Our favorite sitcoms bring comfort and nostalgia, and their short, stand-alone episodes make them easy to rewatch anytime. As this Halloween season approaches, it’s the perfect time to get in the holiday mood by revisiting seasonal episodes of all your favorite sitcoms. Here’s a complied list of Halloween episodes from five different sitcoms, ranked:
- Bob’s Burgers “Full Bars”
Bob’s Burgers features several Halloween-themed episodes, with “Full Bars” being the first in the series. In this episode, Teddy invites Bob and Linda to his party, where Bob accidentally sits on Teddy’s pet hamster. The show uses the death of the hamster to parody the murder mystery genre, and Teddy tries to find the killer by questioning the party guests.
Eventually, Bob tells the truth, and Teddy admits that he may have been overly passionate about his party. Meanwhile, the kids take a ferry to “Kings Head Island,” where they get picked on by high schoolers. The episode ends with the kids tricking their bullies into going to a fake party and returning home. This episode successfully manages to incorporate horror tropes while still maintaining a light and comedic tone and is one of the better episodes of the season.
2. Community, “Epidemiology”
In Community’s “Epidemiology, the study group attends the school Halloween party, which takes a dark turn. We learn that the taco meat Dean Pelton used for the party was expired army rations, and the partygoers succumb to a zombie-like virus that spreads through bites. The party is put on lockdown and eventually the army arrives, restoring order to the party and curing the students.
Community uses the “taco meat disease” to parody the horror genre, and the juxtaposition of the accompanying ABBA soundtrack lightens the intensity of the plot. Being a sitcom, “Community” would not have been able to effectively make a zombie apocalypse parody without the food poisoning zombie virus, and this choice was ambitious but worthwhile. While “Epidemiology” wasn’t as grounded as a generic sitcom episode, it’s ultimately a unique and creative Halloween story.
3. Modern Family, “Halloween”
In this episode of season two, Claire attempts to convince the family to take part in her haunted house project. However, as the family becomes sidetracked, her plans begin to unravel, leading to her getting frustrated with the family and storming out. Most of the family is distracted by different issues they encountered during the day. Michell realizes that he was the only one that came to work in a Halloween costume, while Jay and Gloria fight over Gloria’s ability to pronounce words. In the end, the family scares away the kids in the haunted house (after a few failed attempts), and Claire forgives them. This episode is both enjoyable and uplifting, and the conflict between the characters inevitably brings the family closer together.
4. New Girl, “Halloween”
Similarly to many New Girl episodes, “Halloween” is both chaotic and entertaining. In this episode, Jess and her roommates find themselves having relationship problems, with Jess suspecting that the man she likes doesn’t feel the same way, and Nick wanting to avoid his new girlfriend. Nick likens relationships to haunted houses, because “you can never know what to expect,” and admits to the girl that she wasn’t who he expected her to be. In this episode, Jess is working at a haunted house, and it ends with Nick punching her in the face after she tries to scare him. Overall, this episode was fun, and it uniquely explored the difficulties of relationships in a holiday episode.
5. The Office, “Halloween”
In this episode, we learn that Micheal was supposed to let someone go by the end of the month but had put it off until Halloween. People in the office gradually start to notice and begin to manipulate Michael while turning against one another. Throughout the episode, Michael tries firing numerous employees, but they all manage to change his mind. Micheal finally ends up firing Devon, who storms out of the office before the Halloween party, which nobody stays for. This episode is entertaining but largely uneventful, and despite the buildup, the end was somewhat anticlimactic. On the other hand, seeing the cast in costumes and watching Micheal fail to demonstrate his authority makes it funny and worthwhile.
Whether you’re looking for animated episodes, zombies, or haunted houses, this list is perfect for rewatching your favorite sitcoms this October.
Maggie Belanger can be reached at: [email protected]
