As a spooky season enthusiast, my childhood was filled with scary movie marathons with my family, indulging in pumpkin-flavored treats, and of course, the most nostalgic part of October: Disney’s Monstober episodes.
If you’re unfamiliar with the concept, your childhood Octobers are missing a crucial piece. Basically, during the 2010s, as soon as October hit, Disney would play the best Halloween family movies and scary-adjacent episodes of their original television shows (which were always the best episodes in my opinion).
Of course, there were the classics like the Halloweentown movies and Hocus Pocus, but my personal favorites were Twitches, Girl vs. Monster, and Mickey’s House of Villains. They would repeat mostly the same ones every year, and once a new Halloween episode aired, it would be added to the rotation for future years.
I have countless memories of sitting on my grandparents’ couches in the afternoons, binge-watching Disney Channel for fear of missing the special Halloween episodes. Since this was before Disney+ existed, I was afraid I would have to wait a whole year before watching my favorites again. Now, I can sit in my room and watch whichever favorites I want without fear of commercials or missed episodes.
Although the show is a bit before my time, I recently rewatched a couple Boy Meets World spooky episodes, such as Season 5’s Episode 17 (which wasn’t even originally a Halloween episode) called “And Then There Was Shawn” and Season 5’s Episode 5 “The Witches of Pennbrook.” In “And Then There Was Shawn,” one of the main characters used his vast knowledge of fictional slasher films to predict odd thriller-esque occurrences while the gang was trapped in detention. “The Witches of Pennbrook” features ’90s star Candace Cameron Bure as a witchy girlfriend of one of the main characters. While I mourn the loss of classic Disney, I appreciate the freedom Disney+ provides to watch whichever Halloween episodes I choose.
Some of my favorite classic Monstober episodes included S2E1 “The Whining” and S4E18 “The Ghostest with the Mostest” from Jessie (both with horror movie references that I can appreciate now that I’m older), Liv and Maddie’s S2E3: Helgaween-A-Rooney (which gave my little sister and me nightmares), and S1E12: Summerween from Gravity Falls (which was always a creepy show, but this episode is still one of my favorites). I loved how A.N.T. Farm completely redid their theme song sequence and recreated their first episode (but Halloween-ified) for their Monstober episode (S1E14 “mutANT farm”). Lastly, Wizards of Waverly Place was a spooky-esque show by nature, so a lot of my favorites of those episodes aren’t even truly Monstober.
In 2015, Monstober had a mega crossover event where almost every Disney show had characters from other Disney shows, which was my favorite type of Disney episode. I’m unsure if and when Disney stopped doing Monstober, and I’m sure they still repeat a few of their best Halloween episodes, but it’ll never be the same as when I was in elementary school during peak Disney Monstober.