Niche of Time: Wideo Wednesday: Frights and Frolics

Wednesday, October 9, 2024

Wideo Wednesday: Frights and Frolics

A few of the more obscure treats for Halloween, as well as some old chestnuts. The Crown of Bogg dates from our first years of having cable; they aren’t the Muppets, but they’re trying very hard to be. The Witch is a Halloween segment from Gahan Wilson’s The Kid, and The Devil and Daniel Mouse is another of Nelvana’s holiday offerings, a take on the old tale by Stephen Vincent Bennet. Captain Murderer has Emlyn Williams as Charles Dickens reciting his old nurse’s gruesome bedtime tale. I read that Disney’s Witch Hazel appeared in 1952 and Warner Brothers’s in 1954; June Foray has voiced them both (though Bea Benaderet did it in the first Warner’s cartoon); both are named for a folk remedy used as a rubbing liniment (in fact a Witch Hazel appears in the cartoon Bottles). The Pumpkin That Couldn’t Smile is best watched as an example of Chuck Jones’ animation style. The Dark Secret of Harvest Home is a long watch, in fact a television mini-series from the Seventies, and it’s truly an example of the culture of the time. No supernatural horror but plenty scary; it’s rather reminiscent of The Wicker Man, in fact. It has a great Halloween vibe, though perhaps a little slow by modern standards.