The 12 Best Halloween TV Episodes of All Time

Halloween and television have always made a particularly good combination. A holiday built around costumes, monsters, elaborate decorations, and behaving differently for one night gives television writers an excuse to push their characters beyond the usual boundaries without abandoning the shows viewers already love.

The best Halloween TV episodes do more than put familiar characters in costumes and scatter a few pumpkins around the set. They find something about Halloween that fits the series itself. A family sitcom can turn trick-or-treating into a story about children growing up. A supernatural drama can make Halloween genuinely dangerous. A workplace comedy can transform a costume party into complete chaos, while an animated series can temporarily ignore reality altogether and start killing its characters for fun.

Some shows became so closely tied to the holiday that Halloween became an annual tradition. Roseanne repeatedly transformed the Conner house for the occasion. Brooklyn Nine-Nine turned a simple bet between Jake and Holt into the Halloween Heist. The Simpsons built an entire institution around its annual “Treehouse of Horror” anthology.

For this list, we’re looking specifically at episodes in which Halloween is an actual part of the story. A television episode doesn’t qualify simply because it’s scary or makes particularly good October viewing. The holiday, a Halloween party, trick-or-treating or another directly related event needs to matter to what happens.

We’re also ranking the episodes rather than the television series themselves. A classic show doesn’t automatically outrank a newer one simply because it has a larger place in television history. The question is how successfully each individual episode uses Halloween and how memorable the result remains.

So grab the full-size candy bars, stay away from any suspicious military-surplus taco meat and make sure nobody gives Homer a toaster capable of altering the timeline.

Here are the 12 best Halloween TV episodes of all time.

12. Parks and Recreation – “Greg Pikitis”

Most Halloween episodes give their characters ghosts, monsters or elaborate costumes to worry about. Leslie Knope has something considerably more terrifying.

A teenage boy.

“Greg Pikitis” centers on Leslie’s annual battle with the Pawnee teenager who has repeatedly vandalized the town on Halloween. Leslie knows Pikitis is responsible, Pikitis knows Leslie knows, and the smug teenager takes enormous pleasure in her inability to prove anything.

What happens

Leslie becomes determined to catch Greg before he can commit his traditional Halloween vandalism, recruiting Dave to help monitor him. Her obsession escalates as Greg repeatedly appears to outmaneuver her, eventually producing the wonderfully absurd sight of a government employee interrogating a teenager as though she’s trying to break an international criminal mastermind.

Meanwhile, Ann throws a Halloween party that initially goes nowhere. Tom arrives, recognizes the problem almost immediately and turns the gathering into an actual party, demonstrating yet again that some of his apparently frivolous talents are genuine talents.

Why it’s one of the best Halloween TV episodes

“Greg Pikitis” works because Halloween provides Leslie with her own personal supervillain. Greg isn’t particularly threatening to anyone else, but to Leslie, vandalizing public property in Pawnee is practically an attack on everything she holds sacred.

The episode also comes from the period when Parks and Recreation was rapidly discovering the version of Leslie that would define the series. Her enthusiasm isn’t simply incompetence or obliviousness. She’s smart, deeply invested in her community and capable of becoming completely unhinged when somebody threatens something she cares about.

Greg Pikitis understands that perfectly, which is exactly why tormenting her is so much fun.

There are scarier Halloween villains on this list.

None of them frighten Leslie Knope more than Pikitis.

Where to watch: Check current streaming availability; sold on physical media and digitally.

11. Modern Family – “Halloween”

Every family has someone who takes a holiday more seriously than everyone else. In the Dunphy household, Halloween belongs to Claire.

That means everyone else had better follow the script.

The first dedicated Halloween episode of Modern Family turns the Dunphy home into an elaborate haunted house and Claire into a director desperately trying to manage a cast that seems incapable of respecting her artistic vision.

What happens

Claire has planned every detail of the haunted house, assigning family members specific characters and carefully coordinating the scares awaiting trick-or-treaters. Unfortunately, the rest of the family arrives with problems of its own, and Claire’s increasingly desperate attempts to keep everyone focused become funnier as the evening deteriorates.

Elsewhere, Mitchell learns that wearing a Spider-Man costume to work was a mistake after discovering nobody else came dressed for Halloween. His attempts to escape the office without being seen only make the situation considerably worse. Gloria, meanwhile, becomes frustrated when Jay and Manny criticize her accent and begins dramatically overcorrecting her pronunciation.

Why it’s one of the best Halloween TV episodes

The episode succeeds because Halloween reveals character rather than temporarily replacing it. Claire doesn’t suddenly become obsessive for the holiday. Halloween simply gives her existing need for organization, competition and control the perfect outlet.

That characterization lasted. Claire’s love of Halloween became a recurring part of Modern Family, with the series returning to the holiday multiple times and finding increasingly elaborate ways for her to terrorize her family and neighborhood.

Plenty of sitcom parents tolerate Halloween because their children enjoy it.

Claire Dunphy has been waiting all year for everyone else to get out of her way.

Where to watch: Check current streaming availability; sold on physical media and digitally.

10. Cheers – “Fairy Tales Can Come True”

Cliff Clavin rarely lacks confidence when he’s explaining some dubious piece of trivia to everyone at Cheers. Put him in front of a woman he’s attracted to, however, and that confidence can disappear remarkably quickly.

Halloween temporarily solves the problem by letting Cliff become somebody else.

What happens

During the bar’s Halloween costume party, Cliff dresses as Spanish explorer Ponce de León and meets a woman named Tinker Bell. Or, more accurately, a woman dressed as Tinker Bell.

The disguises give them an unusual freedom. Neither can properly see what the other looks like, allowing Cliff to relax and make a genuine connection without immediately becoming consumed by his insecurities.

Eventually they agree to meet again without their costumes. That’s when Cliff’s confidence collapses. He becomes convinced that once she sees the real Cliff Clavin, whatever attraction existed between them will disappear.

Why it’s one of the best Halloween TV episodes

“Fairy Tales Can Come True” understands something fundamental about costumes: sometimes pretending to be somebody else makes it easier to reveal who you actually are.

That’s particularly effective with Cliff. His endless facts and confident pronouncements frequently function as armor, protecting a man who is considerably more insecure than he wants anyone at the bar to realize. Halloween gives him a different kind of armor, and for one evening it actually helps.

The episode is also a reminder that Cheers could find genuine sweetness in characters who were normally used for comedy. Cliff remains Cliff, but the joke isn’t that he’s hopeless or undeserving of affection. His fear is understandable, and the episode allows viewers to root for him.

For one night, Ponce de León goes searching for the Fountain of Youth and finds Tinker Bell instead.

Not bad for Cliffie.

Where to watch: Check current streaming availability; sold on physical media and digitally.

9. It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia – “Who Got Dee Pregnant?”

A Halloween party is supposed to produce embarrassing photographs, regrettable decisions and perhaps a hangover the following morning.

The Gang manages to create a paternity investigation.

“Who Got Dee Pregnant?” begins after Dee announces that she’s pregnant and claims one of the men in the Gang is responsible. Unfortunately, everyone was so drunk during the Halloween party where the supposed conception occurred that nobody can reliably remember what happened.

What happens

Dennis, Mac, Charlie and Frank begin reconstructing the night through a series of increasingly unreliable flashbacks. They remember costumes, arguments, hookups and other fragments of the party, but each person’s version changes details according to his own perceptions and considerable ego.

The structure allows It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia to turn unreliable narration into a visual joke. Mac remembers himself as considerably more impressive than he actually was. Details shift between accounts. Most memorably, Dee becomes progressively less human in the Gang’s recollections until she’s essentially represented as the bird they constantly insist she resembles.

The mystery becomes less about discovering an objective account of the party and more about demonstrating that none of these people can be trusted to describe anything accurately, particularly when doing so might make them look bad.

Why it’s one of the best Halloween TV episodes

Unlike most selections on this list, the present-day portions of “Who Got Dee Pregnant?” don’t take place on Halloween. It still qualifies because the Halloween party is the central event around which the entire episode is constructed. Remove the party, and there is no story.

The costumes also make the unreliable memories considerably funnier. Halloween gives everyone another layer of identity to misremember, distort, or use as evidence while they attempt to reconstruct a night none of them was remotely sober enough to understand in the first place.

It’s a perfect Always Sunny mystery because solving it requires asking five profoundly unreliable people to cooperate honestly with one another.

They never stood a chance.

Dee probably had a better chance of convincing them she wasn’t a bird.

Where to watch: Check current streaming availability; sold on physical media and digitally.

8. Bob’s Burgers – “Full Bars”

There comes a moment in every trick-or-treater’s life when fun-size candy is no longer enough. Tina, Gene, and Louise Belcher discover that somewhere beyond their neighborhood lies a magical land where wealthy people distribute something almost unimaginable.

Full-size candy bars.

The first Halloween episode of Bob’s Burgers sends the Belcher children on a quest for better candy while Bob and Linda attend a Halloween party that becomes considerably more traumatic than anyone expected.

What happens

Tina, Gene, and Louise are allowed to go trick-or-treating without their parents and quickly become dissatisfied with the candy available in their neighborhood. They hear about King’s Head Island, an affluent community where residents supposedly hand out full-size bars, and make the journey in pursuit of the ultimate Halloween haul.

The rumors are true. The candy is magnificent.

Unfortunately, the local teenagers are considerably less welcoming. The Belcher kids find themselves targeted by older trick-or-treaters, turning their candy expedition into a Halloween survival mission.

Meanwhile, Bob and Linda attend Teddy’s Black and Orange party. The evening takes a disastrous turn when Teddy’s beloved guinea pig, Francis, is accidentally killed, leading Teddy to launch an investigation into which guest’s costume was responsible.

Why it’s one of the best Halloween TV episodes

“Full Bars” captures the particular intensity Halloween can have for children. The difference between a miniature candy bar and a full-size one isn’t merely a matter of ounces. At that age, discovering a neighborhood giving away full bars feels like uncovering a secret economy designed specifically to reward ambitious trick-or-treaters.

The episode also establishes what would become one of Bob’s Burgers’ strengths. The series developed an impressive collection of holiday episodes because it understands how traditions matter to the Belchers without requiring them to become a different family whenever a holiday arrives.

Tina, Gene and Louise approach Halloween exactly as they approach most things: together, slightly recklessly and with complete commitment to whatever bizarre objective they’ve chosen.

On this particular night, that objective is entirely reasonable.

Get the full bars.

Where to watch: Check current streaming availability; sold on physical media and digitally.

7. Frasier – “Halloween”

Niles Crane throwing a literary-themed Halloween party is such a perfectly Frasier premise that the episode almost writes itself.

Almost.

What it actually requires is an elaborate misunderstanding involving Roz’s possible pregnancy, Daphne, Frasier and a room filled with people dressed as literary characters. Fortunately, elaborate misunderstandings are one of the things Frasier does best.

What happens

Niles hosts a Halloween benefit for the Library Association and requires his guests to dress as characters from literature. He arrives as Cyrano de Bergerac, Frasier dresses as Geoffrey Chaucer, Daphne becomes the Wife of Bath, Martin chooses Sherlock Holmes, and Roz attends as O from Story of O.

Roz has a much more serious concern than her costume. She believes she may be pregnant and confides in Frasier while trying to determine what she’s going to do.

Niles overhears only portions of conversations and begins assembling those fragments into a completely incorrect story. He becomes convinced that Daphne is pregnant and that Frasier is the father.

From there, the misunderstanding expands exactly as it should, with Niles reacting emotionally to information that isn’t true while everyone else remains unaware of what he thinks he knows.

Why it’s one of the best Halloween TV episodes

The literary costume party gives Frasier an opportunity to be aggressively itself. Of course Niles doesn’t simply throw a Halloween party. It needs a theme sophisticated enough to require everyone to demonstrate that they’ve read a book.

More importantly, the episode doesn’t depend on Halloween overwhelming the show’s usual style. There are no supernatural events or horror parodies. Instead, costumes and overheard conversations become additional machinery for the kind of escalating farce the series had perfected.

Roz’s pregnancy also prevents the episode from becoming completely disposable holiday entertainment. Her uncertainty introduces a genuine development that continues beyond Halloween, while the surrounding misunderstanding supplies the comedy.

It’s Halloween filtered through the Crane brothers: literature, pretension, romantic anguish, and an extraordinary amount of trouble caused by somebody hearing half a conversation.

All that’s missing is tossed salad and scrambled eggs.

Where to watch: Check current streaming availability; sold on physical media and digitally.

6. Freaks and Geeks – “Tricks and Treats”

Halloween can be one of the first holidays children realize they’re outgrowing. Nobody announces when you’re officially too old to go trick-or-treating. Eventually, you just discover that something which felt completely natural a year earlier suddenly feels different.

Freaks and Geeks understands that transition painfully well.

What happens

Sam, Neal and Bill head out for what they expect to be another night of trick-or-treating, only to discover that Halloween isn’t quite as welcoming as they remember. Younger children surround them, adults question whether they’re getting too old for free candy, and the evening gradually forces them to confront the possibility that a childhood tradition is slipping away.

Lindsay is moving in the opposite direction. Her mother expects her to stay home and help hand out candy as she has in previous years, but Lindsay chooses to spend Halloween with Daniel, Kim and the other freaks instead.

The decision becomes considerably uglier when the group begins smashing pumpkins and throwing eggs at younger trick-or-treaters. Lindsay joins in, only to discover that one of the kids they’ve targeted is Sam.

Suddenly, her attempt to prove she belongs with her new friends hurts the person at home who still expects her to be his older sister.

Why it’s one of the best Halloween TV episodes

“Tricks and Treats” doesn’t need monsters because growing up is frightening enough.

Sam’s story captures the humiliation of realizing that childhood traditions don’t necessarily end when you’re ready for them to end. He still wants Halloween to work the way it always has, but the world has started treating him differently.

Lindsay has the opposite problem. She’s actively pushing away from childhood and her family’s expectations, but she hasn’t figured out what she wants to replace them with. Going out with the freaks feels like independence until she sees the consequences of what she’s doing.

That’s why Halloween matters so much to the episode. Both Weir children are standing on opposite sides of the same boundary. Sam isn’t ready to cross it, while Lindsay desperately tries to prove she already has.

Plenty of television Halloween episodes are about pretending to be somebody else for one night.

Freaks and Geeks is about realizing you’re becoming somebody else whether you want to or not.

Where to watch: Check current streaming availability; sold on physical media and digitally.

5. Brooklyn Nine-Nine – “Halloween”

Before Halloween at the 99th Precinct became an annual exercise in elaborate deception, fake identities, hidden alliances, and increasingly ridiculous schemes, it started with a simple question.

Could Jake Peralta steal Captain Holt’s Medal of Valor before midnight?

Holt is confident the answer is no. Jake, naturally, takes it as an invitation.

What happens

Jake proposes a Halloween bet: if he can steal Holt’s medal before midnight, Holt must publicly declare that Jake is an amazing detective and genius. If Jake fails, he agrees to work five weekends without overtime.

Holt accepts because he believes Jake’s inability to plan ahead makes the challenge essentially impossible.

What Holt doesn’t initially realize is that Jake has done something surprisingly un-Jake-like.

He planned ahead.

Jake’s seemingly unsuccessful attempts to reach the medal gradually reveal themselves as pieces of a larger scheme involving the other members of the precinct. The challenge becomes less about whether Jake can physically steal something from Holt and more about whether he can outthink a captain who assumes he already understands exactly how his detective operates.

Why it’s one of the best Halloween TV episodes

The first Halloween Heist is considerably simpler than the increasingly elaborate competitions that followed, and that’s part of what makes it work. At its center is the relationship between Jake and Holt.

Jake desperately wants Holt to acknowledge that beneath the immaturity is an excellent detective. Holt believes Jake has talent but lacks the discipline necessary to execute a sophisticated plan. Halloween gives Jake the opportunity to prove him wrong.

The episode also created something much larger than itself. The Halloween Heist became one of Brooklyn Nine-Nine’s defining traditions, eventually expanding beyond Jake and Holt until virtually everyone in the precinct was manipulating everyone else in pursuit of increasingly absurd titles and prizes.

Later heists became bigger. They became more complicated. They became almost impossible to predict.

But somebody had to steal the first medal.

Nine-Nine!

Where to watch: Check current streaming availability; sold on physical media and digitally.

4. Roseanne – “BOO!”

For the Conner family, Halloween isn’t merely an excuse to buy some candy and carve a pumpkin. It’s an opportunity to turn the house into a nightmare, terrify anyone foolish enough to enter and, most importantly, prove that nobody can scare you better than you can scare them.

“BOO!” established Halloween as one of Roseanne’s signature traditions, and the series would return to the holiday repeatedly throughout its original run.

What happens

The Conners transform their home into the Tunnel of Terror, an elaborate haunted attraction designed to frighten neighborhood children. Everyone gets involved, turning Halloween into a full-scale family production rather than something happening around the edges of the episode.

Roseanne and Dan also wage their own private competition. Each is determined to frighten the other, escalating a series of pranks as they try to discover who can finally make the other one crack.

That’s exactly the kind of competition that makes sense for them. Roseanne and Dan are affectionate, competitive and delighted by the possibility of making each other miserable for entertainment. Halloween simply gives them permission to take those qualities further than usual.

Why it’s one of the best Halloween TV episodes

“BOO!” aired on Oct. 31, 1989, and helped establish a connection between Roseanne and Halloween that would last for years. The Conners didn’t treat the holiday as an obligatory seasonal storyline. They genuinely loved it.

That distinction matters. The elaborate decorations and costumes feel believable because this is exactly the kind of family that would spend far too much time turning its home into a haunted house. The Conners may constantly worry about bills, work, and money, but creativity and enthusiasm don’t require wealth.

The episode also lets Roseanne and Dan behave like partners in exactly the way that made their marriage so entertaining. They’re not patiently supervising Halloween for their children. They’re having at least as much fun as the kids, and possibly considerably more.

Many sitcoms eventually produced Halloween episodes.

The Conners made Halloween feel like something they would celebrate even if ABC forgot to bring the cameras.

Where to watch: Check current streaming availability; sold on physical media and digitally.

3. Buffy the Vampire Slayer – “Halloween”

Halloween should be the safest night of the year in Sunnydale.

According to Giles, vampires generally consider the holiday too tacky to bother with, leaving Buffy with the unusual possibility of spending Oct. 31 behaving like a relatively normal teenager.

Then Ethan Rayne opens a costume shop.

What happens

Buffy, Willow and Xander obtain pieces of their costumes from Ethan’s shop before heading out to escort children trick-or-treating. Buffy dresses as an 18th-century noblewoman after becoming insecure about whether Angel would prefer the kind of woman he might have known when he was human. Xander dresses as a soldier, while Willow reluctantly covers her more daring costume with a ghost sheet.

Ethan performs a spell that transforms people into whatever their costumes represent.

Buffy becomes a frightened noblewoman with no knowledge of being the Slayer. Xander becomes an actual soldier. Willow becomes a ghost, leaving her intangible but still aware of who she really is.

With Buffy suddenly helpless and Sunnydale’s children transformed into monsters, Willow has to take control while Giles discovers that his old acquaintance Ethan is responsible for the chaos.

Why it’s one of the best Halloween TV episodes

“Halloween” takes the most obvious possible holiday premise, people becoming their costumes, and uses it to expose things about the characters.

Buffy’s costume reflects her insecurity about Angel and her mistaken belief that becoming a more traditional woman would somehow make her more desirable. Instead, losing everything that makes Buffy herself demonstrates precisely why Angel is attracted to the woman she actually is.

Willow experiences the opposite transformation. Becoming a ghost removes the costume she used to hide herself, forcing her to spend the night showing the more confident version underneath. Xander’s transformation, meanwhile, has consequences beyond the episode because he retains fragments of the soldier’s military knowledge afterward.

The episode also introduces Ethan Rayne and begins revealing a darker side of Giles’ past, ensuring the Halloween chaos matters beyond one holiday installment.

That’s what makes “Halloween” particularly effective. Buffy the Vampire Slayer didn’t stop telling its larger story to produce a Halloween special.

It used Halloween to tell more of it.

Where to watch: Check current streaming availability; sold on physical media and digitally.

2. Community – “Epidemiology”

Greendale Community College has hosted plenty of disastrous events, but its Halloween party sets an unusually high standard. Before the night is over, students are attacking one another, the building is under quarantine, and the United States military is preparing to erase the entire incident.

At least the soundtrack is excellent.

What happens

Dean Pelton throws a Halloween party and attempts to save money by serving food purchased from an Army surplus store. One item, labeled as taco meat, turns out to be something considerably more dangerous.

Anyone who eats it develops a fever before becoming violently aggressive and attempting to bite other people. The infection spreads rapidly through the party, effectively turning Greendale into the setting of a zombie movie.

The study group initially assumes everyone is simply behaving strangely before realizing they’re trapped inside the building with an expanding population of infected students. As the situation deteriorates, the group’s escape attempt follows increasingly recognizable zombie-movie conventions.

All of this happens while Dean Pelton’s playlist continues blasting ABBA songs throughout the building.

Why it’s one of the best Halloween TV episodes

“Epidemiology” demonstrates how good Community could be at transforming itself into another genre without losing the characters at its center. This isn’t merely an episode containing zombie references. For roughly 22 minutes, Greendale genuinely operates according to the rules of a zombie outbreak.

The Halloween setting makes that transformation feel natural. Everyone is already wearing costumes, which gives the infected crowd an appropriately surreal appearance, and the party provides a believable mechanism for putting most of Greendale in the same place when the outbreak begins.

Then there’s the music.

Using ABBA as the soundtrack instead of conventional horror music works far better than it should. The cheerful familiarity of songs such as “Dancing Queen” and “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!” makes the increasingly desperate zombie chaos considerably funnier without undermining the episode’s commitment to the genre.

The story even produces consequences beyond Halloween, most notably through what happens between Troy and Shirley during the period everyone later forgets.

Greendale has survived paintball wars, blanket forts, multiple documentary crews, and an alarming number of fires.

For Halloween, it survived ABBA zombies.

Where to watch: Check current streaming availability; sold on physical media and digitally.

1. The Simpsons – “Treehouse of Horror V”

Choosing the best Halloween episode of The Simpsons means first choosing among decades of “Treehouse of Horror” installments. The fifth edition earns the top spot because it delivers three segments without a weak link and contains moments that remain instantly recognizable more than 30 years later.

It also contains an important lesson.

No TV and no beer make Homer something something.

What happens

“Treehouse of Horror V” begins with “The Shinning,” the show’s parody of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. The Simpsons become winter caretakers at Mr. Burns’ isolated mansion, where Homer discovers that Burns has removed the television and beer to ensure the family works instead of relaxing.

Homer handles this development poorly.

Bart possesses the supernatural ability Groundskeeper Willie calls “the shinning,” while Homer’s deteriorating sanity eventually sends him chasing his family with an axe.

The second segment, “Time and Punishment,” begins when Homer accidentally damages the toaster and somehow turns it into a time machine. Each trip into the prehistoric past alters the present, producing increasingly bizarre alternate realities as Homer repeatedly attempts to restore the world he remembers.

Finally, “Nightmare Cafeteria” reveals why Springfield Elementary’s detention problem and declining cafeteria quality seem to be improving at the same time. Principal Skinner and the faculty have begun serving troublesome students as lunch.

Why it’s the best Halloween TV episode

“Treehouse of Horror V” represents the freedom that made the early Halloween installments of The Simpsons special. Continuity doesn’t matter. Characters can die. Reality can collapse. The writers can parody a classic horror movie, create a time-travel story, and turn Springfield Elementary into a cannibalistic nightmare without worrying about restoring everything logically before the credits.

Each segment also produces something memorable. “The Shinning” contains some of the most quoted material in the entire “Treehouse” franchise. “Time and Punishment” turns the butterfly effect into an escalating series of jokes, including Homer’s inability to recognize an almost-perfect reality because he doesn’t understand a world where nobody knows what donuts are. “Nightmare Cafeteria” takes an ordinary childhood complaint about terrible school lunches and arrives at the most horrifying possible explanation.

The episode moves quickly enough that none of the concepts overstays its welcome. A joke lands, the story escalates, something horrible happens and the episode races toward the next idea.

The Simpsons has produced Halloween episodes for decades, and choosing a favorite “Treehouse of Horror” will always invite an argument. That’s part of the fun.

But if only one episode can represent the tradition, “Treehouse of Horror V” gives us Homer with an axe, a time-traveling toaster and children being served in the school cafeteria.

That’s a pretty good Halloween.

Where to watch: Check current streaming availability; sold on physical media and digitally.

The best Halloween TV episodes turn the holiday into part of the show

Halloween episodes have an advantage few other holiday installments enjoy. Christmas and Thanksgiving usually come with expectations about family, sentiment and tradition. Halloween gives television writers permission to get weird.

That can mean turning Greendale into a zombie movie, letting Sunnydale residents literally become their costumes or giving Homer Simpson a toaster capable of destroying reality. It can also mean something much smaller, such as watching the kids on Freaks and Geeks discover that they may be getting too old to trick-or-treat.

The common thread among the best Halloween TV episodes is that the holiday matters. Take Halloween away from these stories and something essential disappears with it.

Some of these episodes also created traditions that became nearly as anticipated as the shows themselves. The Conners kept trying to outdo themselves every October. The detectives of the 99th Precinct turned one Halloween bet into years of increasingly elaborate heists. Bob’s Burgers developed its own collection of holiday adventures. And “Treehouse of Horror” became such an institution that generations of Simpsons viewers have their own favorite installment.

There are hundreds of other Halloween episodes that could make an argument for inclusion, and television will keep producing more. That’s exactly how it should be.

After all, Halloween comes back every year.

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