Halloween Episodes of Sitcoms

One night a year, the writers' room gets a costume budget.

Entries
10
Category
TV
Updated
  1. A loft apartment doorway decorated with fake cobwebs, a haunted house ticket stub and a doctor's stethoscope on the floor.

    10. Halloween (New Girl)

    New Girl · 2012

    Jess falls for her fling after seeing him with sick kids, Nick runs into a college acquaintance and his fear of haunted houses, and Schmidt crashes Cece's date. Winston breaks up over a costume dispute, which is the correct priority.

  2. A dim Philadelphia bar decorated for Halloween with a pile of mismatched costume pieces and a single positive pregnancy test on the counter.

    09. Who Got Dee Pregnant?

    It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia · 2010

    Dee announces she's pregnant by one of the guys, so the gang reconstructs a Halloween party in contradicting flashbacks, Rashomon style, with help from the McPoyles. Written by Charlie Day and Rob McElhenney. Nobody's memory can be trusted, least of all Frank's.

  3. A wingback armchair at an elegant party with a quill, a stack of classic novels and a small pregnancy test box on a silver tray.

    08. Halloween (Frasier)

    Frasier · 1997

    Niles throws a literary costume party, Roz might be pregnant, and the news mutates through the guests until a drunk Niles proposes to Daphne. Pure farce, with doors. Kelsey Grammer's new wife Camille appears as Eve. Highbrow dress code, lowbrow results.

  4. A red-and-blue spider-themed bodysuit draped over a law office chair beside a briefcase and a jack-o'-lantern.

    07. Halloween (Modern Family)

    Modern Family · 2010

    Claire turns the house into a haunted attraction, Gloria fakes an American accent, and Mitchell shows up to his law firm as Spider-Man and learns nobody else did. Michael Spiller won the directing Emmy. The most-watched episode of the show to that point.

  5. A town founder's bronze statue splattered with toilet paper and orange paint in a moonlit park.

    06. Greg Pikitis

    Parks and Recreation · 2009

    Leslie wages war on a teenager who vandalizes the founder's statue every Halloween, with Louis C.K. as her cop boyfriend. Meanwhile Tom rescues Ann's dead party by making a dance floor. Alan Sepinwall called it a good place for newcomers to start. Do not start with season one.

  6. An office desk with a carved pumpkin, a stapler in a dish of red gelatin and a stack of pink slips under a desk lamp.

    05. Halloween (The Office)

    The Office · 2005

    Michael has to fire someone by the end of the day, in costume. Jim and Pam post Dwight's résumé online; Dwight dresses as a Sith lord. They shot two endings and fired Devon over Creed because the actor had a theater contract. Creed survives everything.

  7. A pillowcase overflowing with full-size chocolate bars on a dark beach boardwalk, a pair of pink bunny ears on top.

    04. Full Bars

    Bob's Burgers · 2012

    The Belcher kids trick-or-treat alone for the first time and head to a rich island giving out full-size bars, where teenagers hunt the stragglers. Meanwhile Teddy's guinea pig dies at his party and Bob thinks he did it. He didn't. It was old age. The pig, not Bob.

  8. A homemade tunnel of terror made of bedsheets and cardboard running through a cluttered kitchen, a rubber hand on the table.

    03. Boo!

    Roseanne · 1989

    The Conners turn the house into a Tunnel of Terror and Dan and Roseanne try to out-scare each other. She wins by telling him her parents are staying three weeks. Watched by 36.7 million people, the first of many Roseanne Halloweens. Still the best scare on television.

  9. A spilled tray of olive-drab military ration packs on a library floor beside a vinyl record of 70s disco pop and a toppled skeleton decoration.

    02. Epidemiology

    Community · 2010

    The dean buys cheap military rations for the Halloween party and the campus turns into zombies, set entirely to ABBA. George Takei narrates. Dan Harmon paid for the custom spooky opening credits himself because NBC wouldn't. Discount catering remains the scariest thing here.

  10. A gold medal on a ribbon resting in an open police evidence box beside a jack-o'-lantern on a precinct desk at midnight.

    01. Halloween (Brooklyn Nine-Nine)

    Brooklyn Nine-Nine · 2013

    Jake bets Captain Holt he can steal Holt's Medal of Valor by midnight; loser does paperwork or five unpaid weekends. Only the sixth episode, and it became the annual Halloween Heist, which ate the holiday whole. The A.V. Club gave it an A minus. Holt deserved better.

Honorable mentions

  • A wooden treehouse at night under a full moon, a black raven perched on the railing and a flying saucer hovering above.

    Treehouse of Horror

    The Simpsons · 1990

    Three stories, a parental warning from Marge, aliens Kang and Kodos, and James Earl Jones narrating Poe's The Raven. Al Jean said the warning only made kids want to watch more. Disqualified for being an entire genre now, not an episode.

Dishonorable mentions

  • A brown potato with tinfoil antennae sitting on an orange couch beside a bowl of candy and an arm-wrestling scoreboard.

    The One with the Halloween Party

    Friends · 2001

    Monica and Chandler's costume party, with Sean Penn, Ross as Spudnik, a potato that is also a satellite, and an arm-wrestling subplot. Nearly 27 million people watched. Ross spends the episode explaining his costume, which tells you everything.

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