It's the dearth of Halloween specials, Charlie Brown!

Ah, late October. The air gets colder, the days gets shorter, the Christmas decorations go up en masse. And, then, of course, there's the Halloween specials on TV...or lack thereof.

The root of this gripefest is the fact that I won't be catching the "Malcolm in the Middle" episode "Halloween" this year. The show doesn't air in syndication anymore, music rights issues have kept all but the first season off of DVD, Nick-at-Nite doesn't care about it and, thanks to the moronic dick-measuring contest between News Corp. and Cablevision, I, as a Dish Network subscriber, won't be seeing it on FX. But, as long as I'm here...

The local channels have only started airing the "The Simpsons" Halloween episodes. Best of luck packing twenty of them into four days! Really, how the crap does that happen?! Also, one of the local channels is playing some of the "Roseanne" episodes...at an oh-so-fashionable 6 AM timeslot.

Given that these two shows are, to my mind, the gold standard for Halloween episodes, the pickings are mighty slim for me (show-wise, anyway; you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a network playing a marathon of scary movies).

Now, I watch a lot of cartoons (as if you didn't know), so I've run across a lot of Halloween episodes over the years. Some of the lowlights from the last few years:
Kim Possible, "October 31st" - Christmas excepted, this show seems to have bad luck with holidays, like this outing, where a decent plot falls completely apart with its heavy-handed moralizing (Duff Killigan's last line will make you cringe).
The Mighty B, "Catatonic" - Just plain stupid, stupid, stupid. The episode that convinced me that this show was a big, fat mistake.
The Penguins of Madagascar, "I Was a Penguin Zombie" - I still maintain that if you have to resort to a non-ironic use of the overheard misunderstanding in this century, you have failed as a writer.
Danny Phantom, "Fright Knight" - Given the basic premise of the show, you'd honestly think that a Halloween episode would be a slam-dunk. Uh-uh. A dull story leading up to one of the most idiotic endings I've seen in the last decade of cartoon watching.
All Grown Up, "T.P + K.F." - This show was smart enough to navigate the minefield of forced shipping...except for here.
The Fairly Oddparents, "Scary Godparents" - I've spoken my piece about how this show and half-hour episodes don't hang. Maybe, you're better off watching the "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" episode, "Halloween", instead (I say maybe, because I've never seen it).

I guess I should take solace in the fact that I'll, at least, get to see both "That 70s Show" Halloween episodes (now those episodes can stand shoulder to shoulder with your average "Treehouse of Horror").

(Wow. A post not about film music and longer than a couple of sentences. I'm as shocked as you.)