Who Spooked Rodney?
Rodney is obsessed with superstitions — from avoiding black cats and broken mirrors to insisting on tying his shoes in the bathroom before leaving the house. His family and friends tease him, and his sister is especially exasperated. On Halloween, Rodney and his two friends plan to go trick-or-treating, but they pass a fortune teller’s shop. Despite his fear, Rodney is the only one brave enough to enter. The fortune teller tells him that the shadows will consume him before midnight. Terrified but trying to appear brave, Rodney waits in a dark alley until after midnight, when his father comes to retrieve him. His father then delivers a lesson: the source of most superstitions and fears is often one’s own mind
Trailers & Videos 2
1978 Halloween TV Special
Who Spooked Rodney? (1978 Halloween TV Special)
Cast
Ratings & Reviews
Not rated yet
No ratings yet
Not available
No community reviews yet. Be the first to share your thoughts!
TMDB Reviews
2 months ago
I love a good vintage Halloween special, and as a Halloween enthusiast, I thought I was pretty familiar with the vast catalog of 70s, 80s, and 90s October offerings. But, today, YouTube suggested to me a little film called Who Spooked Rodney?
Who Spooked Rodney is a 1978 classic written, produced, and directed by Tom Robertson. It is a Multimedia Program Production starring Chris Dingwell as the titular Rodney, an extremely superstitious kid just trying to navigate life and the Halloween season with a severe case of OCD.
Seriously. I don't say that in jest. This kid absolutely has a clinical case of OCD and is most likely on the spectrum. His superstitious nature extends way beyond his fear of black cats and broken mirrors---he has to do certain things in certain ways, much to the annoyance of his family, especially his sister. In fact, the story opens with her screeching at him before school because he's taken an extra 30 seconds in the bathroom to tie his shoes. He HAS to tie his shoes in the bathroom, which becomes a huge deal at breakfast with his mom also berating this 'weird' behavior. His father is blissfully ignorant of the whole ordeal and is probably who Rodney inherited his diagnosis from.
The plot takes place over the course of Halloween day. At school, Rodney's class bobs for apples and their teacher tells them a little about the origins of Halloween. I love this scene because of the heavy Halloween visuals and nostalgia. There's a Jack-o-Lantern blow mold on the teacher's desk, and the whole classroom is decked out in colorful, festive die-cuts. Although this movie came out four years before I was born, it still reminded me of how MY elementary classrooms looked during the Halloween season.