''Witch's Night Out'' is a Canadian animated television Halloween special that premiered on

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

October 27, 1978. Produced in a

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anch ...

studio, it was the sequel to the 1974 special ''The Gift of Winter'' with the vocal talents from Dan Aykroyd and

Valri Bromfield Valri Bromfield (born February 10, 1949) is a Canadian comedian, actress, writer, and television producer who started her career as one half of a comedy team with Dan Aykroyd. Together, they joined the first Toronto company of The Second City wh ...

. It featured the voices of

Fiona Reid Fiona Reid, CM (born 24 July 1951) is an English-born Canadian television, film, and stage actress. She is best known for her roles as Cathy on the TV series ''King of Kensington'' and Harriet Miller in the film ''My Big Fat Greek Wedding''. E ...

as Nicely and Catherine O'Hara as Malicious, with Gilda Radner as the titular witch. Like the earlier special, ''Witch's Night Out'' was produced on 35mm film by Jonathan Rogers (formerly known as John Leach) and Jean Rankin for

. It later aired on Fox and the Disney Channel every year from 1983 to the late 1990s. This cartoon film was released on videotape August 5, 1986 by

Family Home Entertainment Family Home Entertainment (FHE) was an American home video company founded in 1980 by Noel C. Bloom. It was a division of International Video Entertainment, which had its headquarters in Newbury Park, California. History The company was founde ...

and PPI Entertainment in the late 1990s. The film was resurrected once again by the original creator Jonathan Rogers and Animation Director Jimmy Cross (with his Uncle Porkchop Productions animation studio) and together with a new remastered film they formed Cross/Rogers and released it to Mill Creek Entertainment and

This TV This TV (also known as This TV Network and alternately stylized as thisTV) is an American free-to-air television network owned by Allen Media Broadcast Networks, LLC, part of the Allen Media Group division of Entertainment Studios. Originally f ...

Network and in 2016 for both Hulu and Shout TV. Mill Creek Entertainment released this cartoon along with ten more classic Halloween-themed cartoons on DVD September 16, 2014. Its predecessor ''The Gift of Winter'' had its own DVD release a month later from that same company.

Plot

The plot involves a depressed witch who is 'summoned' by a pair of children, named Small and Tender, who are upset at not being able to scare anyone on Halloween. The witch turns them into a

werewolf In folklore, a werewolf (), or occasionally lycanthrope (; ; uk, Вовкулака, Vovkulaka), is an individual that can shapeshift into a wolf (or, especially in modern film, a therianthropic hybrid wolf-like creature), either purposely ...

and ghost (previously their

Halloween costume Halloween costumes are costumes worn on Halloween, a festival which falls on October 31. An early reference to wearing costumes at Halloween comes from Scotland in 1585, but they may pre-date this. There are many references to the custom during ...

s), and their babysitter Bazooey into a

Frankenstein's monster Frankenstein's monster or Frankenstein's creature, often referred to as simply "Frankenstein", is a fictional character who first appeared in Mary Shelley's 1818 novel ''Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus''. Shelley's title thus compares ...

. The witch then takes them to the Halloween party-in-progress at her isolated mansion on the edge of town. However, the citizens of the town get offended at the thought of real monsters in their town, and form a mob, under the leadership of the strait-laced 'Goodly'. The witch loses her magic wand, which gets attached to a woman named Malicious, and is unable to turn Bazooey and the kids back to humans. The group of supernatural beings is chased through the town and forest by the mob, eventually losing them. Malicious and her partner, Rotten, misuse the wand's powers, which causes a lot of damage to the town, but also summons the witch and the kids to their location. Regaining her wand, the witch uses its power to turn Malicious and Rotten into monsters (though she turns them back soon after), while turning the Frankenstein monster, ghost and werewolf back into Bazooey, Tender and Small. Eventually, the witch uses her powers to restore everything to normal, showing the town that she is not evil. The town quickly accepts the witch, and she starts turning people into what they want to be for Halloween. A disco song entitled "Witch Magic" was sung in this film.

References

External links

* {{Halloween 1978 television specials 1970s animated television specials Halloween television specials NBC television specials CBC Television original films Canadian animated television films Witchcraft in television