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Umm... trick or treat?
The characters are costumed, their houses are decked out haunted mansion style, they tell spooky stories, and weird (or weirder than usual) things abound! It's the yearly Halloween Episode!
Probably the most well known of these is The Simpsons " Treehouse of Horror" episodes, but most American kids' and genre shows have them. While neither Samhain nor All Saints Eve is ever mentioned, the similarly themed (but more upbeat) Dia de los Muertos (Nov 1-2) might be if the characters are on a visit to Mexico.
If it's too scary (or rather, too successful), this may result in Nightmare Fuel. Often a Bizarro Episode as well. Either way, coming across a Halloween episode of a show you watch in syndication is often an unexpected treat.
If the cast ends up in Halloween costumes, expect at least some of them to be a Shout Out or even the occasional Actor Allusion.
There's a subversion/reversal on supernatural-oriented series where Halloween is literally a holiday for supernatural beings, and they all stay home. (Some Fridge Logic here because this assumes that terrorizing the populace is a job for supernatural creatures, rather than leisure activity.)
See also Halloween Special.
Examples
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Anime and Manga
- Ouran High School Host Club has a Halloween episode with a Kimodameshi competition. It also gives the cast the opportunity to remark on how Renge dresses up in costumes even when it's not Halloween.
- Keroro Gunsou had a Halloween episode where a mysterious girl who had apparently been adopted by a demon-like alien kidnapped Fuyuki.
- Axis Powers Hetalia has two Halloween strips. One of which involves America and England trying to outscare each other (a long running competition between the two). Hetalia also recently featured a Halloween Special Episode which also included France harassing a young woman and resulting in a trip to jail. ( Surprisingly he didn't seem to mind that he had been detained and questioned by the police)
- There was also a bigger one 2011, involving a party and costume contest.
- Suite Pretty Cure ♪ has a Halloween episode. Unlike a lot of examples, it actually plays into the plot somewhat: It's the first episode after a major Wham Episode involving a change in villain management.
- Dirty Pair OAV episode 2 took place on Halloween. The plot involved a search for an escaped stolen combat robot, made more difficult by the camouflage provided by the many costumed people in town that day, and a fireworks display at midnight during which the robot begins shooting missiles (which some bystanders assume are All Part of the Show), and Yuri and Kei destroy the robot with the fireworks after their usual weapons aren't enough.
- The Cowboy Bebop movie takes place on Halloween.
Fan Fic
Comics
- The Powerpuff Girls had two Halloween stories: "Trick Or Beatings" (issue #31) had the girls framed for Halloween pranks staged by the Gangreen Gang, and "Halloween Hiding" (issue #67) had the Gangreens hiding out from the girls at a Halloween dance party.
- Little Lulu comics had a few giant-size Halloween special issues, naturally with plenty of stories featuring Little Itch the witch.
- A 2012 issue of Action Comics had a Halloween story, featuring a Phantom Zone escapee trapping Superman in the Phantom Zone. In the New 52, Phantom Zone prisoners can walk in the real world but cannot be seen, heard or touched, making them closer to actual ghosts. For bonus points, the issue is number thirteen.
Literature
- For the first four Harry Potter books, an important plot development happens on Halloween and is usually the focus of the chapter in which it occurs, so those chapters could be said to be "Halloween episodes" in a sense. The first of these chapters is actually titled "Halloween".
- And also, Harry's parents were killed on Halloween of 1981.
- The Dresden Files has had two of these:
- Grave Peril, where the dead are restless and Bianca holds a costume party to celebrate her promotion ( both of which are related, as she uses the party as both a play for power and an excuse to kill several of her enemies). Harry, of course, decides to show up to the party as the cheesiest vampire possible.
- Dead Beat, wherein a whole bunch of necromancers descend on Chicago in a desperate attempt to claim godlike power.
- Goosebumps had The Haunted Mask (along with it's sequels) and Attack of the Jack o Lanterns. Series 2000 had Headless Halloween, and Goosebumps Horrorland had Weirdo Halloween and The Five Masks of Dr Screem.
Live Action TV
Professional Wrestling
- WWE will usually have something Halloween related in the week Raw or Smackdown falls on Halloween. The most famous one was in 2002 that featured a backstage Halloween party where Stephanie McMahon (then Smackdown GM) and Eric Bischoff (then Raw GM) kissed in Stephanie's office. That was also the night that started John Cena's rapper gimmick as he dressed up as Vanilla Ice and performed a rap.
- These days you can usually expect the divas to have a costume contest which have been taking place since 2006.
- In fact in 2007 and 2008 the costume contests were part of the Cyber Sunday PPV. Mickie James won both of them, first for dressing up as Pocahontas and then as Lara Croft.
- The NXT rookie divas had a contest as well with Aksana as a devil, Maxine as an ice queen, Naomi as the Hamburger Helper hand, AJ as Raphael, and Kaitlyn as Vickie Guerrero.
- WCW used to have "Halloween Havok" a Halloween themed pay-per-view event. Highlights from the event included Rick Rude debuting as a masked "Halloween Phantom," a "Chamber of Horrors" Match, and a mummy called "The Yeti" attacking Hulk Hogan.
- Most recently Raw had The Muppets as the guest stars and yes the Divas were in costume again.
Radio Drama
- No discussion of Halloween episodes can overlook Orson Welles' (in)famous radio dramatization of The War Of The Worlds in a 1938 Halloween Eve broadcast of the Mercury Theatre on the Air. The first half of the program, presented as a Phony Newscast of the Martians' invasion of New Jersey, led to panic in some parts of the country when listeners took the "reports" as real.
- The Christian radio drama Adventures in Odyssey has an interesting variant - an episode from early in the show's run called What Are We Gonna Do About Halloween? that taught An Aesop about Halloween being evil.
Video Games
- World of Warcraft has a Halloween themed special week (often falling in between October 28th and November 2nd) in which you get Halloween themed items, can 'trick or treat' other players, and hunt the Headless Horseman Expy.
- Bully has a Halloween mission (two, if you're playing the Updated Rerelease) where Jimmy, Gary, and Petey run around and raise all sorts of hell on Halloween night, in costumes. Jimmy's a skeleton, Petey's a pink bunny rabbit, and Gary's a Nazi officer (No Swastikas, though).
- Team Fortress 2 has run special Halloween events for the past 3 years, featuring bosses and enemies ranging from ghosts, giant undead headless monsters wearing pumpkins on their heads that run around beheading people, giant floating eyeballs that shoot exploding eyeballs, angry magicians, and even zombies.
- Halloween is one of the major event holidays in Animal Crossing both in the GameCube version and in the City Folk version, where you buy candy throughout the month of October in Tom Nook's store and give them to villagers to prevent them from playing tricks on you by transforming your clothes and pocketed items into Halloween themed items, while trying to find the real Jack (one of the special holiday NPCs) who all your villagers are dressed as and give him candy in order to get the Spooky furniture series from him. Though this is the point of the holiday in both versions of the game, there are some subtle different features added to the holiday in the City Folk version, such as being able to get villagers who are inside their homes to give you candy with a complete costume outfit which was not possible in the GameCube Animal Crossing's version of the holiday.
- Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare is this to the "Red Dead" series.
- In FAMOUS has the DLC Festival of Blood. It's about Cole being turned into a vampire.
- Some people like to consider The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask as one for the series, what with the emphasis on masks, the darker atmosphere and lots of genuinely scary moments. Not to mention the game was released in America on October 26 2000, just 5 days before Halloween.
- Banjo-Kazooie has a Halloween level in Mad Monster Mansion, complete with a Ouija Board puzzle, haunted church and graveyard, a big creepy organ in the church, and the Mumbo Jumbo transformation for this area as Banjo and Kazooie being turned into a pumpkin.
- Killing Floor has updates for Halloween every year.
- Sleeping Dogs has the Nightmare at North Point DLC. A murdered triad gangster comes back from the grave as a hungry ghost, and the district is overrun by Jiang Shi.
- The original Costume Quest takes place on Halloween as the player takes control of a group of kids that go trick-or-treating during a monster invasion. The DLC was a Christmas Episode.
Web Comics
- Fetish comic, Craving Control had a two part special featuring its gluttonous protagonist Lalia going trick or treating and cleaning out the whole neighbourhood before any of the kids could show up.
- In The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob!, no matter what else may be going on in the storyline, the gigantic Halloween Monster
 always shows up for a cameo in the strip nearest to Halloween. His appearance changes subtly with each reappearance, and he does occasionally show up out of season.
- Schlock Mercenary took this to the extreme with the annual "Schlocktoberfest", in which the storyline filling the month of October always took a dark theme, sometimes associated with classic horror movies. Howard discontinued Schlocktoberfest after the arc about Tagon's 50th birthday.
- This issue of Questionable Content has the main characters talking about Halloween episodes of webcomics.
- For Halloween 2008, nudist webcomic The Bare Pit featured three spooky stories told around a campfire, although the cartoonist admits that Australians don't celebrate Halloween the way Americans do.
- Angst Technology often had the team attending an office Hallowe'en Party. Ink Tank has continued the tradition.
- Bob and George had one every year. The first two were general costumes (with someone dressing as the Pink Power Ranger as a Running Gag) Starting with 2002 (and barring 2004), each year had a theme to the costumes.
- 2002: Super Heroes
- 2003: Final Fantasy
- 2005: Video Games (Mostly Nintendo, but some Sega too)
- 2006: Anime (also set in the hand-drawn universe)
- Nicktoons Tales has the dark Nicktoons Tales of Terror episode. It has the main trio (A.D.S., Timmy, and ZIM) tell scary stories ala Simpsons' Treehouse Of Horror format.
- Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff has one◊. True to tradition, it was written and published on Christmas Day 2010. It later received a Call Back in Homestuck when Kanaya "died". Not everyone thought this was appropriate.
- The Keiki comic "Beefer Madness" became a Halloween special about halfway through, because Peter Paltridge didn't have time to write a whole new story.
- Mulberry had the title character hunt a zombie in "Franken-Berry", and later, pull some frightening pranks on her rival in "Let's Scare Mary Roach To Death".
- The Whiteboard almost always has a Halloween-related story around October. Mostly it's just parties where Cameos from other webcomics abound, but on occasion it's a full story arc, like with the 2010 Zombie Apocalypse story arc.
- In Roommates (Mega Crossover Fan Webcomic) the Halloween arc is traditionally the highlight of the year. Be it a Costume Party that gets derailed into a Murder Mystery (2008) or a Zombie Apocalypse (2011).
- An Ears for Elves filler page for Halloween here has drawings of the artist and site maintainer dressing up. Well, more like one getting into the festive spirit and the other wondering what the point is...
- Bittersweet Candy Bowl has Mischief Night. Paulo dressed up as [[Twilight Edward]] for his girlfriend, Jasmine as an undead Geisha, Mike as Cthulu, and Lucy as Lieselotte, an expy of Lucy from a RP on the forums.
Web Original
- The Angry Video Game Nerd does an annual Halloween double feature in which he rips apart horror-themed video games:
- 2006: The Nerd takes on the sucky licensed games of Friday The13th and A Nightmare On Elm Street and fights both Jason and Freddy.
- 2007: The Nerd gets menaced by evil hillbillies and a mad slasher as he plays the games of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Halloween.
- 2008: The Nerd covers the classics by snarking about some bad Dracula games, then decides to play god and creates a Franken-Nerd to play bad games in his place. It doesn't end well.
- 2009: The Nerd does a marathon of the classic Castlevania games.
- 2010: The Nerd revisited the most horrifying game he had ever reviewed; Dr Jekyl And Mr Hyde.
- 2011: The Nerd reviews Dark Castle for Sega Genesis and CD-i.
- 2012: The Nerd reviews Ghosts 'n Goblins for NES.
- James also does a Monster Madness month over on Cinemassacre, where he'll review monster and horror movies (the 2011 run, for example, does the Universal Frankenstien, Nightmare on Elm Street and the Halloween series)
- The Annoying Orange has at least one Halloween video every year:
- Fred has had a few.
- Every year, the main characters from Homestar Runner (plus others, such as Marshie, Stinkoman, or The Goblin) get dressed up in costumes and do stuff. They are often dressed up as some obscure pop culture icon from the '70s, 80's, or 90's, although we will occasionally be relieved of guessing too hard with some costumes such as Tingle, Hello Kitty, Beetlejuice, Zoidberg, or M. Bison. The events are different each year, such as one memorable Halloween where you got to give the characters candy in an interactive game. There are also a few traditions, such as an appearance from The Goblin, Coach Z going as a hip-hop artist, the "Witch's Brew" catchphrase, or Marzipan cross-dressing (Lampshaded when Homestar said that Marzipan's cross-dressing was starting to freak him out).
- Can't forget this one: Always, always click near the Poopsmith to see the easter egg with Homsar.
- In 2010, the creators of Homestar Runner put off the Halloween special until December. As a result, everyone dressed as either characters from Christma-er, Decemberween specials, or as Decemberween decorations.
- The Irate Gamer also has annual Halloween episodes:
- 2007: After a Cold Opening involving The Devil and the Evil Gamer, the Irate Gamer, dressed as a Ghostbuster, reviews Zombies Ate My Neighbors, while pausing occasionally to talk to a Jewish skeleton after noting that there are no skeleton enemies in the game. At the end, he throws the game into his ghost trap, gets one last call from the skeleton, and leaves. The Evil Gamer then takes over the show, but ends up talking to the skeleton as well.
- 2008: Another cold opening shows the Evil Gamer plotting another Hostile Show Takeover from within his "Castle of Evil", coming up with a plan to kill the Irate Gamer with Monster Party. The Irate Gamer himself, meanwhile, is not invited to the biggest Halloween party in town, leaving him stuck at home getting unwanted visitors. He decides to vent his frustration by reviewing bad games, and finds that a Monster Party cartridge has mysteriously appeared on his occult shelf. While he reviews the game, characters from previous episodes show up, and the Irate Gamer gets more unwanted visitors. Eventually, the Irate Gamer beats the game, unleashing the devil. The devil wants to take over the world, but gets distracted by a Voltron figure while trying to kill the IG, and both of them go to drink apple juice at a bar, despite protests from the Evil Gamer.
- The Nostalgia Critic has an annual Halloween related video/review:
- 2007: The Top 11 Scariest Nostalgic Moments
- 2008: The Critic vs. Teddy Ruxpin
- 2009: Casper
- 2010: Instead of just one review, The Critic does an entire month's worth of reviews;
- 2011: Once again, The Critic devotes the entire month of October to scary movie reveiws:
- Rhett & Link, who are Christians, have no trouble celebrating Halloween, seeing as most of the demonic observations have faded. They wrote Trick-or-Treat song and even made a podcast that compares Halloween to the "Harvest Season."
- Trinton Chronicles had a whole arc dedicated to the Halloween season in late 2007; it featured a vampire who sucked on powers (as opposed to blood) who went around turning people into ghouls after sufficiently draining them of their powers and life force. He was brought down in dramatic flare and fashion by having an electrified sword driven into his chest where he promptly exploded into sand. At the end of the story a huge fireworks display is shown over the city with a good old fashion Happy Halloween scrawled in the sky.
- The Whateley Universe had a big Halloween spectacular for the fall of 2006 (Whateley time), when everyone dressed in fun costumes (Phase hated his)... and the campus was attacked by cyborgs, robots, and dropships full of Syndicate badguys. It ended up taking three full stories to wrap it up. Fanon has speculated on what might happen at Halloween 2007.
- Code MENT gave us "Halloween Rules" which was more about Lelouch teaching Suzaku all about Halloween.
- Stuff You Like had "5 Ridiculously Entertaining Things About Underworld" for their first Halloween episode, complete with Black Cloak and Evil Laughter.
- In the middle of a civil war, ponies throw a Nightmare Night party.
- LoadingReadyRun's Commodore HUSTLE had a Halloween episode in the form of "Roll For Treats", where Kathleen bemoans being too old to trick or treat and the crew play Dungeons & Dragons. Features Kathleen in a dirndl skirt (which Matt persists in calling a "beer girl" costume) and Tally trick-or-treating as a Bedsheet Ghost to hide her age.
- Eat Your Kimchi: What happens when Simon and Martina get lost in the woods on Halloween?
- Journey Through The Multiverse had a Halloween episode using the Fandom Specific Plot of Buffy the Vampire Slayer's Halloween Episode, in which the characters become their costumes in Buffy's World.
Western Animation
- The Kim Possible episode "October 31st".
- As mentioned above, The Simpsons' annual "Treehouse of Horror" episodes, which are anthologies containing three short stories with a horror theme (Played for Laughs, of course). Oddly enough, for the last decade or so most of these have premiered after Halloween, due to Fox's World Series coverage pre-empting its Sunday prime time lineup at the end of October each yaer.
- The original Woody Woodpecker Show got a Halloween Special called Spook-A-Nanny. It's included as an extra on the first Woody Woodpecker And Friends DVD collection, and worth watching for its cheese factor. Oh, and ghosts wearing Beatle wigs. No, really.
- Donald Duck starred in a bunch of shorts with a semi-scary atmosphere, such as Donald Duck and the Gorilla, Donald's Lucky Day, and Duck Pimples, but the true Halloween episode is fans' favorite Trick or Treat, where Donald's assholish treatment of his nephews leads to a witch helping the boys to get the best of their uncle.
- Mickey's House of Villains could be considered a Halloween episode of House of Mouse. There, the Disney animated villains kick all of the good guys out of the House and rename it the House of Villains. Jafar gets Mickey's job as the master of ceremonies, while Captain Hook and Hades get Donald and Goofy's jobs as chief assistants. The rest is your usual HOM stuff, with showing scary shorts instead of the usual upbeat ones.
- Space Goofs: A Dracula-like vampire is the new guest at the house. He bites the aliens on their sleep, thus turning them all into vampires. In the end, Gorgeous makes the vampire a pie with garlic in it, with turns him into a human (as opposed to killing him). He opens a window to see the sun for the first time...and all of the aliens turn into ash.
- The Fairly Oddparents: Remember the Buffy Halloween episode where everyone became the costumes they were wearing? Same plot, only with the Yugopotamians and four Omnicidal Maniac robots thrown in for variety.
- The Adventures Of Jimmy Neutron takes great pleasure in pushing this trope to its stereotypical limit. In the episode, Jimmy creates a monster wheel designed to turn his friends into authentic monsters (a closer examination of the wheel shows Michael Jackson as an option) - the only problem is, the invention works a little too well, and Carl and Sheen end up as a real vampire and a real werewolf. They bite Cindy and Libby, who then join the ranks of bloodsuckers/flesheaters, and before you know it the whole town is out for a good ol' fashioned monster-mob.
- CatDog: Dog gets bitten by Peruvian vampire ticks, so Cat tries desperately to find a cure. In the process, their friends are also bitten by the vampire ticks and turned into vampires. At the end, Cat drowns everyone in garlic juice, which apparently works just like in Space Goofs since it cures everyone (even the Peruvian ticks). At the end, Winslow shows up, and reveals that he was bitten by a werewolf.
- The Mask: Skillit uses his powers to summon a zombie cowboy, a ghost knight, and a demonically-possesed warlock to crash the Coco Bongo's annual Halloween party. In the end, the Mask vanishes them to Skillit's home dimension by making them say the word "mask" backwards.
- The Twisted Tales of Felix the Cat: Felix is persuaded to join the Black Cat Society, a secret society for people dressing and acting as black cats. He runs away when they try to take off Felix's mask (i.e., his face). When they discover that he is an actual black cat, they name him their king.
- Pinky And The Brain: Pinky sells his soul to the Devil so that Brain can take over the world. Brain then challenges Satan to a gymnastic competition for Pinky's soul, and loses. However, when Pinky signed the contract giving his soul to the Devil, the Devil forgot to give him some sort of gizmo (with a really weird name and a vague explanation of its function), thus rendering the contract null and void, and saving Pinky's soul.
- Tiny Toons' Night Ghoulery: A parody of Rod Serling's Night Gallery with Babs Bunny in the Serling role. One story is a parody of Frankenstein with Elmyra as Doctor Frankenstein, Dizzy as Igor, and the Gossamer as Frankenstein's Monster. Another is a parody of Stephen King's Pet Sematary with Elmyra's dead pets coming back from the grave as zombies. Another is a parody of Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, with Buster Bunny and Plucky Duck as the titular duo, respectively. The final story is a parody of The Twilight Zone episode "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet", with Plucky as the William Shatner character and the gremlin from the Looney Tunes short Falling Hare as the monster (it also, to some extent, spoofs the final segment of Twilight Zone The Movie).
- Garfield's Halloween Adventure has the titular cat and Odie trick-or-treating. But when attempting to cross a river on a boat for extra candy, the two end up in a haunted mansion. Also features really catchy songs.
- Scooby-Doo has had at least two episodes specifically set during Halloween: "The Headless Horseman of Halloween" and "A Halloween Hassle at Dracula's Castle".
- The Day of Dead is used as the reason for Mystery Inc. to visit Mexico in the direct-to-DVD movie Scooby-Doo and the Monster of Mexico.
- Halloween is the day used for Scooby Doo And The Goblin King.
- Whats New Scooby Doo used the Halloween episode straight.
- Not specifically a Halloween episode, but Cartoon Network used to run an all-day Scooby-Doo marathon on the last day of daylight-saving time, meaning you'd get 25 hours of the show in one day. One year, during the commercial breaks, they ran bits of a Scooby-Doo-themed version of The Blair Witch Project, which eventually featured the line, "Maybe this time we shouldn't have meddled."
- Also, Cartoon Network UK & ireland once ran a marathon of Halloween-themed cartoons on the morning of April 1 as an April Fools' Day Joke.
- The Pac-Man cartoon also had two Halloween episodes: "Pacula" and "Trick or Chomp".
- Hanna Barbera's version of The Little Rascals had one: "Fright Night", in which three of the Rascals went trick-or-treating. I don't recall all of the details, but I do remember that Darla dressed so as to resemble Alfalfa.
- Transformers Animated had one, "Along Came a Spider", in which Bumblebee, Bulkhead and Sari go trick-or-treating, dressed up as Dracula, a ghost (with a costume made out of a striped fumigation tent, so he looks more like a walking billowing circus), and Optimus Prime, respectively. Also, Blackarachnia appears to confront Optimus about their past.
- Jem had a Halloween episode, "Trick or Techrat", having the Holograms fixing a haunted opera house-and Terri, one of the Starlight Girls, learning not to scare at every thing.
- Class Of The Titans had a Halloween episode in which Hecate, the goddess of witchcraft, tried to escape from her prison in the moon. It also introduced Theresa's mystical powers.
- Winx Club had an episode where the girls went to a party in their transformed fairy outfits.
- Aaahh!!! Real Monsters: When Ickis, Krumm, and Oblina go to do their daily scares, there's a mixup with a kid wearing a Halloween costume of an Ickis-like creature. Krumm and Oblina go to the kid's Halloween party, believed by everyone to be just kids in costumes, and the kid goes to the monster world. The day after Halloween, everything is cleared.
- Ed Edd N Eddy's Boo-Haw-Haw had the Eds attempt to follow a map to "Spookyville", the ultimate trick-or-treating neighborhood. Unfortunately, an overdose of B-movies on Ed's part causes him to hallucinate that the other kids of the cul-de-sac are movie monsters out to get him and his friends, and Hilarity Ensues.
- The Ben 10 episode Last Laugh is considered a Halloween episode, despite the fact that the series is supposed to take place during the summer.
- SpongeBob SquarePants had "Scaredy Pants" and "I Was a Teenage Gary", which aired on October 28, 1999.
- The short-lived Lloyd In Space had an episode in which yhe gang goes into a Haunted House type thing, only to come out to a version of the space station in the far future where it's completely deserted and a monster has apparently killed everyone. It turns out to be some variation of All Just a Dream, but man, that whole episode was basically Mood Whiplash.
- There have been a few in South Park. The first, called "Pinkeye", is about Kenny becoming infected with a zombie virus and turning most of the townspeople into zombies; the second one is "Spookyfish", involving Stan receiving a killer goldfish from his aunt and meanwhile alternate universe versions of the boys show up; the third is "Korn's Groovy Pirate Ghost Mystery", which involves the rock band Korn solving a mystery involving pirate ghosts in an Affectionate Parody of Scooby-Doo; the fourth is "Hell on Earth 2006", involving Satan throwing a Halloween party; and the most recent one is "A Nightmare on FaceTime", in which Randy purchases an abandoned Blockbuster Video and begins acting like Jack Torrance, while Stan's attempt to use FaceTime results in his friends being endangered by a group of killers.
- There have been a couple in King of the Hill. The first one concerns a religious fanatic trying to ban Halloween from Arlen. In the second (definitely one of the series' darker episodes), Luann moves in with a schizophrenic millionaire who owns a pork processing company.
- Rocko's Modern Life had an episode in which Philburt went trick or treating for the first time and met the Hopping Hessain (a parody of the headless horseman.)
- There's one in Invader Zim called the Halloween Spectacular of Spooky Doom, in which inside Dib's head is a parallel universe with real monsters.
- The Teen Titans episode "Fear Itself" could be considered a Halloween episode, even though the gang didn't do anything Halloween-related besides watch a scary movie.
- The Wild Thornberrys had a Day of the Dead episode in 2000.
- Hey Arnold's Halloween episode was a homage to Orson Welles' 1938 "The War Of The Worlds" radio broadcast.
- Avatar The Last Airbender's "The Puppetmaster" was aired (and possibly meant) as a Halloween episode, since the holiday doesn't exist in their universe.
- The Mighty B has Bessie trapped in a cat costume and...stuff happens.
- The second Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 'toon had "All Hallows' Thieves", an adaptation of a comic book story of the same name, which featured baddie the King of Thieves and his attempts to use an army of goblins in order to have them steal a bunch of stuff for him.
- The Real Ghostbusters had three such episodes.
- "When Halloween Was Forever": A pair of ghosts free Samhain, the Spirit of Halloween, whose goal is to create a permanent Halloween night.
- "Halloween 2½": Samhain is freed from the Containment Unit and tries to again achieve his goal, while also seeking revenge against the Ghostbusters.
- "The Halloween Door": Seeking to end Halloween forever, a Moral Guardian steals Ghostbuster tech to use for his machine. Doing so, however, breaks an ancient, ghostly contract - allowing hordes of supernatural terrors to invade New York City.
- Lilo & Stitch: The Series has the episode Spooky as it Halloween episode that has the characters against an experiment that can transform into their worst fears.
- Doug had two that come to mind. One (during the Nickelodeon run) a half hour special that had Doug going to the amusement park Funky Town to ride a scary ride and end up getting locked in it after the park shuts down for the night. Another (Disney run this time) had him (and eventually the other kids) thinking his best friend Skeeter was a vampire.
- The Life and Times of Juniper Lee one had the title character trying to fix a spell that turned monsters into humans (which their idea of a Halloween costume) and having to go through a complicated barter system which at the end involve her having to wrestle (as in WWE-like wrestle) a monster to help get the last thing she needs.
- American Dragon Jake Long version had Jake throwing a party for both monsters and humans and of course almost brings danger down on their head in the form of the Huntsclan.
- Danny Phantom had "Fright Night" where Danny temporarily steals a sword from Fright Knight, the ghostly Anthropomorphic Personification of Halloween. Hell ensues (literally).
- Rugrats had "Candy Bar Creep Show", where the babies tried to get Reptar Bars, and "Curse of the Were-Wuff", where Angelica scares them into thinking they will become their costumes after Halloween.
- The Grim Adventures Of Billy And Mandy had "Billy and Mandy's Jacked Up Halloween" although many episodes could qualify.
- "Trick or Treat" from Where on Earth Is Carmen Sandiego?: After Zack and Ivy attempt another trick on Carmen Sandiego, she pays them for their second trick attempt at arresting her.
- The Spectacular Spider-Man has one of the most plot important episodes as a Halloween episode. It involves plot advancement on who the Green Goblin is, and it is actually the set up for another episode when Peter arrives in his Spidey suit.
- On Home Movies the gang was on their way to a Halloween party but they all ended up at the hospital when Brendon's stepmom went into labor and Coach McGuirk had a heart attack. Not the best place for Melissa to dress like the Grim Reaper.
Coach: Omigod, it's Death.
Melissa: Coach, it's me, Melissa!
Coach: Omigod, it's Melissa.
- The Magic School Bus had a Halloween special that was two spookily themed episodes from the series tied together by a live-action sequence where an old caretaker told two kids terrifying stories about kids learning about sound and bats.
- Celebrity Deathmatch had two Halloween episodes with matches such as Frankenstein's Monster vs. the Wolfman, The Undertaker vs. Captain Doody (a demon possessing Nicky Jr.), and Sarah Michelle Gellar vs. a vampire.
- The Cleveland Show had "It's the Great Pancake, Cleveland Brown", where Cleveland upsets Cleveland Jr. by telling him he is too old to trick or treat and Rallo eats too much candy.
- You forgot his Drew Carey look-a-like friend that was annoying everyone with bad jokes the whole episode went Ax Crazy and tried to kill both Cleveland and his entire family. Or I could be thinking of another Halloween special from the show. It dealt with Cleveland and Rallo trying to prove they weren't scared.
- The episode mentioned above is called "Nightmare on Grace Street"
- Phineas And Ferb has one, called "That's the Spirit" where the boys encounter a strange boy named Russell who is convinced his house is haunted. Meanwhile, Agent P has to stop Doof after he becomes a werecow.
- As part of a special series that ran throughout October 2011, Cartoon Network premiered new Halloween themed episodes as part of their Monday night scheduling block. The five shows participating were Johnny Test, The Amazing World of Gumball, Adventure Time, Regular Show and MAD. The other show, Secret Mountain Fort Awesome, did not participate due to the sheer newness of S.M.F.A. The premieres culminated on Halloween Night (which fell on a Monday) in which each episode was shown during a marathon.
- Regular Show had "Terror Tales of the Park", à la Treehouse of Horror, consisting of a series of smaller episodes. In true Treehouse of Horror fashion, none of the episode is canon. The first part of the episode is about a Victorian age doll named Percie that Pops had as a child who has a compulsive need to draw on people's faces, which climaxes as the doll comes to life and attempts to kill Mordecai, Rigby and Pops to fulfill his need. The second part features Muscleman and High Five Ghost as they plan to crash an RV into a bottomless pit only to find the late owners, a metal band named Skull Bash, have not left. The third part features Mordecai and Rigby trick-or-treating. Rigby eggs the Halloween Wizard's house and pays for his crime. It is revealed that the entire story was told by the Halloween Wizard, disguised as Rigby the entire time.
- The following year had "Terror Tales of the Park II" which had the same format of three separate shorts, but had a framing device to link them all together; in this case, the Park staff are on a journey to a Halloween party and tell the stories to pass the time. Mordecai's story, "Payback", involved Mordecai accidentally killing his Uncle Steve, and Uncle Steve's corpse subsequently haunts Mordecai to settle his Unfinished Business. Margaret's story, "Party Bus", has Mordecai, Rigby, Margaret and Eileen take the "Party Bus" to the movies instead of their late taxi; however, as the party on the bus proceeds and the other guests start to collapse from partying too hard, they realize that this party's a killer. The final story, told by Benson, is "Wallpaper Man", an homage to Stephen King's story ''The Lawnmower Man". Mordecai and Rigby are tasked with applying new wallpaper to the house but they are swayed by a television offer from Jan the Wallpaper Man, who will wallpaper an entire house for free. However, Jan's sinister red-and-black wallpaper turns the house's interior into a claustrophobic maze, with the other park employees trapped in the center. Mordecai and Rigby must rescue their co-workers and confront Jan, who has a dark agenda and a monstrous secret...
- The Johnny Test episode is titled "Johnny Trick or Treat". Johnny accepts a dare by a mysterious card impaled on his door. In order to see a real haunted house and cash in on a large amount of candy, he must spend a night in a house and wear a tutu. He is joined by Dukey and Jillian, only to find the house is rigged with traps. They successfully complete all of the tasks, only to be eaten by a giant maggot. With Jillian in danger, the master of the house, Darth Vegan, tries to save them, only to have his plans ruined. When it is revealed that there was no candy, Johnny and the rest of the crew teleport to a party attended by Susan, Mary and Agents Black and White, where he wins a candy making machine for first place in a costume contest.
- Adventure Time parodies Clue and And Then There Were None in the episode "The Creeps". Members of the cast are assembled at a mountain-top castle. Each of the characters gains an alias as part of the invitation:
- Finn as Prince Hotbod
- Jake as Randy Butternubs
- Princess Bubblegum as Lady Quietbottom
- BMO as Professor Pence
- Lumpy Space Princess as Duchess Gummybuns
- Cinnamon Bun as Guy Farting.
- The costume party goes awry as characters are killed off and the party turns into a mystery when it is revealed that a ghost has possessed one of them and intends to murder them. Jake and Lady Rainicorn reveal that they are the ghost and that none of the character were killed. Finn asks how Jake got the house to come to life. Jake doesn't know what Finn is talking about and the crew leaves the castle. Finn keeps the memory in "his vault" .
- A second Adventure Time Halloween special, "From Bad to Worse", aired a week later. The episode deals with a Zombie Apocalypse and is a continuation of the premiere "Slumber Party Panic". Finn, Jake, Rainicorn and LSP are seen running through the Candy Kingdom avoiding the now zombified denizens. After making it to the castle, Princess Bubblegum explains the infection is her and Cinnamon Bun's fault. Princess Bubblegum says she will make the antidote again but before she can, she is bitten by a zombie. Before being changed, she tells Finn to let science do the work to create the formula again. It is up to the four to create the formula. In an Eureka Moment, Finn realizes that PB's last words meant for them to use Science, the lab rat. The lab rat creates the formula and Finn tests in on Jake who returns to normal. Unfortunately, the effects are reversed after Jake is bitten again. Out of ideas, Finn covers himself in the antidote and flings himself into the fray and is chewed by the zombies. The last scene shows the Candy Kingdom fully cured, Finn in a state of well-being and Princess Bubblegum awarding Science with a medal for heroic bravery.
- The Amazing World of Gumball has the episode simply titled "Halloween". Carrie the ghost helps get Gumball and Darwin into a ghosts-only Halloween party using ghost potion. However, an overdose of the potion turns Gumball and Darwin completely into ghosts, triggering a Cosmic Deadline to get them back into their bodies or else they'll be dragged into the underworld. To make matters worse, Anais also drinks the potion and Gumball must save her as well.
- MAD had the episode "Kitchen Nightmares Before Christmas/How I Met Your Mummy". Within the episode were Nightmare Before Christmas and How I Met Your Mother references, as the title implies. Other references included ScreamX20, Scooby Doo: Ruining Halloween Since 1969, and Veggie Tales from the Crypt.
- While not necessarily Halloween material, some episodes that premiered did contain horror elements.
- Regular Show "Camping Can Be Fun"
- The Amazing World of Gumball "The Poltergeist"
- Kick Buttowski had the predictably named "Kick Or Treat", where Kick accepts a challenge from Kendall to go trick-treating at the scary Old Dark House across the street. Turns out the house is owned by a nice old lady who loves Halloween so much that she went completely overboard with the special effects.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic has "Luna Eclipsed" where the ponies celebrate the day as "Nightmare Night" and a certain literal Ensemble Darkhorse shows up, being determined to change her frightening public image she made back in the past. At first, it wasn't really working out all that well for her, and it goes to the point where she ends up decreeing the cancellation of Nightmare Night forever! However, Luna eventually learns that the young ponies actually like being scared by her, and she declares that Nightmare Night's back on.
- The Backyardigans episode "Scared Of You" is this in all but name.
- W.I.T.C.H. had "W is for Witch", in which the girls were able to get away using their Guardian identities in public in order to capture Nerissa. However, thanks to the series' serial storyline, when Toon Disney elected to air this during a Halloween-themed marathon, it was shown earlier than it was supposed to be, effectively spoiling viewers to a number of future plot points.
- American Dad did one of these where Stan tried to outdo his neighbor's haunted house. His solution? Bring in caged serial killers. And then Roger frees them...
- Family Guy only has one, oddly. It was from season 9, where Chris and Meg went to a party, Stewie and Brian dealt with a bully that stole Stewie's candy and Quagmire getting revenge for a prank by Peter and Joe. Lois becomes the bully for the bullies and actually scares Stewie a bit, Quagmire pretends to be possessed by a Japanese World War II pilot, and MEG AND CHRIS ACCIDENTALLY MAKE OUT WITH EACH OTHER.
- Scaredy Squirrel make fun of the holiday and called it Halloweekend, making it a Parody Episode. Scaredy prove to a Camp Gay bird (e.i. his boss) that he can scare people. But got yelled at by his boss's mom.
- The 2010 version of Pound Puppies had "A Nightmare on Pound Street". It wasn't a Halloween Episode in the sense of the "Treehouse of Horror", but it was set on Halloween, and the hopeful adoptee was a "creepy-looking" puppy named Freddy.
- Danger Mouse had "The Good, the Bad and the Motionless," which took place on Halloween, as DM tells Colonel K that Penfold is carving up a swede.
Colonel K: Good heavens, DM. I didn't know he could play tennis!
D.M.: Tennis? Oh, no. Not Bjørn Borg, sir. Not that sort of swede. It's the vegetable kind.
- The Beetlejuice cartoon's Halloween episode, "Laugh Of The Party," had B.J. livening up Lydia's Halloween party with Party People In A Can. They're all Neitherworld denizens, so the party was rather unorthodox, even for Halloween. A year later, the episode "Bewitched, Bothered and Beetlejuiced" had Lydia dressed as a witch for Halloween, only for her cat Percy to get catnapped by a soiree of witches.
- Recess had "The Terrifying Tales of Recess", which was similar in structure to "Treehouse of Horror" (but more G-rated), possibly because a good amount of the Recess staff worked on The Simpsons.
- The TV-movie "Taking The Fifth Grade" had its third segment taking place on Halloween where Spinelli decides she's too old for Halloween traditions and nearly ruins it for her friends.
- The Weekenders has Tino's friends refuse to go trick-or-treating with him so he comes up with an elaborate prank to scare them on Halloween anyway.
- In Sabrina: The Animated Series there was a similar plot to the live action's season 2 episode, with Sabrina and Gem competing to have better Halloween parties and Sabrina ends up summoning real ghouls from the Netherworld to help her out.
- Pepper Ann had Pepper Ann and Milo get ready for trick-or-treating, only for Pepper Ann to consider the two of them too old after all of their classmates tell her that they don't plan to trick-or-treat. Pepper Ann and Milo go in spite of this, and an ending montage reveals that their classmates secretly joined in.
- The Gravity Falls episode "Summerween" explores Summerween, a second Halloween in the summer because Gravity Falls loves the holiday that much. Soos tells the legend of the Summerween Trickster, a phantom who kills those who do not accept the holiday. Dipper, wanting to attend a party instead of trick-or-treat, attracts the Trickster who holds the lives of he and his friends in the balance in exchange for five hundred pieces of candy. Knock knock, indeed.
- "The Smurfs Halloween Special" was really a regular Saturday-morning cartoon episode, and it was mostly about celebrating Jokey's birthday. There's also "Monster Smurfs", where the Smurfs celebrated a similar holiday called Spook-A-Smurf Eve.
- The sixth episode of Jackie Chan Adventures' fourth season, "Fright Fight Night" is set on Halloween, dealing with Paco being possessed by one of the Oni masks and the heroes having to get it off before Tarakudo is able to corrupt him.
- All Grown Up's Halloween Episode had Chuckie freaking out over the possibility that Tommy might have a crush on Kimi and so running off on his own on Halloween when there's dangerous teenage gangs about.
- The show also had two other horror-themed episodes that would have fit this trope, only they weren't set on Halloween. "Curse of Reptar" was an Affectionate Parody of Poltergeist and "Interview With A Campfire" had the kids get lost in a colonial mine that was said to be haunted.
- El Tigre episode "The Grave Escape"; Taking place on Dia De Los Muertos, Manny feels he's getting too old for the holiday (Despite his father and Grandpapi being all for it) when Sartana of the Dead attacks with a monster formed from Miracle City's unremembered dead("Sartana of the Dead!?" Cries Rodolpho, "Attacking on the Day of the Dead!? Actually, that makes sense."). Manny and Frida end up sent to the Land of the Dead, where they recruit Riveras from the past, including the original El Tigre.
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