What’s the number one certainty when it comes to big seasonal events? (Wells, besides calmly accepting that you will eat too much and that your calendar will never be big enough to accommodate all of them so FOMO is real, my friends, it is REAL).
Why it’s that you don’t leave it until the last minute to get what absolutely must be got, a sage lesson that Hoops, a pink cat voiced by co-creator Mike Adair and Yoyo, a green bunny voiced by co-creator Bob Holt, don’t seem to have taken on board at all.
Well, that and the rules of the road, safe driving etiquette, not going to places like malls that feed your cinnamon roll addiction and not falling sleep on vibrating chairs where you might get locked in the mall and trapped for the night with dark and terrifying ghouls.
All excellent lessons to take on board and heed unless, like Hoops & Yoyo, active characters for Hallmark on a range of gift cards, TV specials and a range of products from 2001 to 2015, you are anarchically incapable of taking anything onboard besides hilariously myopic and humourously immature self interest.
Hoops & Yoyo’s Haunted Halloween has a huge amount of fun with the gloriously oblivious characters who are eminently lucky that their friend Piddles (Bev Carlson), a blue creature of no specific species designation and clad in wholly unnecessary safety gear, has her wits about it and convinces them at almost every turn (save for the vibrating chairs debacle) to think calmly and not just go with their maddeningly off-the-cuff gut.
Hoops & Yoyo can thank Piddles, for instance, for a plan of action when they are being chased Scooby Doo style, which doesn’t include splitting up and living out all kinds of very well-worn horror movie cliches which are delivered with much comedic wit and silliness.
The joyously surprising thing about Hoops & Yoyo’s Haunted Halloween is that it is far more clever and witty and beautifully delivered that a clear piece of product placement has any right to be.
While it’s essentially one big ad for what was then a burgeoning line of merchandise for Hallmark, one with the kind of anarchic wit and seditious comedy you don’t usually associate with what is in many ways a conservative(ish) brand, Hoops & Yoyo’s Haunted Halloween is packed full of wittily smart dialogue, a love of parodying key horror tropes and a gleefully fun sense of the ridiculous that recalls the playfully surreal madness at the heart of cartoon classics like Rocko’s Modern Life.
The special, which came in 2012 and screened on the Hallmark channel on 26 October, is a long way from the sweet, charming specials that usually grace Halloween from the likes of Peanuts, but then that never going to be a good fit for Hoops & Yoyo who scream, yell and make all kinds of noise when a little thoughtful quiet might do.
It’s a pity that Hallmark discontinued Hoops & Yoyo in 2015 because there’s something fun and chaotically beguiling about two characters who aren’t mean and nasty but who create utter comedically-rich havoc wherever they go.
While the more usual specials have their place in schedules and in our hearts, the world needs more of the type of manic hilarity that Hoops & Yoyo do so well, if only to shake things up a bit and upset the apple cart which can often do with being shaken out of its normal shape, size and course.
let’s hope that specials like Hoops & Yoyo’s Haunted Halloween make a comeback because there’s a bad time for silly, cleverly delivered humour and characters with good hearts who can’t quite seem to get it together, especially at Halloween.