To the early 2000s kids or children lucky enough to stumble upon this randomly, either by TV or YouTube, The Scary Godmother Halloween Specials are very nostalgic. Even though there were only two films, both Scary Godmother Halloween Specials were so unique and entertaining that most fans want to watch them yearly. While sadly the Halloween specials aren’t being streamed and hard copies are becoming more difficult to find, it’s still nice to know that those specials were originally based on picture books by Jill Thompson.
Scary Godmother: Halloween Spooktacular
On Halloween night, a group of kids, Katie, Daryl, Bert, and Jimmy, pull a mean prank on Jimmy’s little cousin, Hannah, who is easily scared of monsters. They take her to the abandoned graveyard house and lock her inside, causing them to laugh and her to cry in terror. Her cries summon the Halloween version of Mis. Frizzle, Scary Godmother, who helps her overcome her fear of monsters by taking her to a place called the Fright World, inviting her to their Halloween party.
During her time in the Fright world, the bullies back on Earth are laughing and waiting for her to come out of the house screaming and running. By karma or their own faults, they end up missing Halloween, becoming increasingly worried the longer they wait, and finally go inside to find her. They then get scared by Hannah’s new monster friends, who all decide to help her by teaching those bullies a lesson.
This was the first Scary Godmother Halloween Special. It clocks in at 48 minutes. It was released in 2003 in Australia, Latin America, Europe, and Canada before being aired in the US in 2004, by Cartoon Network, a company out of Atlanta, Georgia. It was the first film to be used with a new animation software, and the designs of the fully generated computer characters were a request by the author herself. This explains why the animation was so unique compared to other animations, since not only was the background made up of 2D animation, but the characters were 3D versions of their 2D book designs.
Scary Godmother: The Revenge of Jimmy
In this sequel, the so-called big kids have learned their lesson from their last Halloween and are now friends with Hannah, except for Jimmy, who still considers her his annoying baby cousin. Contrary to his attitude, he was the one who was scared the most from last Halloween and is now paranoid of monsters, going so far as to oppose Halloween. When his friends and Hannah are making preparations to celebrate Halloween, he has the idea of ruining the holiday by tampering with every traditional Halloween item, hoping it’ll stop Halloween.
The Fright world is very dependent on the existence of Halloween on Earth, so each time he ruins a key element of Halloween, it affects the Fright world. Thankfully, with each sabotage, Hannah, who has a new enjoyment of Halloween thanks to her experience from the previous year, always finds a new solution to fix it, unconsciously saving the Fright World. Surprisingly, this sequel of Scary Godmother soon becomes Jimmy’s turn to learn the joy of Halloween, by also helping him get over his fear of monsters, just in a different way from Hannah’s experience.
This second special is 46 minutes long and released in 2005. It had more 4th wall breaks than the first Scary Godmother Halloween Special and has the same animation style and voice actors as the first, and some new background scenes, which doesn’t sound like much, but they are noticeable. Despite the small number of characters, different background scenes, and the same designs used for a majority of the characters in the sequel, the Scary Godmother specials were still entertaining to watch.
Scary Godmother Picture Books
Scary Godmother was originally a series of picture books and comic books created by Jill Thompson and published by Sirius Entertainment. There are seven stories, with a total of 9 works in the Scary Godmother series. The first one was published in 1997, and the final comic book was published in 2007. Of course, only the first two books were animated. The reason there was never a full series and why there were only two Scary Godmother Specials is because the two animated adaptations were considered enough to express the essence of the franchise’s universe.
The way Scary Godmother: The Revenge of Jimmy ended left no need for any additional sequel, and there was no push from Cartoon Network or the author for more adaptations. This was a great disappointment to the fans, especially the Halloween lovers who have difficulty finding comforting Halloween content that isn’t gore and pure nightmare fuel. The other likely reason is that both adaptations were such a huge success that they didn’t feel the need to create more, and it’s easy to see why when, years later, both films are still being recommended today.
Conclusion
Even though they aren’t being shown on Cartoon Network anymore, both specials can still be found on IMDB, and every October, there are still full-length videos of them being posted on YouTube. The children who consider themselves big kids, monsters hiding in closets and underneath beds, candy, costumes, and Jack-O-lanterns being essential Halloween material, all of these elements give the stories simple and comforting plots. They give viewers nostalgia and use all the references to many modern traditions of Halloween, along with the classic fears of monsters that nearly every child had in the late 90s to early 2000s.
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