Recap / The Grim Adventures Of Billy And Mandy S 2 E 10

"Billy & Mandy’s Jacked-Up Halloween"

Original Air Date: October 31, 2003

While out trick-or-treating, Grim tells Billy and Mandy the story of a practical jokester named Jack O'Lantern. Grim tells how Jack managed to escape death, but at the cost of losing his head, and as a result, becoming unable to go out socially except to play pranks on Halloween.

Dressed as the Grim Reaper and armed with Grim's real scythe, Billy stumbles upon Jack O'Lantern's doorstep on Halloween night. Jack manages to steal Grim's scythe, hoping to use its power to seek his revenge on the people of Endsville, make it so that the sun never rose again, and that it would be Halloween every night forever (thus making it so he can also go out and play pranks whenever he wants).

After destroying a large part of Endsville, Jack then kidnaps Grim to cut off his head out of revenge for Grim decapitating him years ago.

Billy, realizing that Grim is in trouble, runs to get Mandy to help save Grim. Mandy states that Billy needs to distract Jack, while Mandy sets up a series of pranks.

Billy pops up just as Jack is about to cut off Grim's head and distracts him by pulling up his robe and shaking his rump (revealing that he was wearing nothing under his robe) at him, distracting and confusing him.

However, it is revealed that Jack knew Mandy was setting up pranks, and that he is not afraid of them.

Then with the help of Irwin accidently tripping ALL of the pranks, and causing Jack to laugh and his minions to laugh (literally) to death, the gang manages to save Grim and banish Jack to the Underworld where his pumpkin head is implied to be smashed by demons.

"Billy & Mandy’s Jacked-Up Halloween" contains examples of…

• Bait-and-Switch: The beginning of the episode makes it look like Billy is watching a Slasher Movie with a chainsaw-wielding maniac. It turns out to just be a chainsaw commercial.
• Bee Afraid: One of the pranks that Irwin suffers leads to a beehive getting lodged in his mouth. Screaming and stinging ensues.
• Bullying a Dragon: Down in the Underworld, Jack continues his prank, hitting one particularly large and muscular demon with a slingshot. He gets grabbed and, after the fade out, his pumpkin head is implied to get squashed.
• Captain Obvious: As demonic pumpkins run wild through the streets, Grim says he thinks something supernatural is going on. Mandy sarcastically asks how he figured it out.
• Chekhov's Gun: Jack’s feather. It’s what helped him steal Grim’s Scythe twice, and what Grim uses to finally send him to the Underworld.
• "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: Played for Laughs.
  Billy: You know, Grim, if you didn’t loan me the scythe in the first place, this kind of thing would never happen.
  Grim: ...I hate you, Billy.
• Delayed "Oh, Crap!": Billy has this reaction when it finally sinks in that he just left Grim at the mercy of Jack O’ Lantern.
  Billy: Grim’s in trouble! HELP! POLICE!
• Die Laughing: Jack’s pumpkin minions literally laugh ‘til they burst when Irwin sets off all the pranks Mandy had previously set up.
• Disproportionate Retribution: In Jack’s origin story, the townsfolk of Endsville were sick of the petty pranks he would pull on them… so they pranked the Queen (who was known to not have a sense of humor) and framed him for it, which got him executed. The Queen counts as well, sending a knight to kill Jack just because she thought Jack pulled a prank on her.
• Dude, Not Funny!: Grim is not amused by Jack making head puns while preparing to cut Grim’s head off.
• Dumbass Has a Point: Billy has two moments of this;
  • When Jack explains that he’s going to cut off Grim’s head with his own scythe as revenge for cutting off his head all those centuries ago, Billy comments that this would be pointless since Grim’s head is removable and can easily be reattached. This gets subverted when Jack reveals that any head cut off by the Grim Reaper’s scythe stays off permanently.
  • Played for Laughs when he tells Grim that this wouldn’t have happened if Grim hadn’t loaned him his scythe. While Billy is equally, if not more so, responsible for letting Jack get the scythe, Grim really should have known better than to let someone like Billy borrow it in the first place.
• Evil Is Hammy: Jack. He’s voiced by Wayne Knight, so this was a given.
• Equivalent Exchange: Jack stole Grim's scythe and made a deal with him, saying if Grim granted him immortality so he could play pranks for eternity, he'd give him back his scythe. Grim had no choice but to accept the deal and granted Jack eternal life, but in exchange, after getting his scythe back, Grim cut off Jack's head as revenge for being tricked in the first place, essentially making Jack's immortality moot.
• Evil Laugh: Jack when summoning an army of demonic pumpkins and unleashing them on the city.
• Fatal Flaw: Jack’s love of pulling pranks. Back when he was human, Grim explains that he was a pleasant enough guy… but his problem was that when it came to his pranks, he didn’t know when to stop, which ultimately cost him his life thanks to the fed up townsfolk. And when Grim comes to collect, Jack pranks him with Tickle Torture, which results in him stealing Grim’s scythe, and striking a deal with him; the scythe in exchange for immortality. This winds up costing him his head at the hands (and blade) of Grim. He’s ultimately defeated due to him uncontrollably laughing at Irwin’s Humiliation Conga. And at the end of the episode, we see that even after all these centuries, he still hasn’t seemed to have learned his lesson, as we hear his pumpkin head get smashed after he pranked a demon in the Underworld.
• Failed Attempt at Drama: When Grim tries to once again warn Billy about the dangers of his scythe, complete with floating in the air with a spiraly background, Billy simply states his entire speech, "Open the vortex to the underworld, unleashing unspeakable chaos and end the world as we know it", leaving Grim shocked that Billy said exactly what he would've, with the background even returning to normal.
• Frame-Up: In the past, the villagers of Townsville got Jack killed by pulling a prank on the Queen and framing Jack for it.
• Halloween Special
• Helpless with Laughter: Grim reveals to Billy and Mandy the story behind Jack O' Lantern, and specifically how he managed to steal Grim's scythe by incapacitating Grim by tickling him with a feather so much he dropped his scythe from laughing so hard.
• Humiliation Conga: Irwin when he sets off all the pranks and traps Mandy had set up. It starts with a Banana Peel and well-placed Whoopee Cushion… and just escalates from there, from pie catapults to a firecracker in a beehive, to a lake infested with electric eels.
• Hurricane of Puns: Jack when he’s preparing to cut off Grim’s head.
  Jack: (sharpening the scythe) Y’know Grim, you and I aren’t so different.
  Grim: How’s that?
  Jack: Well, for starters, you’ve got a good… (Beat as he gives a cheesy grin) head on your shoulders! (Rimshot)
  Grim: (gives an unamused Death Glare)
  Jack: You’re… headstrong! (Rimshot) Though I’ve never known you to stick your neck out for anyone… until now, of course!
  Grim: Oh, cut it out!
  Jack: (raises the scythe) If you insist!
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Jack used his feather both times that he steals Grim’s scythe. After he’s defeated, Grim then uses that same feather on him to send him to the Underworld.
• Idea Bulb: Billy gets one when he realizes Grin’s in trouble.
• Little "No": Jack when he thinks the knight who killed him has returned.
• Loophole Abuse: Grim says he never goes back on a deal. Jack is indeed immortal, but nothing in the deal could prevent Grim from beheading him or later sending him through the portal to the Underworld.
• Mooning: Billy does this as a means to distract Jack while Mandy sets up various pranks and traps.
• Never My Fault:
  • Billy caused all the conflict by borrowing Grim's scythe and then letting Jack steal it, but blatantly shirks responsibility after Jack O'Lantern is defeated and Grim gets his scythe back. He is just too stupid to understand that what he says makes him just as guilty as Grim.
  • Jack apparently doesn't seem to make the connection that at least part of his current predicament is his own doing; While Grim was the one who cut off his head, it was his own incessant mean-spirited jokes that turned the town against him and eventually resulted in his execution, and Grim was just there to collect his soul, as he is supposed to. Then Jack got the wise idea to try and cheat Death, which earned him the beheading in the first place. According to Jack, though, this is all Grim's fault because he “can't take a joke”.
• Off with His Head!: Grim did this to Jack as punishment for stealing his scythe and tricking him into giving him immortality, and when Jack steals the scythe again from Billy, he plans to return the favor as revenge. When Billy points out that Grim's head comes off by itself, Jack reveals that anything cut off with the scythe stays off permanently.
  Grim: But the Grim Reaper does not like being tricked. So I decided that Jack would not be showing his face around town again - Ever!
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Billy panics when he realizes he’s left Grim at Jack’s mercy.
  • Jack freaks out when he thinks the knight who executed him has returned.
• Pretender Diss: When Billy dressed as the Grim Reaper first meets Jack, Jack tells for him to get lost and to take his "phoney scythe" with him. Of course Billy is offended by this and yells that his scythe is the real thing. Jack sees the inscription and realizes he's right, deciding to steal it for his Evil Plan.
• The Prankster: Jack. Before and after gaining immortality, he was infamous for it.
• Pungeon Master: Jack, Jack, JACK.
• Rimshot: Happens twice during Jack’s Hurricane of Puns.
• Rule of Three: A person gets tickled with the feather from Jack’s hat three times. First, Jack tickles Grim. Then, Jack tickles Billy. And finally, Jack himself gets tickled by Grim.
• Shadow Discretion Shot: During the flashback of Jack’s origin, we only see the shadow of the knight sent to execute him swinging his axe towards him through the lit window of his house.
• Shout-Out:
  • Mandy’s Halloween costume is Hamlet, with Grim serving as the skull of Yorick. Grim even quotes one of the play’s most famous lines.
    Grim: To Be or Not To Be? That is the question.
  • Jack’s pumpkin minions laughing themselves to death is a reference to Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
• Sound-Only Death: Subverted since Jack is immortal, but we still hear the very distinct sounds of his pumpkin head being splattered after the screen fades to black. And that’s the last time we ever see him in the series outside of a mention in The Movie.
• Spanner in the Works: Irwin stumbles into all the pranks that Mandy had set up for Jack, causing such a spectacle that the pumpkin minions laugh themselves to death.
• Stalker Shrine: We see that Irwin has one of Mandy.
• Stingy Jack: Jack’s origin story is a remarkably accurate retelling of the old folktale. While several details of the story were changed (such as Jack primarily being a trickster rather than an alcoholic and the Grim Reaper being tricked out of his scythe rather than the Devil being trapped by crosses) the primary points of the story were largely kept the same.
• Tickle Torture: Jack’s weapon of choice via the red feather in his hat.
• This Cannot Be!: This is Jack’s terrified reaction when he he believes that he sees the knight that killed him centuries ago.
• Trauma Button: Irwin's knight costume was just the latest one he tried tonight, but it positively freaks out Jack, due to how the guy originally died.
• Villain Respect: Mandy is admittedly impressed that Grim cut off Jack's head as payback for stealing his scythe.
• Who Wants to Live Forever?: Jack, although in his case it’s less "immortality sucks" and more "immortality sucks when you’re a pumpkin-headed freak who can only leave his house once a year".
  Jack: 364 days a year, I can’t even go to the ding-dong grocery store to buy pudding!
• Wound That Will Not Heal: As Jack points out in the climax, any body part cut off by Grim's scythe can never be reattached, even Grim's own. This also factored into why he has to use a pumpkin for a head, after Grim cut his real head off in revenge for being tricked into giving him immortality.