If we took a holiday
Took some time to celebrate
Just one day out of life
It would be, it would be sooo nice!
Oh, I'm sorry. I can't write the word "holiday" without having a Madonna flashback, lace gloves, neon yellow pants, and my favorite round brush-microphone included. Whatever happened to those pants? I could've used them today. Hm...anywho! It's Halloween which has grown into the second largest consumer holiday in America after Christmas. And I noticed this year that TV has doubled down on the action. Meaning, you can't turn on a show the week proceeding Halloween (or any holiday for that matter) without your favorite sit-com surrogate family doing an ode. I'd like you think back, o'dear Reader, to a time before Friends Thanksgiving specials starring Mr. Jennifer Aniston when the only special episodes were of the "very special" variety like when Matthew Perry was Carol Seaver's alcoholic boyfriend on Growing Pains or Blossom teaching us all about teen sex. (Jersey Shore has made all that moot, hasn't it?) And while many of the shows did the obligatory Christmas epi and a random Valentine's special, for the most part, the other holidays got short shrift. According to Wikipedia, The Cosby Show did two Halloween episodes in their eight years, but I can't remember 'em. How about Family Ties? Anyone...? Modern Family, however, set it up very early in the series that Halloween was Clare Dunphy's favorite holiday, so now we can look forward to Modern Family Halloween specials every year. However, something else happened within the landscape of TV: a spike in shows created, written, and show-run (ran?) by women. What happens when you mix Halloween with Girl Power? See if you can spot the trend...
Did you see:
New Girl? The star of the show dressed as Zombie Woody Allen. The model was dressed as an angel. The third female was dressed as "Reigning" Cats and Dogs. Nick as "Bee" Arthur and Schmidt as Young Abe Lincoln or Matthew McConaughey in Magic Mike.
Suburgatory? I thought Barbie and Ken and little sister Skipper was funny, loved the shout-out to the Scooby gang, but the feminist/witch was hilarious!
Ben and Kate? Babe Ruth Baders-Ginsberg? As Kate would say, "wha...t?" Madame Curie and the billion princesses with one particular princess causing BJ to rush to Maddie's bedside to tell a story about the importance of not following the crowd.
The Mindy Kaling Project? Mindy showing up at the last minute as Diane Chambers from Cheers after being told that she had to "bring it" to the ESPN costume party.
Give up? First, shout out to all the meta costumes. They were all over the Halloween specials. Even Modern Family had it's "Sugar Daddy" and a very cute "Angel" and Devil pun. I think Raising Hope made a tongue-in-cheek joke about Shannon Woodward's height (again) when they dressed her as a gnome not mention the "is it a costume or is it a sex toy?" wink they threw in. Which brings me to point number two: The obvious mocking of "sexy" Halloween. New Girl didn't address it all. Suburgatory went for the juggler and scoffed at it. "I'm thinking of going as 'sexy skunk.'" Is it just me or is there one vowel difference between "skunk" and "skank"? Coincidence? I'll leave that up to you. Ben and Kate flat out said that the costume choices for females go from princesses to whores. And poor Mindy knew that bringing "it" to an ESPN party was code for hot and sexy which caused a mini-Mindy breakdown. "Cut a cleavage hole in my crayon costume." And where did all the sexy costumes go? Well, if they showed up at all, they ended up on the men. Schmidt in his red Speedo and black socks. Burt dressing as the gay Mailman from the Village People (you needed to have seen the epi to understand it). For the most part, the shows were just funny. Halloween was utilized to explore emotional arenas for Nick (the Haunted House was code for commitment), Mindy's own insecurities, Kate's fear of bringing up a daughter in a society that objectifies women, and even an opportunity for the Chance family to get their gay on. All in all, kudos all around! If they keep this up, I might overlook the fact that we're being forced to a consumerist mind-set pre-holidays.
Happy Halloween, Readers! I hope you're able to enjoy the holiday. (ooo, yeah! ooo, yeah!... uck, damn Madonna.)
