The Halloween Podcast

Lyle and Meghan are joined by actress and musician Shay Astar for a special Xennial Countdown interview looking back at some of her most memorable roles. Shay shares stories from filming the 1991 Halloween favorite Ernest Scared Stupid , including her experience playing Elizabeth and what it was like being part of a movie that has become a seasonal favorite for an entire generation. She also talks...

We’re heading back to the Disney Halloween television specials that helped make October magical for a generation of kids!   This time, Meghan and Lyle are joined by Special Guests Kalyn Andrews and Christian Baxter Mott, hosts of That’s Pretty Dark, to revisit Disney’s Halloween Treat (1982) and A Disney Halloween (1983).   From familiar Disney characters and delightfully spooky animation to child...

Lyle and Meghan are joined by Brian Earl from Christmas Past: A Christmas Podcast for a trip back into the world of Scooby-Doo and the spooky mysteries that made the franchise such a natural fit for Halloween. They talk about the classic series, the ghosts, monsters, haunted houses, and masked villains that helped make Scooby-Doo such a huge part of growing up. Along the way, the three share their...

Lyle is heading back to the ’80s for a look at ALF and its Halloween episode, Season 2, Episode 6, “Some Enchanted Evening.” Meghan couldn’t make this one, so Lyle enlisted Gerry from the Totally Rad Christmas Podcast to help revisit the episode, which finds ALF determined to experience Halloween and eventually becoming the star attraction at the Tanners’ Halloween party. They talk about the episo...

Lyle and Meghan are revisiting Once Upon a Midnight Scary , the 1979 television special hosted by Vincent Price and built around three classic spooky stories. They talk about the stories featured in the special, the performances, the atmosphere, and what makes Vincent Price such a perfect host for this kind of Halloween viewing. Along the way, Lyle also takes a moment to talk about what the Xennia...

Lyle and Meghan are saying his name three times and heading into the strange, colorful world of Beetlejuice . This time, they’re looking back at both the 1988 movie and the animated series that became a favorite for kids growing up in the late ’80s and ’90s. They talk about what made the movie so memorable, how the cartoon took Beetlejuice and Lydia in a completely different direction, and why the...

Lyle and Meghan are heading back to 1979 for a look at Casper’s Halloween Special , a classic animated Halloween special featuring everyone’s favorite friendly ghost. They talk about the story, the characters, the Halloween atmosphere, and how Casper fits into the long tradition of seasonal TV specials. Along the way, they share their thoughts on the special, the nostalgia surrounding Casper, and...

Lyle and Meghan are digging into one of the sweetest parts of Halloween nostalgia: the treats that made the season taste like Halloween. From trick-or-treat bags and candy aisles to wonderfully weird novelty foods and seasonal favorites, they’re each counting down their personal Top 5 Halloween treats. Along the way, they share the memories behind their choices, compare favorites, and make room fo...

Lyle and Meghan continue the Xennial Countdown to Halloween with LVCRFT — Evan “Kidd” Bogart, Amanda “MNDR” Warner, and Peter Wade — and Special Guest Katharine Isabelle. Together, they head back into the Halloween world they grew up with and explore some of the sounds and spooky pop culture that helped make the season what it was for a generation of Xennials. They also dive into LVCRFT’s eighth a...

Lyle and Meghan welcome British composer and sound designer Leigh Haggerwood to The Halloween Podcast to explore something we hear every October but rarely stop to think about: the sounds that make Halloween spooky. Leigh has spent decades working professionally in music and sound, with credits across British television, live productions, commercials, and sound design, while also creating Hallowee...

Under the Umbrella Tree was a cozy fixture of Meghan’s childhood Disney Channel viewing, but this Canadian children’s favorite is completely new to Lyle. For the Xennial Countdown, they revisit Holly, Iggy, Gloria and Jacob—and the wonderfully simple Halloween special that brought the holiday into their already delightfully unusual household.   From costumes and trick-or-treating to a little pract...

Witch’s Night Out is one of Meghan’s beloved childhood Halloween specials — a wonderfully weird Canadian cartoon from 1978 featuring Gilda Radner as an eccentric Witch who can make a couple of kids’ Halloween dreams come spectacularly true. Meghan still watches it every year and is now introducing it to her own children.   Lyle, however, had somehow never seen it. So Meghan takes him to Anytown fo...

Actor Curtis Andersen, who played Gordy on Sabrina the Teenage Witch, joins Meghan and Lyle for a trip through Halloween horror! Curtis puts together a movie watch list every year leading up to Halloween, so we’re talking about some of his annual go-tos alongside a few films that earned an important place in horror history. How did horror movies become such a big part of the way we celebrate Hallo...

CONTENT WARNING: This episode discusses murder, cannibalism, and harm to children and animals. Parental discretion is advised before listening with children. Today, Meghan and Lyle sink their teeth into “Wonderful Sausage,” a particularly gruesome tale collected by Alvin Schwartz in Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones (1991), with unforgettable illustrations by Stephen Gammell. What ma...

Lyle is taking Meghan back to his childhood with a Halloween cassette she had never heard before: Peter & the Werewolf! This vintage Fun World recording combines spooky storytelling with the wonderfully eerie sound effects that made Halloween so much fun for Xennial kids. Join us as Lyle shares his memories of this childhood favorite and Meghan discovers what she's been missing all these years...

Jason Marsden joins us for today’s Xennial Countdown to Halloween! You know Jason from an incredible list of films and television shows, including A Goofy Movie, Eerie, Indiana, and very importantly around here Hocus Pocus. We had an absolute blast talking with Jason, who is genuinely one of the nicest guys you could hope to meet. We get into some of those Xennial favorites, spend plenty of time t...

Today on the Xennial Countdown to Halloween, Meghan and Lyle are heading to one of the strangest little towns of the early 1990s: Eerie, Indiana. Premiering on NBC in 1991, the series followed 13-year-old Marshall Teller as he tried to document the increasingly bizarre things happening around him in a place where almost everyone else seemed perfectly happy to accept the weirdness as normal. Meghan...

Buttons and Rusty are heading into Halloween for the first time, and the young bear and fox quickly discover that humans have some very strange October traditions. Meghan revisits a childhood favorite filled with trick-or-treating, witches, a pair of criminals, and one ridiculously catchy title song. And given her mild childhood obsession with “woodland animals” — something friends and family can...

Garfield loves food, hates Mondays, and discovers that Halloween may be the perfect holiday for one very important reason: candy. Today, Meghan and Lyle are watching Garfield’s Halloween Adventure for the first time. Neither grew up with this 1985 special, but after hearing generations of Xennials talk about creepy old houses, ghostly pirates, and one surprisingly spooky Halloween night, it was ti...

Who ya gonna call? For Xennials, Ghostbusters was far more than a 1984 movie. The film became a full-blown childhood phenomenon, with its unmistakable logo, proton packs, Ecto-1, ghosts, toys, cartoons and one of the most recognizable theme songs of the decade. Today, Lyle and Meghan revisit the original Ghostbusters and The Real Ghostbusters, looking at the strange combination of comedy and the s...

Alvin Schwartz told us that “The Trouble,” from Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones, was true. And behind the story that terrified a generation of young readers was a real family, a real police investigation, and a strange series of events that unfolded on Long Island in 1958. Meghan and Lyle revisit “The Trouble” and dig into the real Seaford poltergeist case that inspired it, separat...

What happens when Bugs Bunny takes on Halloween? Witches, vampires, monsters, potions, trick-or-treating and one extremely eventful Halloween night — Bugs Bunny’s Howl-oween Special takes some of the spookiest corners of classic Looney Tunes and somehow turns them into one delightfully chaotic Halloween adventure. Meghan and Lyle head back to 1977 to revisit this spooky seasonal special, talk abou...

Yesterday, we revisited the original Goosebumps books that terrified, delighted, and completely took over the bookshelves of a generation. Today, we’re joined by the artist responsible for the images we saw before we ever turned the first page. Special Guest Tim Jacobus, the original cover illustrator for R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps series, joins us to talk about creating some of the most instantly re...

For Xennial kids, few books were as instantly recognizable as Goosebumps. That dripping logo, those gloriously strange covers, the Scholastic book fairs and book orders — and 62 original stories that helped make being scared ridiculously fun. Today, Meghan and Lyle are going back to the original Goosebumps series from 1992–1997 and remembering what it was like to discover these books as kids. From...

Can we really call something a proper holiday if Rankin/Bass didn’t make a television special for it? Today we’re digging up one of the stranger corners of Rankin/Bass history with Jack O’Lantern , the wonderfully weird 1972 Halloween installment of Festival of Family Classics . It’s new to Lyle, relatively new to Meghan, and packed with pumpkins, witches, warlocks, scarecrows, supernatural mayhem...