A Silly Halloween Special
Original air date: 1/10/2022 (produced in 2021)
The Smiling Friends host their own annual Halloween party in their office, and everybody in town is invited! But Mr. Boss needs firewood for a Halloween firepit, so he tasks Pim with going into the forest to pick up some sticks and other lumber, but warns him to not cross the rickety bridge, stating that he'll get lost if he does so. However, Pim ends up disobeying the advice given to him when he decides to look for some better firewood, and eventually gets lost in the bad side of the forest when it starts to violently rain, and to make matters worse for him, a highly dangerous Forest Demon starts to hunt him down.
In Memoriam Gag: XL_%QZ9*4 (?-2001)
A Silly Halloween Special contains examples of...
- Brick Joke:
- Charlie notes early on that he doesn't get dressed up for Halloween because he doesn't know what will be offensive in ten years. When Alan suggests he just get some face paint and become a zombie Charlie says that's the number one way to offend someone. Sure enough at the end of the episode the Forest Demon is mauled to death by the partygoers seeming because it wore blackface with Charlie stating that exact thing is why he doesn't do Halloween.
- Mr. Boss's request for Pim to get some firewood for a "Halloween firepit" ends up being fulfilled when the partygoers immolate the corpse of the Forest Demon after Pim leads it to them, which he deems an appropriate fit and congratulates Pim for it, for some reason deeming Halloween as being saved.
- Black Comedy Cannibalism: The partygoers eating the demon, due to how absurdly over the top it is. It helps that the demon itself is violent and murderous.
- Cassandra Truth: The demon explains twice over that it's not wearing Blackface, but the crowd doesn't believe it.
- Cell Phones Are Useless: Pim's phone screen cracks after that fall down the hill, so he can't figure out where he is or call for help.
- Character Death: The Forest Demon is mauled, gored, dismembered, and immolated by most of the attendees at the party, including Mr. Boss.
- Chekhov's Gun: Early on Pim uses his toy gun to fire off some pallets one of which hits Alan in the eye. Near the end of the episode Pim intentionally shots the Forest Demon in the eye to get some space from it.
- Darker and Edgier: So far one of the darkest episodes in the show, as Pim nearly dies and his situation is not played for laughs (for the most part).
- Disproportionate Retribution: The partygoers response to the Forest Demon supposedly wearing blackface is to proceed to violently beat it to death and then start eviscerating it's corpse and eating it, then ripping it apart and setting it on fire
- Don't Go in the Woods:....Because you'll get lost, and a Forest Demon will find you and then try and kill you while terrorizing you all the way, as Pim can tell you.
- Dramatic Irony: Played for Laughs. The partygoers winded up attacking the Forest Demon for the color of his skin, which they confused for Blackface.
- Everyone Has Standards: Charlie's girlfriend also believes that the Demon was wearing Blackface, as seen by her angry expression when the creature is punched by one of the partygoers. That said, she's horrified when they cannibalize and set him on fire.
- Eye Scream: One of the pallets in Pim's gun ricochets of the bottle he was shooting at and hits Alan in the face. Later on Pim does this intentionally to the Forest Demon by shooting it in the eye when it tries to grab him.
- Framing Device: A live action man in an alley introduces the episode before the camera zooms in as it plays on a TV set. It zooms back out at the end of the episode, but the man's closing narration is interrupted by a police officer called in by residents of the area. After being informed that he is breaking the law and asked to leave the premises, the man complies, revealing in a widening shot that he wasn't wearing any pants.
- Heel–Face Turn: A downplayed example. The Party Bro from Desmonds Big Day Out returns, attending the Halloween party at the Smiling Friends office, even though he just bullied Pim a while back, suggesting he became a lot kinder towards him offscreen.
- Horror Host: A nameless gray-haired man in a suit presents the episode in the live-action framing device. He rambles about fear of the unknown and at the end of the episode gets in trouble with the police for loitering.
- Jumpscare: The Forest Demon gives a nasty one to Pim and the viewer by lunging at him to screech at him before resuming chase.
- Meaningful Background Event: When Pim stops to catch his breath after rowing across the river, if you look closely, you can see the demon's silhouette swim to the shore and sneak around to jumpscare him.
- Mistaken for Racist: The Forest Demon's ultimate fate is to be torn apart because other people mistook him for wearing blackface.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Pim's expression says it all; he seems even more scared of the other partygoers than he was of the demon.
- Never Trust a Title: It's easily the scariest episode so far, and even the comedic moments themselves have elements of horror, and the episode has a constant atmosphere of unease the moment Pim goes out to fetch some firewood, which culminates into an outright horror scenario as he gets lost deep in the woods and then chased by the Forest Demon, and even the final punchline itself is horrific, given how brutal the Forest Demons death at the hands of the partygoers is, with the only comedic thing about it aside from the absurdity of a Forest Demon being killed so easily is that their reason for killing it was that they thought it was wearing blackface.
- Nothing Is Scarier: It's never explained where the Forest Demon came from or even how it came to be, with the only explanation given is that it's exactly what it's name implies.
- Noodle Implements: Why the Boss deems a "Halloween firepit" so important that he needs to cancel the party they were holding because they didn't have any firewood is never explained.
- Overly Long Gag: The partygoers beating the Forest Demon to death.
- Political Overcorrectness: The Forest Demon ends up getting killed in the most violent and cruel manner possible, all because people confused his pitch black skin for Blackface.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: After murdering the Forest Demon the partygoers all sport red eyes as they watch its corpse burn.
- Remember the New Guy?: Charlie's girlfriend and Glep's wife first appear here despite having no proper introduction.
- Right for the Wrong Reasons: The very act itself of beating the living daylights out of the Forest Demon was pretty warranted given what he'd done prior; it's just that what he'd done was give poor Pim a life-threatening chase through the woods, not wear blackface.
- Sapient Eat Sapient: The partygoers end up being so frenzied by their assumption that the Forest Demon is wearing Blackface that they are okay with eating it's entrails.
- Screams Like a Little Girl: Pim does this after he gets shoved away by a lightning in the forest.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: Mr. Boss ended up throwing the party anyway without any firewood, so Pim's quest to gather it turned out to be unnecessary.
- Shout-Out:
- Alan is dressed as the Joker, specifically from Joker (2019).
- Mr. Boss is dressed as Charlie Brown.
- Take That!: The entire death scene of the Forest Demon can be seen as this towards "Cancel Culture" given that the partygoers give the Forest Demon a punishment that is way too severe for supposedly wearing blackface, likely as a jab towards the Knight Templar behavior of those who participate in it.
- There Is No Kill Like Overkill: The Forest Demon's death at the hands of the Partygoers. First he gets floored by a punch, then kicked, punched, and stomped on by them, and then they tear him open and start eating his entrails, then proceeding to tear his limbs off and his bones out, and finally, they gather his remains into a pile and douse them in gasoline and light them on fire, with them throwing garbage like a boombox into it as the finishing touch.
- The Unpronounceable: The In Memoriam gag commemorates some kind of alien with a name to match.
