scared the you know what out of many kids back in the day. House of Shokoti is not one to miss if you are a fan of this show.
So what are your answers? Like I said, there are plenty to go with.
