The Halloween That Almost Wasn't

The Halloween That Almost Wasn't is a 1979 holiday television film. This television film aired regularly on the Disney Channel during its Halloween season from 1983 to 1996. It revolves around Dracula (Judd Hirsch) trying to save Halloween from the Witch (Mariette Hartley) who threatens it. It won an Emmy Award for "Outstanding Individual Achievement – Children's Program" and was nominated for three others. On VHS releases, it was retitled The Night Dracula Saved the World.

The special, which premiered on ABC on October 28, 1979, was shot at Lyndhurst in Tarrytown, New York.

After hearing rumors from a TV newscaster (portrayed by Andrew Duncan) that Halloween may end and that he is being blamed, Dracula exclaims, "How dare they suggest such a thing? Halloween is my national holiday!" and he calls the world's most famous monsters—Warren the Werewolf aka Wolf Man (Jack Riley) of Budapest, the Mummy of Egypt (Robert Fitch), Frankenstein's monster (John Schuck), Zabaar the Zombie (Josip Elic) of Haiti, and the Witch - to his castle to make them scary again. Dracula believes that the problem is that the monsters have "exploited their monsterhood" to the point of being funny rather than scary, for example, Frankenstein's monster has let a movie influence him into tapdancing rather than scaring people. As it turns out, the rumor about Halloween coming to an end was started by the Witch herself; sick of jokes about how ugly she is, she no longer wishes to participate, and without her annual ride over the moon, there can be no Halloween. She has prepared a list of demands, which Dracula refuses to meet, so she rides off to her own castle.

Dracula pursues the Witch as a bat but realizes that the sun is about to come up and he goes back into his mausoleum. The next evening, on the night before Halloween, he and the other monsters break into the Witch's castle. They have her cornered but she turns a painting of the Three Musketeers into minions. After a brief chase scene using The Munsters-style fast motion, the Witch is cornered in a room while Igor (Henry Gibson) has her broom. Dracula turns into a bat again to sneak under the door but gets smashed by the Witch and comes back; Igor tries climbing on a ledge and swinging into the room through a window Hunchback of Notre Dame-style, only to have the Witch open the door so he goes right back outside. "It's one of those days I wish I was dead," Dracula declares. "And stayed dead."

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