(courtesy IMDb)
Halloween is definitely the one festival of the year where you are fully and absolutely allowed to get your freak on, to let loose, defy assumptions and expectations … and lie to your wives about going trick or treating?
Hmmmm, not sure the last one is really part and parcel of good old Hallows Eve, but Peter (Seth MacFarlane) gives it a good red-hot go anyway, convincing his son Chris (Seth Green), who’s been told by Lois (Alex Borstein) that he’s way too old to go door-to-door for candy anymore, that it’s fine to lie to his mother about trick or treating on the down-low.
Not content with leading his son astray, Peter convinces Joe (Patrick Warburton), Cleveland (Arif Zahir) and Quagmire (Seth MacFarlane) that it’s fine to head out of town and cajole the good townspeople of a neighbouring urban centre to hand over their hard won candy to people way beyond the usual target demo (hilariously Chris is fine with being abused by these people; the candy is the thing after all!).
It looks like they are going to get away with it too, but as they return to Quahog with sacks full of candy, they are pursued by frighteningly masked, chainsaw-wielding figures who chase them to a house in the woods where a freakishly masked woman gives them hot chocolate (with little marshmallows) to calm their nerves.
Awww isn’t that lovely?
No, as it turns out it’s not and much of the fun of the back half of this year’s Family Guy special, “A Little Fright Music” is what happens when the masks come off and Peter et. al have to deal with the scariest people around this Halloween.
It’s likely not the strongest Family Guy special for the season ever but it’s amusing watching Peter etc get their smugness ripped to shreds – by the chainsaw? Kind of, sort of, wait and see – and good to see him taken down, in the most scarily amusing way possible, a peg or two.
The other main thread of the special is Brian and Stewie (both voiced by Seth MacFarlane) deciding that what Halloween needs is another theme song besides “Monster Mash”.
Stewie especially hates how few songs there are for the scariest season of them all and is determined to even up with Christmas – well, clearly that won’t happen but at least he’ll add more song to Halloween’s side of the musical scales – and gift the world with a song he and Brian have created.
They settle on a parody of “We Didn’t Start the Fire”, citing all kinds of brands of candy, but while Brian is committed to the music, Stewie, in characteristic fashion, ends up seduced by the songwriter lifestyle to the point where he rewards himself with heroin for every milestone on the torturous road to the new addition to the Halloween canon.
It’s hilarious and vintage Stewie and Brian and while it looks for all the undead world that they won’t deliver anything even approaching a song, they do indeed reach the musical finish line and the special ends with their very special contribution to the sparse soundtrack of Halloween.
It’s this stream that really makes the special and makes “A Little Fright Music” worth the watch.
“A Little Fright Music” may not be the strongest of Family Guy episodes but it’s still a lot of fun to watch and while the tagline for the special, “Halloween can’t handle the Griffins” isn’t really borne out, the episode is still proof that when you unleash this gloriously impolitic family on any great festival of the calendar, things will go hilariously, fantastically wrong and you’ll die laughing enjoying the chaos that results.
Family Guy‘s “A Little Fright Music” streams on Disney+