Spooking, slaying and egging: 10 classic Halloween TV episodes

Halloween’s not just a time for gobbling up bite-size candies by the fistful. It’s also a time for devouring large quantities of Halloween-themed TV episodes: some spooky, some silly, some classics that follow us and invade our thoughts like howls in the night.

Every year brings a new batch of wannabe classics, like “The Office’s” annual Halloween episode, "Modern Family"'s trick or treat escapade and the 21^st installment in “The Simpsons' ” creepilicious “Treehouse of Horror” series on Nov. 7, featuring a “Twilight” sendup in which Lisa falls for a vampiric new kid guest-voiced by Daniel Radcliffe. (Harry Potter as a cartoon vampire? There’s just no way that’ll suck.)

But there’s nothing quite like those old favorites, the ones that send you back to your youth -– or to, um, a couple of years ago. Here's a list of 10 Halloween-themed TV episodes that rise up like zombies from beyond and demand to be remembered, and to be watched again and again and again. (Clips are embedded below if available.) They’ll leave you glowing like a jack-o-lantern.

And if you have a favorite that's not included here, chime in and treat your fellow Showtrackers to it in the comments section.

 1) The Simpsons: “Treehouse of Horror” (aka “The Simpsons Halloween Special”): It’s hard to pick just one installment in the annual “Treehouse of Horror” series, but the very first one, featuring a segment in which James Earl Jones reads Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Raven,” with an assist from Bart, Lisa, Homer and Marge, is in a class by itself. Will you be able to think of the poem the same way ever again? Nope, never more. (Original air date: Oct. 25, 1990.)

 

'How I Met Your Mother' recap: Little girls made of sugar and spice

Is it easier to raise a boy than a girl? Marshall (Jason Segel) seems to think so. His list of possible baby names only includes boy names, most of which Lily (Alyson Hannigan) vetoes thanks to the bad memories and paint stains the little boy rascals she teaches have left. Boys are no picnic, but Marshall worries that he doesn't know how to raise a girl and will screw her up somehow. Then she'll become a stripper and end up marrying an overly botoxed, kind of Ken Doll-esque — how shiny did Neil Patrick Harris look? — older Barney. Truly a horrifying image. Instead of being the guy who sings to the hottest girl at his high school about wanting to get up on her, which we glimpsed Marshall and his buddies doing in a hilarious flashback, complete with jean shorts and ponytail, he'll be the one trying protect his daughter from that kind of behavior.

Marshall's father gives him some instructions for conceiving a son: 1.) Avoid lemons, aka girl fertilizer. 2.) Eat pickled herring before you're about to do it. 3.) Dunk your stuff in ice. 4.) Point Lily due North. Lily, of course, wants a girl and is doing the exact opposite. Honestly, it all sounds counterproductive to conceiving any kind of baby to me. When their friends Stuart and Claudia — nice bit of continuity see them again — decide to name their baby Esther, which is also the name of a stripper that is able to do something too disturbing for words, Marshall and Lily realize they have no control over their baby's gender. They just want a healthy baby.

'How I Met Your Mother': 'A lot is going to change and get complicated,' says co-creator Craig Thomas

It's been a season of growing pains for CBS' “How I Met Your Mother,” but not in the way that you think. After an uneven fifth season, the show has rebounded with a stronger focus, returning to the emotional and romantic journeys that make “How I Met Your Mother” more than just a sitcom.

“We had a ton of fun in Season 5, and I think we definitely did some, in my mind, series classics that year,” says co-creator Craig Thomas. “But there was, without a doubt, less of an overarching story for the whole season.” Thomas says the writers wanted to get back to the “larger emotional arcs that make us care about these characters and love these characters and invest in their journeys.”

“We also wanted to sort of start to tweak the mother mythology in a new way,” he adds, referring to the wedding glimpsed in the season premiere. It turned out not to be Ted's wedding, but he would meet his future wife that day. “We really like kind of reframing that mystery and kind of creating a new mystery and a new way to get to it.”

Now that “Mother” is back on track, it's the characters who are going through growing pains as they get older and contemplate their careers, parenthood, love, marriage, etc. Recently, Thomas spoke with Show Tracker about how Barney's (Neil Patrick Harris) search for his dad -- are you there, John Slattery? It's me, Barney -- will play into his growth arc; Ted's (Josh Radnor) new nemesis, Zoey (Jennifer Morrison); Robin's (Cobie Smulders) career' Marshall (Jason Segel) and Lily's (Alyson Hannigan) trials and tribulations in getting pregnant, his favorite crazy fan theory and more. We also talked about that upcoming wedding and whether Barney and Robin could one day walk down the aisle.

'How I Met Your Mother' recap: Newer, bigger, better

Is new always better, as Barney (Neil Patrick Harris) likes to believe? That was the topic of debate on tonight's episode, in which Ted (Josh Radnor) discovered that The Arcadian was going to be torn down for his new GNB building. The historic hotel was once home to kings and queens, but now it's just home to drag queens, who seem to like Ted. Despite its decrepitude -– and the possibility that the building is infested with snakes, which GNB used to get the residents out -– Zoey (Jennifer Morrison), a little bit “crazy for a good cause” activist Ted meets, is desperate to save the building. And Ted wants to help. It has nothing to do with the fact that Zoey is a hot architecture nerd. Right.

Barney and the gang argue that by not revealing himself as the “Architect of Destruction” and trying to convince GNB to move the construction site, Ted is changing himself for Zoey. Like the time he pretended to be an adrenaline junkie because his date was one, or the time he dressed up as a wizard because “she was really hot." Ted rightfully counters that we all change a little bit for the person we like. Ted goes to join Zoey's protest, but a billboard of “architectual wizard” Ted Mosby outs him as an employee of GNB. To make things right, he presents a new design plan to Zoey that will incorporate the Arcadian's facade into the new GNB building. It's all looking very positive until Ted notices a ring on her finger. In a classic “How I Met Your Mother” twist, it turns out Zoey is married. Maybe she shouldn't have been spending time alone with a random guy in the middle of the night. Just a thought.

'How I Met Your Mother': CBS orders additional episodes

CBS has added two more episodes to “How I Met Your Mother's” current season order, the network confirms.

The series will produce 24 half-hour episodes, the same number it did in its previous two seasons.

It looks like fans (and Ted's kids) will have to wait a bit longer to find out the conclusion of this story, at least for this season. Until then, there's the debut of Jennifer Morrison (“House”) to look forward to next week as Zoey, “a hot girl who's passionate about saving the landmark building that is being torn down to make room for” Ted's (Josh Radnor) new building.

“Mother” has lined up several other guest stars for its sixth and current season, including Jorge Garcia (“Lost”), Will Forte (“Saturday Night Live”), Kyle MacLachlan (“Desperate Housewives”) and Nicole Scherzinger (of the Pussycat Dolls) for the much-anticipated Robin Sparkles episode.

Readers, are you happy to get some more “HIMYM” this season?

-- Vlada Gelman (follow my TV musings on Twitter at @stayingin)

Related:

'How I Met Your Mother' recap: First one there...

'How I Met Your Mother' recap: A little closure goes a long way

Complete 'How I Met Your Mother' coverage on Showtracker

Photo: Zoey (Jennifer Morrison) and Ted (Josh Radnor). Credit: Monty Brinton / CBS.

'How I Met Your Mother' recap: First one there...

Any “How I Met Your Mother” fans from New York out there? I think this episode was made for you. For the rest of us, I don't think it was quite as hilarious or wink, wink, nudge, nudge. And it didn't help that New York was clearly a studio lot in Los Angeles. But it's oddly appropriate that an episode challenging whether or not Canadian import Robin (Cobie Smulders) is a real New Yorker aired on Oct. 11, Canadian Thanksgiving. According to the gang, one is not a real New Yorker until they've done all three of these things: 1.) Stolen a cab from someone who needs it more. 2.) Cried in the subway and not given a damn about what other people think. 3.) Killed a cockroach with your bare hands. Seeing Woody Allen is also a requisite, something Robin hasn't accomplished. When Marshall's (Jason Segel) friend spots him in a restaurant, the gang sets off on a race to see who can get there first.

Ted
Method: Bus
Why he needs the win: Ted (Josh Radnor) found out about a website that lets you rate your teachers. Despite getting 64 positive reviews, he can only concentrate on the one bad review that said he was “boring.” Ted, take it from someone who used those types of sites in college –- that's amazing.
The journey: He begins spouting off random facts about buildings to the other bus passengers until he becomes that one, crazy guy no one wants to sit next to. And when they do, they doze off. Ted wonders if he's so boring he's putting everyone to sleep?

'How I Met Your Mother' recap: A little closure goes a long way

Although “Unfinished” had a nice, unifying theme behind it — the idea that we all have unfinished hopes and dreams and relationships — it didn't quite hit the emotional notes as strongly as last week's quest for Barney's (Neil Patrick Harris) father. Still, the episode moved some of the characters forward and had some amusing moments. The most welcome closure came for Robin (Cobie Smulders), who is still not over Don Frank (never trust someone with two first names). I was having a hard time believing that Robin was still in such a funk over Don. She seemed less upset over her breakup with Ted and that relationship lasted a lot longer. But as Robin explains to her friends, she can't get closure on Don because the relationship just ended suddenly and abruptly. It's unfinished. That becomes abundantly clear when Robin finds a channel that airs Don's new show and proceeds to drunk dial him and leave him “indelicate,” threatening voicemails like this one:

“I'm going to fly to Chicago, kill you, put your stupid face on a deep dish pizza and eat it.” Beat. “And then maybe catch a Bears game, but mostly the killing and eating your face thing.” Smulders' delivery was spot-on — half hilarious, half seriously scary. Kind of like a murderous clown.

After several more voicemails, Lily (Alyson Hannigan) forces Robin to delete Don from her contacts. When Lily finds out that Robin lied and never deleted the number, Robin tells her it's not that easy to delete that part of her life and those memories. If she's going to do it, Lily's going to have to delete a number too, so how about the one for her karate dojo — nice callback to Ted's “Karate Kid” speech from the season premiere — but Lily can't do it. And Marshall (Jason Segel) can't bring himself to delete the number of his band's gig booker, even though they've only played one show. Doing that means accepting that you'll never fulfill that fantasy of learning karate or that you'll never play with the band again. Even when Robin does delete the number, she's still able to dial it from heart until one day she isn't. “Finished with that,” she says, realizing she's forgotten Don's number and gotten closure. Finally!

'How I Met Your Mother' recap: Who's your daddy?

So much of “How I Met Your Mother” is about the identity of the mystery mom. It's right there in the title, after all. But there's another parental mystery in the show – the question of “Who is Barney's dad?” In Season 2's hilarious “Showdown” episode, we learned that Barney's (Neil Patrick Harris) mom told him Bob Barker was his dad, which was a lie Barney happily accepted. But tonight, we got a really sweet, funny and often heartwarming story about Barney coming to terms with the truth about his father's identity. What really worked for me about this episode is that it brought the whole group together for one storyline – a recipe that often makes for some of the show's strongest episodes.

Barney reveals that his mom, Loretta (Frances Conroy), is selling his childhood home, which Ted (Josh Radnor) sympathizes with since his mother's hippy husband has turned his room into a “tantric sex temple.” “With all the bamboo, pot smoke and '60s music, it's like my old G.I. Joes are frozen in some weird Vietnam flashback,” Ted jokes. Barney talks the group into helping him spend an entire weekend packing up his mom's home, where they go through his stuff to glimpse insights into his childhood. In flashbacks to curly, moppet-haired Barney, we learn that his mom lied to him over and over to spare his feelings when he got kicked off the basketball team for sucking and when no one came to his birthday because he threw up at a museum. Barney was not always so awesome.

Lily (Alyson Hannigan) points out that Marshall's (Jason Segel) mom lied to him as a child too. When he got too hyper, she'd tell him he was sick and gave him cough medicine to knock him out. The gigantic Marshall hilariously says that he thinks this is what stunted his growth in the fifth grade, when he hit 6-foot-4. He is the shortest member of the family. Lily says that she refuses to lie to her kids, especially about Santa. “But that's a good lie. Like when we tell Ted he'll meet the right girl and settle down,” Marshall replies. Zing!

'How I Met Your Mother' recap: For whom the wedding bells toll

“Kids, there are two big days in any love story: The day you meet the girl of your dreams and the day you marry her.”

That's how Monday night's “How I Met Your Mother” season premiere started. After a summer summer of telling TV reporters and critics that Season 6 would be a return to the show's early seasons, co-creators Carter Bays and Craig Thomas delivered a solid episode that got things off to a promising start with a sweet Marshall (Jason Segel) and Lily (Alyson Hannigan) story and a classic “Mother” twist ending, but back to the beginning first.

The episode started with a flash forward to a wedding. Marshall brings a nervous Ted (Josh Radnor) a beer. Could this be Ted's wedding day? Back in the present day, a nervous Ted is trying to work up the nerve to approach a hot girl at the bar. When Cindy (Rachel Bilson) shows up and greets the girl, Ted realizes that she may be Cindy's perfect-for-Ted roommate, but getting to her will be even harder now since he and Cindy didn't end things on good terms. Cue flashback to Ted and Cindy having an awkward exchange on campus.

And the winners of the Creative Arts Emmys are...

Our colleagues at the Gold Derby attended the Creative Arts Emmys ceremony in Los Angeles on Saturday and blogged the results.

A few things we noted:

"Modern Family" picked up an Emmy for best casting in a comedy series. Does that mean an Emmy for outstanding comedy is on its way? Most TV critics are predicting the ABC single-camera comedy as the winner next Sunday. This could be a sign the academy agrees.

"Mad Men" nabbed the nod for best casting in a drama series. We do love the cast, but hope this doesn't mean the AMC series will pick up its third Emmy in a row in that category. With "Lost's" final season in the mix and spectacular seasons for "Dexter" and "Breaking Bad," there's got to be a new winner, no?

Choreographer Mia Michaels may have turned off a lot of viewers when she replaced Mary Murphy at the judge's table of "So You Think You Can Dance" this season. But arguing against her immense talents as a choreographer is futile. She deserves the Emmy she won Saturday night.

"Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution" won the Emmy for best reality program, and that's not a bad pick. The charming naked chef took on children's obesity in this weight-loss show and struck a chord with viewers.

Of course, Jeff Probst won his third Emmy for best reality show host for his work on "Survivor." As long as he's in the running, it's not likely anyone will ever beat him. No one can elicit information from contestants and direct a reality competition the way he can. (Boo to the academy for not including this award in the regular telecast Aug. 29).

John Lithgow did amazing work on "Dexter" last season as the Trinity Killer and won an Emmy on Saturday for it. Apparently, he thanked HBO instead of Showtime for the opportunity. Hope Dexter didn't hear that.

Ann-Margret picked up a guest actress Emmy in a drama for her work on "Law & Order: SVU." She apparently knew what network that show is on.

Neil Patrick Harris hasn't won an Emmy for his role on "How I Met Your Mother" but he won Saturday for his guest spot on Fox's "Glee."

Betty White is still on fire. She won an Emmy for guest actress on "Saturday Night Live." But she got bested in the best commercial category by the Old Spice dude. Apparently, you can't have it all Betty.

-- Maria Elena Fernandez

twitter.com/writerchica

Photo: John Lithgow at the Creative Arts Emmys on Saturday.

Credit: Chris Pizzello / Associated Press

'How I Met Your Mother': Maybe baby

Two weeks ago, Marshall (Jason Segel) and Lily (Alyson Hannigan) decided to leave things up to fate. In “Doppelgangers,” Marshall revealed that he was ready to be a father, but he and Lily had agreed to wait for a sign from the universe. When they saw the fifth and final doppelganger, they would start trying to get pregnant. The pair thought the time had come when they spotted dark-haired cab driver Barney (Neil Patrick Harris).

“Put a baby in my belly,” Lily declared. But the doppelganger was actually Barney on a quest to bed a woman from every country. Dressing up as a cab driver and waiting outside the United Nations was a part of his plan. Lily didn't even think the doppelganger looked that much like Barney even though it was really him. Marshall took this as a sign that Lily wasn't ready for parenthood.

Ted's (Josh Radnor) romantic storyline took a backseat in the finale, letting Robin (Cobie Smulders) and Don's (Benjamin Koldyke) relationship pick up the slack in the love department. I still find it hard to be invested in the relationship due to Don's lack of screentime, so it was nice to see the two working together and being affectionate, however briefly. They were such a great duo onscreen and off (so says Future Ted; we haven't actually seen much of that ourselves), that the station had them hosting the children's puppet show “Monty & Moo-Moo.”

'How I Met Your Mother': Your baggage is my baggage

I've had mixed to ambivalent to negative feelings about “Mother's” recent episodes, but I found myself enjoying Monday night's episode. No, it wasn't perfect, but I found quite a few things to like, including:

Judy Greer: The serial guest star appeared as Royce, a girl that Ted (Josh Radnor) had just begun dating. Ted took her to a see “The Wedding Bride” not knowing that the movie was inspired by a true story – his story. Stella's (Sarah Chalke) ex, Tony (Jason Jones), was behind the film, and he'd skewed the story to make Jed Moseley (Chris Kattan) the bad guy, while he got a major upgrade, with Jason Lewis playing him. The fact that Tony knew about private things like Ted falling asleep on top of Stella while they were make love – it only happened once and he was on cold medicine! -- and Ted's red boots does not makes me think nice things about Stella. I hope she at least gave Tony some hell for making Ted into a cartoonish villain. Or maybe she's too busy enjoying all her new money because “The Wedding Bride” is already the fifth-highest-grossing film of all time, Robin (Cobie Smulders) informs Ted. Clearly the movie is supposed to skewer today's horribly cheesy romantic comedies – I sat through “Valentine's Day” the other day, and it was not pretty – but with every “aww” and burst of laughter from the movie audience, I had the same thought as Ted: “What is wrong with you people?” Perhaps it was another jab at the horrible taste of movie-goers. I've definitely been to real movies and wondered why people were laughing.

A cheesy but romantic ending: Robin would have probably found it “a little cheesy,” as she did all of Ted's romantic gestures toward Stella, but I found the overlay of “The Wedding Bride's” ending with Ted running to find Royce in the movie theater quite sweet. As on-screen Tony professed his love for on-screen Stella (Malin Akerman), Ted revealed the truth about his left-at-the-altar baggage to Royce and asked if he could make her pancakes. Royce accepted – the explanation and the pancakes – as the audience, egged on by Barney (Neil Patrick Harris), cheered, “Kiss her.” Except he wasn't saying, “Kiss.” You can use your imagination. Royce and Ted kissed as Tony and Stella did the same on screen to the sounds of the “Love Actually” score. Even the piece of the score was fittingly matched to the rom-com episode. It was from the sequence when Colin Firth's character goes to profess his love to his housekeeper, Aurelia. As they exited the theater, Royce picked up Ted's baggage and helped him carry it.