For Halloween, I give you:

Oh, he just has his holidays confused. Really. After the HILARIOUS! opening where he tries on various seasonal costumes, we cut to the titles, where we see four words that rival “Star Wars Holiday Special” for seventies-strength pop-crap that would make the Sphinx wince:

Hello, kids.

Paul Lynde was a very funny man. This, however, is painful. First a monologue with all the bitchy mincing and sneering America had come to expect . . .

. . . and then a musical number, where Paul is tormented by kids. He hates kids. The kids repay the sentiment by jabbing him with plastic pitchforks.

This does not go on forever, which is a reassuring sign you’re not in hell. The action moves to a place with two witches:

The one on the left had her makeup done by the Sid & Marty Kroft company, apparently; the one on the right is doing the classic Wicked Witch from Oz. They spin various fantasy scenarios for Paul, which leads to a skit in which he is the gayest truck driver in the history of the internal combustion engine:

It’s like Arthur Godfrey as a milkman on Fire Island. Let’s look at this in context: did any adult have any doubt he was gay? As a kid - hell, as a teen - I had no idea. Just didn’t occur to me. Later in life we thought oh, right, sure, of course. But even though he’s flaming the set so hard they had to spray asbestos foam on everything, they still have to pretend:

That’s Roz “Pinky Toscadero” Kelly, as she’s billed in the credits. I'd forgotten all about her. According to wikipedia, she was a photographer for New York magazine before getting into acting. Also, in 1998, she fired a shotgun into the front window of a neighbor when his car alarm woke her up. Probably not the first time.

Hamina hamina! When you grow up in North Dakota, that's ethnic. This scene leads to a disco number involving trucks and CB radios because it is 1976 and this was the law.

Afterwards there is a musical interlude with some special guests. It was their first time on television, I believe. They were intent on rocking every night, and following it with a daytime interval of partying - a novel take on the diurnal cycle.

How do you follow the hard-rockin’ KISS? With the Dark Mistress of the Night:

Florence Henderson.

There is additional disco dancing at the end:

But this - well. This is what makes me happy, in a way, because everyone thinks they’re living in the WORST cultural period when everything is cheap and false, with the old icons of pop culture chewed up and used just to give a modern moment some gravity it doesn’t deserve. Well, it’s been that way for a while. Here:

See the Wicked Witch character standing next to Ace Frehley, who’s probably so drunk there’s someone off camera holding him up? Let me play you an eleven-second clip from earlier in the show. That's not someone doing an impression.

That’s right. It’s her. She came back for the role once. And it was this.

You may think that's the end of the Halloween horrors, but no! There’s a new addition in the Black & White World Monster section: the Wolfman, including the peculiar “Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman” movie. Regular Monday updates will return tomorrow.