When most people think of the ideal film or television show to watch on Halloween, they likely think of something like, well, Halloween (1978). There’s something very appealing to most people about fiction that is preoccupied with fear and paranoia. However, because of the focus on these aspects of the holiday, there is another side to Halloween that often goes unappreciated. Halloween is funny. Unbelievably funny. There is something extremely amusing about a holiday in which people dress up in costumes that look silly but are designed to be frightening. The practice is absurdly theatrical, and that is where it derives its charm from. Most of us don’t spend the majority of Halloween paralysed by terror, but instead having fun with friends that look ridiculously dramatic and ostentatious. The sharp dichotomy between what Halloween is supposed to elicit, and what it does elicit, is comic gold.
As counterintuitive as it might seem, the greatest pleasure Halloween can offer us is television which makes us laugh. I think that there is perhaps nothing more emblematic of this phenomenon than the Halloween episodes from one of my favourite sitcoms. Brooklyn Nine-Nine’s Halloween heists feature all the absurd theatricality that I’ve been referring to. The premise of each episode is that the show’s colourful cast of idiosyncratic characters attempt to use their wits to steal a designated object in their police precinct. They are in competition to see who can have the object by midnight, and consequently be awarded the title of ‘greatest detective/genius’. Detective Jake Peralta matches his fun creativity against Captain Raymond Holt’s cold calculation, detective Amy Santaigo’s book smarts, and more.
To give one example of the type of mayhem, there is a moment in one of the heists where Jake uses an army of people dressed up as characters from The Handmaid’s Tale to distract his competitors and steal the safe the object is hidden in.
With each season, the plots of these episodes get progressively more absurd. More characters get directly involved in proceedings, attempts at theft get more elaborate, and the characters’ dialogue becomes increasingly exaggerated. There are funny costumes and props, ironic outcomes, deceptions aplenty, a great many dramatic monologues, and even a heartwarming marriage proposal. For those such as myself who are tired of pretending to enjoy being scared to death, there is so much to love.
“Andy Samberg by Gage Skidmore” by Gage Skidmore is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.