Halloween 2K25 – Some Retro YouTube Goodness
Some days, I open up YouTube and I hate it. I really do. The fake smiles, the bad AI screenshots, the clickbait… its just everything I hate about the internet. But I think we’ve all seen the magic of YouTube, when you really start digging, you can find some amazing videos and creators and it makes up for all the bad. Well, sometimes.
Looking up Halloween themed videos from the 80s and 90s is a blast on YouTube. There are so many great videos. I thought I’d share a handful of interesting ones I’ve watched this week.
Rebuilding the Shape
In this video, Tommy Lee Wallace (director of Halloween III, Fright Night 2) takes us through the process of re-creating the original mask from Halloween. Mr. Wallace was the person who doctored up the William Shatner mask back in the late 70s, so its fun to see his process that led to such incredibly imagery.
Halloween Channel Surfing 1992
I discovered this channel that takes various clips of news programs, advertisements, and Halloween specials, from Halloween night of a specific year and cuts them together like you were flipping channels. It can be a bit heavy on the use of news footage, and so you hear the same headline over and over, but it’s a fun way to take a little trip to the past and makes for decent background noise.
JBuck’s Halloween Video
JBuck’s Retro Rewind is a neat channel that takes various 90s cartoons and cuts them together with old school commercials and bumpers to create a time block that is pretty accurate to the era. If I’m honest, most of is videos feature shows that I was a bit too old to watch, but I did enjoy watching an episode of The Spooktacular New Adventures of Casper from 1996. I watched the 1995 Casper film a lot, but I didn’t know there was a cartoon spinoff. It features the characters from the film and many of the folks who worked on the show also worked on Tiny Toons, Animaniacs, and Pinky and the Brain. It definitely has that same art style and comedic timing, which made for an enjoyable watch, that was further enhanced by the mid 90s commercials.
Three Hours of Vintage Halloween Commercials
Speaking of great commercials, this three hour block is nothing but Halloween commercials! I do see the irony that I will out of my way to avoid commercials and ads in 2025, but will actively seek out and enjoy ones from the 80s and 90s.
The Real Ghostbusters – When Halloween Was Forever
One of the most memorable of the early episodes of The Real Ghostbusters, When Halloween Was Forever was written by J. Michael Straczynski (Babylon 5) and features a pumpkin headed demon named Samhain, who wants to make Halloween permanent. I always enjoyed this episode, mainly because of the great character design of Samhain.
A Nightmare on Elm Street VHS Promo
This is a VHS promo that was created to encourage retailers to purchase copies of Nightmare on Elm Street 3. It’s a fun look at how business was once conducted, all while being hosted by Freddy himself.
