"I hate to break this up, but I left my Jacuzzi on fast-forward." - Paul Lynde to his hostesses, after realizing they're witches
The Paul Lynde Halloween Special DVD Review
By Christopher W. Czajka
Everyone's heard the tired gag that the cultural zeitgeist of the 1970s-the polyester, the shag carpets (and hairdos), the fern bars, the sticky-sweet pop music-was a direct result of all the drugs everyone did in the 1960s. When I look back at the decade of my birth, it's almost always with a mixture of horror and fascination. Often, when confronted with a scrap of '70s pop culture, I find myself wondering "What was wrong with everybody?"
Undoubtedly, the wacko television trends of the '70s had their roots in the '60s. On '60s television, it was perfectly acceptable for witches to keep house in suburbia, nuns to fly, and astronauts to keep bare-bellied genies in fancy decanters. By the time the '70s rolled around, this breed of "fantasy sitcom" was being supplanted by a new generation of variety shows that threw the pop stars of the day into the decades-old vaudeville formula of corny jokes, silly sketches, and maudlin music. Donny and Marie did it. Tony Orlando did it. At one point, even the Brady Bunch did it. These two questionable strands of dubious television programming collided and reached some sort of orgiastic apex in October, 1976, when The Paul Lynde Halloween Special was broadcast for the first-and last-time.
The Paul Lynde Halloween Special is so jaw-dropping, so hallucinatory, and so insanely. . .multifaceted. . . it almost defies description. Let's just say there's something for practically everyone in this campy, bizarre mishmash of Halloween hokiness. Broadway buff? It's a classic. Halloween fanatic? You'll love it. KISS fan? It's a holy grail. And for lovers of '70s kitsch, the release of The Paul Lynde Halloween Special is a dream come true.
The special begins with Paul Lynde (Bewitched, The Hollywood Squares), presumably at home, trying to determine which holiday is coming up next. After several false starts, he is gently reminded by his housekeeper Margaret (Margaret Hamilton), that it's Halloween. Naturally, this causes Paul to break into a holiday-appropriate rewrite of his signature song "Kids" from the Broadway musical Bye Bye Birdie. Lynde's home fades away as he surrounded by bejewled dancers wearing scary masks, carrying pitchforks, and squeezed into hot pants. This polyester-and-sequins fantasia concludes with Lynde being tossed into a garbage can by Donny and Marie Osmond.
And really, folks, things are just getting started.
Soon enough, housekeeper Margaret wanders onto what is now the set of a variety show, and takes Paul away to her sister's house. Margaret's sister (Billie Hayes) lives in a sinister mansion called "Gloomsbury Manor." And, it turns out, her sister is a witch. . .the twitching, cackling Witchiepoo of H.R. Pufnstuf, to be exact. Upon arrival at the mansion, Margaret also reveals her own true identity: she is, in fact, none other than the Wicked Witch of the West. To see Hamilton in her full Oz drag (and for such an occasion, no less) is a treat. Watch her hands, and you'll see that nearly forty years after filming The Wizard of Oz, the character was still in her blood.
The two witches briefly introduce Lynde to "Miss Halloween 1976," a vaguely ghoulish creature who is disappointed that she's meeting Paul Lynde as opposed to Paul Newman. Or Paul Williams. Or St. Paul. She soon vanishes, and Lynde remarks "she has a striking resemblance to Betty White. . .but then again, so many witches do." Miss Halloween is, of course, White (The Mary Tyler Moore Show) herself. The witches then inform Lynde that they are giving him three wishes (it later turns out to be four, in order to give KISS an encore).
Paul's first wish-capitalizing on yet another mid-70s trend, the CB craze-is to be turned into a trucker (ahem). And not just any trucker, mind you. . .he wants to be a rhinestone trucker. Complete with a spangled spandex pantsuit and a forest of chest hair, Lynde embarks on a groaningly awful quest to win the heart of his one true love, Pinky (Roz "Pinky Tuscadero" Kelly, of Happy Days fame). Lynde's rival trucker is Tim Conway (The Carol Burnett Show). However, Pinky ends up heading off into the sunset with the diminutive Billy Barty (Sigmund and the Sea Monsters), who incidentally also plays Witchiepoo's butler.
Thankfully, Paul is soon whisked back to Gloomsbury Manor. The witches ask him if he'd like "a little chamber music" (so termed, the Wicked Witch explains with a cackle, because the musicians are locked in "a little chamber"). KISS appears on the scene and performs a pyrotechnically-enhanced version of "Detroit Rock City," while Lynde and the witches look on in glee.
Paul's second wish thrusts him into the role of a Valentino-inspired sheik wooing a cold-hearted British woman (Florence Henderson of The Brady Bunch). While not as deliriously stupid as the Rhinestone Trucker sketch, the funniest thing here is a reaction to what appears to be some improvised physical comedy: as Henderson clings to Lynde's leg and gets dragged around the set, someone on the production crew is HOWLING with laughter. Writer Bruce Vilanch, perhaps?
Back at Gloomsbury Manor, Lynde tells the witches that he's having such a gay old time (in so many words), he'd like to give them one of his wishes. Witchiepoo and the Wicked Witch, apparently, have always longed to go to a Hollywood disco (seriously, you just can't make this stuff up). The Manor morphs into a neon-bat adorned club, where groovy ghosts and ghastly goblins boogie-woogie-woogie the night away. Florence Henderson revs up the proceedings with a disco-infused version of "That Old Black Magic," before KISS' Peter Criss performs the melancholy "Beth."
As a special Halloween treat, the witches give Lynde a final wish, and he wishes for KISS to sing one more song. They oblige with "King of the Night Time World," before the entire casts busts into a hip-swiveling, full company "Disco Baby" dance number.
The Paul Lynde Halloween Special goes way beyond the "so bad it's good" category of television programming. It's amazingly, spectacularly awful while simultaneously so silly and odd that you can't help enjoying yourself watching it. And I'm hard-pressed to think of any other television show in which so many fictional characters from so many other productions share the same stage. The Laff-a-Lympics, perhaps?
It also happens to be one of the gayest television shows ever created. Will and Grace doesn't hold a candle to it. Sure, Lynde is womanizing Pinky Tuscadero and Florence Henderson, but his bitchy attitude, mincing delivery, sneering one-liners, and thinly-veiled nods to "a certain audience" are pretty impressive for 1976. All of this, mind you, while he's sharing the stage with KISS. One can only assume that, like the Village People at the same time, Lynde's unabashed gayness sailed over the heads of mainstream America.
