5 Sitcom Halloween Episodes for October, From Brooklyn Nine-Nine to The Simpsons
Skip the two-hour horror movie. These half-hour Halloween episodes deliver a heist, a zombie outbreak, a firing and an alien abduction, and you're in bed by ten.
By the Heckle Desk · · 2 min read
A horror movie asks for two hours and your nerves. A sitcom Halloween episode asks for twenty-two minutes and gives you a costume parade on top, which is the best deal in television and possibly in America, where most deals now come with a subscription fee and a man in a headset.
These are five of the best, oldest first in spirit if not in order. Every one of them is about people who are scared of something smaller than a monster: getting fired, losing a bet, eating bad meat at an office party. That's real horror. Dracula only wants your blood. Your boss wants your weekends.
Streaming homes shift around like ghosts in an attic, so check your service before you settle in. Where I could confirm a home, I've said so.
- 01
Brooklyn Nine-Nine, "Halloween" (Fox, Oct. 22, 2013)
Jake Peralta bets Captain Holt he can steal Holt's Medal of Valor by midnight, and the loser does the other's paperwork or works five weekends for free. It's the first of the show's annual heists, and it ends with Jake getting arrested halfway up a building and winning anyway. Most men who climb a building with a blowtorch don't get a franchise out of it.
- 02
The Office, "Halloween" (NBC, Oct. 18, 2005)
Michael has to fire someone by the end of October and spends the whole day in costume avoiding it, until Creed talks his way out and Devon gets the axe. Devon leaves a smashed pumpkin on Michael's car, which is the most honest exit interview in TV history. Greg Daniels wrote it; Paul Feig directed.
- 03
Community, "Epidemiology" (NBC, Oct. 28, 2010)
The dean serves expired military rations he took for taco meat, and Greendale's Halloween party turns into a zombie outbreak scored entirely to ABBA from his iPod. George Takei narrates. It's the only zombie story where the scariest thing in the room is the playlist.
- 04
The Simpsons, "Treehouse of Horror" (Fox, Oct. 25, 1990; Disney+)
The first one: a haunted house, an alien abduction that introduces Kang and Kodos, and Lisa reading Poe's The Raven with James Earl Jones as narrator. Marge opens with a warning that it might be too scary for children. Thirty-six years later the children are grown and paying for Disney+, which is scarier.
- 05
Abbott Elementary, "Candy Zombies" (ABC, Season 2, Episode 6; Hulu)
The show's first Halloween episode: sugar-wrecked kids, a candy thief to catch, and Janine turning down a party invitation she's afraid of. Janelle James, who plays principal Ava, just announced her first Netflix hour, so consider this homework. It's the rare school episode where the teachers are more frightened than the students, which is how school actually works.