I love Halloween. Not really the dressing up part. Or the parties. Okay, I basically just love any excuse to buy lots of candy and decorate my apartment with skulls; but I love those two things more than enough to justify a more general statement like “I love Halloween.” I also love this blog–though my paltry update frequency over the last several months may have convinced you otherwise. Finally, if you’ve been keeping up with the Dystopian Dance Mix posts, you should already know that I loves me some cheesy holiday-themed tie-in content. All of these are reasons why, from the first of October until the big night itself, Dystopian Dance Party will be rechristened as Dystopian Halloween Party.
During this month of mildly thrilling festivities, I’ll be posting articles (more than one a week!) on music, films, video games, and other pop culture junk with a Halloween-friendly spin. In other words, it will be exactly like every other month, except with more frequent updates and more ghosts and goblins and shit. And you know there are gonna be some things to bump in the night.
So let’s start things off with a little bit of Jheri Curl June to kick off your October. The video below comes from the Halloween 1983 episode of one of my favorite things in the world–the show that, in a roundabout way, gave me the name for this very blog: the classic Detroit local TV dance program The Scene.
Probably my favorite thing about this Scene clip is that, even though it’s clearly a Halloween episode, it’s not really all that much crazier than a typical show. It’s basically business as usual for the ever-fly Scene crew, except this time they’re dressed as skeletons, belly dancers, cowboys, and…whatever that guy at 3:05 is supposed to be. So…like I said, basically business as usual.
In case you’re not already sold, though, here’s a brief synopsis: the clip opens with a “press conference” with “President Ronald Reagan,” as portrayed by a guy in a rubber mask that looks like Patrick Swayze should be wearing it to rob a bank. “Reagan” answers questions from the audience entirely in snippets from songs like Rick James and the Temptations’ “Standing on the Top,” Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five’s “The Message,” and the Time’s “777-9311.” And then they all “throw down” to Twilight 22’s classic electro cut “Electric Kingdom.” Basically, it’s both the best possible way to start the “Halloween season,” and the best way I can think of to share with the world the images I see when I close my eyes. So let’s get it. Happy motherfuckin’ Halloween.
