As someone who watches television at a glacial pace (trust me, it takes me at least a year to finish a show from start to finish), I really miss network television. Or at least, I miss when weekly episodes were the standard. I knew I had something to look forward to every week, and that anticipation made a show addicting. But this nostalgia for a bygone era of television got me thinking: Remember when crossover episodes were a thing? Remember how mind-blowing it was to watch characters from several of your favorite shows interact on screen?Â
I’m mostly referring to Disney Channel crossovers, since that was the channel I grew up watching the most. This year’s spooky season reminded me how Disney used to make such an event out of Halloween. Forget Halloweekend; Disney Channel was celebrating Hallowmonth. Dubbed “Monstober,” the channel would air Halloween-themed movies and episodes from its original series for the entirety of October.
In 2015, the channel decided to celebrate Monstober by creating a massive crossover event, where all of its shows were monster-mashed with one another. They even got most of the characters to visit the same haunted house in Central Park. It’s been about 10 years since I’ve properly watched anything from Disney Channel, so I decided to take a fun trip down memory lane and revisit these episodes as a part of my Halloweekend plans. And spoiler alert: It’s a pretty mixed bag.
Upon checking the list of episodes to rewatch, I noticed something rather odd. Seven shows participated in this crossover event. There were seven episodes to correspond with them, but their appearances were slightly uneven. Austin & Ally, for instance, appeared in three crossovers, getting K.C. Undercover in its own show before appearing in Girl Meets World and I Didn’t Do It. Meanwhile, Liv and Maddie only made one appearance in its crossover with Best Friends Whenever. The characters from Liv and Maddie did not make cameos in any other show for this event. Perhaps it was a decision to prioritize quality over quantity, as I thought the Liv and Maddie episode was the strongest as a standalone outside of the crossover event, and Austin & Ally was the weakest.Â
On top of that, each individual show took liberties in how much they incorporated the crossover aspect of the episode. This meant that some crossovers were pretty brief, making it very obvious that these crossovers were more of an obligation than an organic part of the story. I brought up Austin & Ally’s disproportionate representation because I noticed this happened when they appeared in I Didn’t Do It. The two characters from each show exchange quips about the other pair’s costumes, and that was it. That was the entirety of the crossover. Though the scene was relatively amusing, it didn’t really justify a third appearance from Austin & Ally’s characters. Maybe they just wanted to make each show’s respective “lovable idiot” interact. I admit, there was irony in seeing I Didn’t Do It’s Logan dressed as Albert Einstein.Â
Thankfully, others did a better job of making both shows feel like part of a proper crossover. I thought the Best Friends Whenever episode was one of the weaker episodes because of its writing, especially the B-plot of the episode. However, I thought it did the best job at making its counterpart, Girl Meets World, a part of the episode’s plot. Instead of limiting their interaction to a brief conversation, the characters are forced to work together to escape the aforementioned Central Park Haunted House.
You may be wondering why this specific topic came to mind all these years later. Truthfully, it’s because I enjoy holiday episodes. I mean, there is a reason why Christmas is such a prolific holiday for the music industry. It’s a little awkward to interact with holiday-related media outside of its intended season, but it does get you into the spirit (at least, it does for me!).
In a time when Christmas decorations haunt store aisles before Halloween has even begun, it’s nice to reflect on a time when a TV channel celebrated Halloween while it was actually happening. And quite frankly, this is just another excuse to express my desire to bring back network television.