I love Halloween. It's the time of year that everyone embraces the spooky and scary. Ghosts and witches decorate front lawns before the Christmas lights take over; the theaters and streaming networks are jammed with horror films; and all the networks plan Halloween-themed episodes of some of our favorite TV shows. As an obsessive TV watcher, and a die-hard horror fan, the Halloween season blends my two favorite things.

I have sifted through some of my favorite Halloween episodes of television shows and selected a lucky 13 episodes that are sure to give your Halloween a chuckle - or a fright.

13. The Addams Family: "Halloween, Addams Style"

Network: ABC 

Year: 1965 

While trick or treating, Wednesday is upset when she is told by a thoughtless neighbor that witches aren't real. In order to cheer their daughter up, Morticia and Gomez hold a seance to contact Aunt Singe, a witch who was burned at the stake in Salem. Grandmama is worried that they won't be able to reach Aunt Singe with an hour's notice on the busiest night of the year, so she and Lurch stage a successful seance. They are too successful, and promise Aunt Singe will come visit that night. An adult dressed as a witch comes round on a scavenger hunt, and the Addams' mistake her for Aunt Singe with predictably wacky results. The Addams Family is year-round Halloween fun, so the fact that they took the time to do a Halloween episode feels, somehow, extra-special.

 

12. Modern Family: "Halloween"

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Image via ABC

Network: ABC

Year: 2010

Claire's favorite holiday is Halloween, and every year she plans a big haunted house. This year is no exception, but everything goes wrong. Phil is distracted by his paranoia that Claire will leave him; Gloria focuses on speaking with an English accent; Cam is reliving his Halloween trauma; and Mitchell wears a Spider-Man costume to work, only to learn that only the dorks do that. After several failed attempts at a spook house for trick-or-treaters, the family gets their act together and comes through on the scares. In perfect Modern Family-style, all the different families go through their own traumas and dramas before coming together for the love of Halloween. (Well, and for family. But mostly for Halloween.)

11. Friends: "The One with the Halloween Party"

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Image via Warner Bros.

Network: NBC

Year: 2001

Monica and Chandler throw a costume party, and as you would expect, the costumes create havoc. Monica is convinced that, as Catwoman, she could beat up Phoebe’s Supergirl. Joey goes as Chandler; Rachel is going as Rachel. Chandler leaves his costume to Monica, and she chooses a pink bunny suit. And Ross, thinking that he is being clever, goes as Spudnik – or, as Chandler calls him, “a big doody.” Strangely enough, this is the only full Halloween episode in the entire ten season run of Friends. That makes it oddly special.

10. American Horror Story: "Halloween"

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Image via FX

Network: FX

Year: 2011

A batshit crazy show goes even batshittier with this two-part Halloween episode from American Horror Story's first season. Halloween is the one night of the year that ghosts have free reign over the world and can come and go as they please. It is wall-to-wall ghosts in the Murder House,  where current owners Ben and Vivien fight constantly over his mistress, who is back to haunt Ben and taunt Vivien. There is also a pair of dead "Halloqueens" staging the place for an open house; Violet dates a disturbed patient of her father's, and nextdoor neighbor Addy gets hit by a car. All while the diabolical Rubber Man spies from the corners. I always felt that this was the "turning point" on the first season of AHS. Everything was kind of downhill after the Halloween episodes.

9. It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: "Who Got Dee Pregnant?"

Network: FX<

Year: 2010

When actress Kaitlin Olson got pregnant, the It's Always Sunny producers had to figure a way around it because her character Dee is chronically single. She claimed that one of the guys was the father, and what follows is an epic farce that leads the gang to sift through their hazy, drunken memories of a Halloween party to try to figure out who is the father. Panic erupts when, at different times, everyone is ID'd as being the potential father (including her twin brother, Dennis). It isn't until the end of the season that we learn who the father is. It's Always Sunny doesn't really do "holiday" episodes, so it was nice to see them celebrate - especially in their own, bonkers way,

8. Roseanne: "Boo"

Network: ABC

Year: 1989

Roseanne always did Halloween right. Every year they had a huge, extravagant Halloween episode which focused on gory costumes and elaborate prank wars among the Conner family. I pretty much chose "Boo" because this was the show's first Halloween episode. I couldn't decide. Notable costumes throughout the series include Becky's prom zombie costume; Dan and Roseanne as an undead ventriloquist and his dummy; Dan as the Three Stooges in one body; Dan and Jackie as Marie Antoinette carrying her own disembodied head; and Darlene as Tippi Hedren in The Birds. After almost 30 years, Roseanne is still one of the funniest TV shows ever made, and their Halloweens were something that I always aspired to.

7. South Park: "Pinkeye"

Network: Comedy Central

Year: 1997

The episode opens with Kenny dying, as usual. When he is brought into the morgue, the coroner mixes up the bottles and embalms Kenny with Worcestershire sauce. Which, of course, turns Kenny into a zombie, and he goes into town, infecting the people of South Park. When townsfolk are examined by a doctor, they are misdiagnosed with pinkeye. It is up to Kyle and Stan (and, to a lesser extent, Cartman) to save the town. Luckily the good people at the Worcestershire sauce company have a hotline to help with this very problem.  Only on South Park can someone mistakenly embalm a corpse with Worcestershire sauce... and then have zombification be misdiagnosed as pinkeye.

6. Buffy the Vampire Slayer: "Halloween"

Network: UPN

Year: 1997

Halloween in Sunnydale is an unusually calm affair, as vampires usually take the night off, which means vampire slayers have the night off, too. The principal forces the Scooby Gang to chaperone local kids while they trick-or-treat, so the gang gets costumes. Buffy goes as an 18th century noblewoman, Willow goes as a ghost (which covers the sexy punk outfit Buffy makes her wear under her sheet), and Xander goes as Rambo. The festivities begin and a curse by the costume shop owner turns everyone into the characters they are dressed as. Willow can walk through walls, Xander beats people up, and Buffy is totally useless. With chaos on the streets, Spike moves in for the kill. Let's be honest, who hasn't wanted to be their costume for real at one point or another?

5. American Dad!: "Best Little Horror House in Langley Falls"

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Image via FOX

Network: Fox 

Year: 2010 

Every year, Stan Smith wins the neighborhood's Halloween "scariest house on the block" contest. But this year he doesn't have a chance against new neighbor Buckle, a former Disney Imagineer who was let go because his ideas were not "family friendly." His haunted house scares the piss out of Francine (literally), which makes Stan jealous. He uses his CIA contacts to bring in real serial killers to up the scares, but soon finds out that serial killers are not that scary when they are locked up. Luckily, Roger has a plan. I think my love of this episode stems from Buckle and his Disney-fication of Halloween... or rather, his Halloween-ification of Disney. 

4. The Simpsons: "Halloween of Horror"

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Image via 20th Television

Network: Fox

Year: 2015

The Simpsons have been doing "Treehouse of Horror" episodes since the second season of the series. The annual installment of three horror stories is a Halloween tradition. In 2015, the 27th season of The Simpsons, the show did their first-ever standalone Halloween episode. In it, Homer takes an excited Lisa to a Halloween-themed amusement park, but she is terrified by the monsters and it ruins Halloween for the Simpsons. Also: Homer gets into a fight with Halloween pop-up shop employees who attack the house; and Bart and Marge stay out too late trick-or-treating, and are caught in "adult Halloween" festivities. I love that The Simpsons has finally done a Halloween episode outside of the "Treehouse of Horrors," but didn't abandon the "Treehouse of Horrors."

3. Friday the 13th: The Series: "Hellowe'en"

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Network: Syndicated

Year: 1987

In the three year run of the show (which had nothing to do with the movie franchise), Friday the 13th: The Series only had one Halloween episode. The show follows a pair of cousins who inherit an antique store from Lewis, an uncle they never met, that sells inventory cursed by the devil. In "Hellowe'en," the pair host a Halloween party in the store, but one of the guests slips into the basement and starts playing with a crystal ball. It turns out that messing with the crystal ball sent out a "fishing line" to the other side, and calls forth Lewis, who spends the rest of the night trying to resurrect himself. This is my favorite TV show of all time (I actually wrote the book on it) so of course it is going to make it onto my list.

2. Community: "Epidemiology"

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Image via Sony Pictures Television

Network: NBC

Year: 2010

A Halloween party at the college goes berserk when the expired military rations the dean buys for the party turns the students into zombies. I'm not sure which is more horrifying: being locked in the library with diseased students who want to eat your brains, or the ABBA music broadcasting through the school on a loop. Standout costumes include "Sexy Dracula" (a topless Troy with "Dracula" written on a toilet seat cover around his neck); Jeff as David Beckham; the dean as Lady Gaga; Chang as figure skater Peggy Fleming (because anyone who calls him Kristi Yamaguchi or Michelle Kwan is a racist). It is a brilliant way to bring in zombies without bringing in actual, supernatural zombies.

1. Bob's Burgers: "Hauntening"

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Image via FOX

Network: Fox

Year: 2015

The youngest Belcher child, Louise, loves Halloween but laments that she cannot get scared. She has accepted her fate, but her family decides to help scare her. They set up terrible haunted house that wouldn't scare a traumatized bunny, but give up and plan to go home. They discover their car has a flat, so they call a tow truck and wait. While they wait, weird stuff happens in the house: the lights go out, the phone goes dead, the pipes make weird noises, an old man with gardening shears stares menacingly at them. They find a doll with twigs in its eyes and run upstairs. On the lawn, three cloaked figures burn a ring of fire around the house and Louise screams. She has officially been scared, and discovers her family set up the whole thing - cloaked figures and all. This one speaks to me because, like Louise, I cannot get scared.