Last year, I tried to launch an annual event in which, for the month of October, this blog would rechristen itself Dystopian Halloween Party and post only Halloween-related content. It was an unmitigated disaster, even by the incredibly lenient metrics of “success” by which I usually measure the site (i.e., “Did I like it?”).
But this year will be different. This year, I’ll give Dystopian Halloween Party the attention it deserves. I already have some great things planned: another entry in my apparently years-spanning series of posts about underrated Halloween music; writeups of seasonally appropriate video games for the original PlayStation; a two-part series on everyone’s favorite Halloween band, KISS; and some other stuff that I’m not going to talk about, because I still don’t know if I can pull it off and I don’t want to be over-ambitious. Look, I’m not promising that this October will be as amazing as Jheri Curl June–few can make a promise like that and hope to deliver–but I can say with confidence that it will at least be a Good Month for This Blog.
And just to show that I mean what I say, I’m starting things off with another clip from my all-time favorite local dance show, Detroit‘s The Scene:
Listen, I know I’ve said some negative things in the past about Michael Jackson‘s “Thriller.” Things like “overplayed,” “gimmicky,” “definitive proof that M.J. was a poor man’s Prince,” and “why would anyone want to listen to this on any day other than October 31?” Even having said these deplorable things, however, I assure you: you’ve never really experienced “Thriller” until you’ve seen it on the 1983 Scene Halloween special.
Unless, of course, you’ve already seen “Thriller” performed by puppets, interspersed with shots of the Scene dancers in full Halloween regalia and the world’s ashiest vampire rising from his cardboard coffin. If that’s the case, then sorry, I have nothing new to offer you.
I’ll be back, hopefully, tomorrow–early next week at the latest!–with more vaguely Halloween-themed stuff. See you then.
