Day 19: Haunted Disney…OOooOoo

October 19, 2022

Dear Disney,

The 80’s was a wild time. For the 18th Day of 31 Days of Disney Halloween, Darling and I found a 1983 educational film called “Disney’s Haunted Halloween.” Neither of us had ever seen this or even knew about it until a few days ago. What follows is a 1980’s historical rendition of the beginnings and history of Halloween.

There is no plot or story to this short. The sole purpose of this short, educational film is to talk to the audience about Halloween, the history of Halloween (as they knew it in 1983), and some safety guides for children trick-or-treating. The narrator is Hal Douglas, a prolific voiceover actor, who was uncredited for this picture. All of the voice work was uncredited, but as this short was actually a re-edit of Disney’s Christmas Treat, the credit error is mainly due to the re-edit then anything else.

Disney put out two specials like this in 1983, the first being Disney’s Halloween Treat and the second was Disney’s Christmas Gift. Disney’s Christmas Gift does not seem to have an educational video like the Halloween special.

I found everything about this to be cute and quaint and fun. The short had parts of The Haunted Mansion ride interspersed throughout that gave it a creepier feel, but it mostly was just filled with nostalgia. The nostalgia had nothing to do with Disney, but more to do with the educational films that my school would have us watch in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grades. They would wheel out the projector, and the teacher would thread the machine and turn it on. The wizz of the film reels and the flap flap of the film when it was finished are still vivid memories to me.

I hope Disney releases these someday, until then I hope you enjoy them however you can.

Sincerely,

Jim Dear and Darling