At the top of Green Hill Cemetery. The wonderful stone carver memorial stands to the right and, up the next hill in the distance, stands St Vincent de Paul.
Every Halloween season, I like to revisit some of the sitcoms I grew up watching in the ’90s, especially the ones that went all-in on Halloween. This year, I thought I’d group those episodes by series, revisit them, and rank them based on two very important criteria: how much Halloween atmosphere they actually have and how much I enjoy watching them again, and what better place to start than one of the great holiday sitcoms of the ’90s: Home Improvement.
Oddly enough, when I think of horror and Home Improvement, my mind doesn’t immediately go to the show’s Halloween episodes. Instead, I think of Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan actress Jensen Daggett, who played Tim Taylor’s sister-in-law Nancy. She appeared in one of my favorite episodes, “The Naked Truth,” where Tim accidentally walks in on her in the shower and an incredible amount of awkwardness follows.
But that’s a story for another day.
For most people, Home Improvement is remembered for doing holiday episodes well. The cast and writers seemed to have an affection for Halloween and Christmas, and those episodes usually felt like genuine events instead of normal stories with a few decorations thrown onto the set.
There were seven Halloween episodes during the show’s eight-season run, with Season One being the only year to skip the holiday entirely. So, with Halloween approaching, I decided to revisit all seven.
Here’s how they stack up.
Season Two, Episode Six – “The Haunting of Taylor House”
Original Air Date: October 28, 1992
Tim brings Halloween to Tool Time by dressing like a monster, carving pumpkins, and naturally finding a way to introduce more power into the process. At home, he transforms the Taylor basement into an elaborate haunted house for Brad’s Halloween party.
Brad has agreed to dress as Raggedy Andy because Jennifer is supposed to arrive as Raggedy Ann. Unfortunately for Brad, she shows up dressed as a biker alongside another boy, which gives him something considerably scarier to deal with than Tim’s haunted basement.
Halloween Thoughts
This is the gold standard for Home Improvement Halloween episodes.
The Halloween atmosphere begins almost immediately and never really lets up. There are costumes everywhere, Tool Time gets into the spirit, the Taylor house is decorated, and Tim’s basement haunted house is fantastic. Honestly, it may be my favorite sitcom haunted house ever put on television.
A young Rider Strong also makes an appearance, which adds another little dose of ’90s nostalgia.
This episode captures exactly what I want from a Halloween sitcom: a normal episode of the show completely consumed by the holiday.
Halloween Theme: A+ Re-Watchability: A+
Season Three, Episode Six – “Crazy for You”
Original Air Date: October 27, 1993
Halloween means prank season at the Taylor house, but Tim begins to worry when an enthusiastic fan named Rose starts sending him cookies and calling his home.
Tim becomes increasingly convinced that he has attracted an obsessed fan. Jill, however, isn't nearly as concerned as Tim is, and she may have a few Halloween tricks of her own planned.
Halloween Thoughts
Another excellent Halloween episode.
Instead of centering the story around the kids, “Crazy for You” focuses primarily on the adults and their willingness to take Halloween pranks way too far.
That's one of the things I like about Home Improvement’s Halloween episodes. Halloween isn't treated strictly as a children's holiday. Tim and Jill are every bit as invested as the boys, sometimes even more.
There are plenty of decorations, some great seasonal atmosphere, and a lot of laughs. It's also one of those comfortable episodes where simply spending half an hour inside the Taylor house feels good.
Halloween Theme: A Re-Watchability: A
Season Five, Episode Six – “Let Them Eat Cake”
Original Air Date: October 31, 1995
Tool Time is nominated for an award, so Tim, Jill, Al, and Ilene head out for the evening to attend a banquet. Meanwhile, Brad decides that an empty Taylor house on Halloween night is simply too good an opportunity to waste and throws a party and you can probably guess how smoothly that goes.
Halloween Thoughts
This one is surprisingly fun. It isn't necessarily the first episode that comes to mind when I think about Home Improvement and Halloween, but every time I revisit it, I end up enjoying it more than I remembered.
You've got Brad getting himself into trouble, Tim being cynical, Al being Al, and enough Halloween atmosphere to make the whole thing feel appropriately seasonal. It doesn't reach the heights of the first couple Halloween episodes, but it's one I could easily throw on every October.
Halloween Theme: B Re-Watchability: A
Season Six, Episode Seven – “I Was a Teenage Taylor”
Original Air Date: October 22, 1996
A prank war breaks out between Tim and Jill and the boys, with everyone attempting to outdo each other and as you might expect from the Taylor family, nobody knows when to quit.
Halloween Thoughts
By this point, the Taylor boys were getting older, so the show couldn't simply send them through another haunted house or build an episode around trick-or-treating. Instead, Home Improvement leaned into something adults enjoy just as much: screwing with their family members.
The prank war works surprisingly well. The fun comes from watching each person try to top the previous prank, and the episode maintains enough Halloween atmosphere to keep things seasonal without feeling like a repeat of what the show had already done.
There are also a couple of fun little jokes involving trick-or-treaters that longtime viewers should appreciate. It's not peak Home Improvement Halloween, but it's still a good time.
Halloween Theme: B Re-Watchability: B
Season Four, Episode Six – “Borland Ambition”
Original Air Date: October 25, 1994
Al purchases part of Harry's Hardware and almost immediately becomes obsessed with his new role as a businessman. Before long, he's trying to change store policies, promote the business on Tool Time, and generally irritate everyone around him. Meanwhile, the Taylor boys become competitive over a Halloween costume contest.
Halloween Thoughts
This is where the Halloween theme begins taking a bit of a back seat. There are still plenty of decorations, costumes, and seasonal props scattered throughout the episode, and the boys' costume competition gives the story at least one proper Halloween subplot.
Unfortunately, the main story is mostly about Al becoming an annoying businessman. It's not a bad episode, but if you're putting together a Halloween marathon, this is probably where you start wondering whether it really needs to make the cut. Still, it looks like Halloween, and sometimes that's enough.
Halloween Theme: B- Re-Watchability: B-
Season Eight, Episode Six – “Bewitched”
Original Air Date: October 27, 1998
Wilson begins dating a mysterious woman who claims to be a witch. After she hosts a Halloween party, Wilson suddenly disappears, and Tim begins wondering whether something supernatural may have actually happened to his neighbor.
Because apparently eight seasons of talking to Wilson over a fence hadn't prepared Tim for this.
Halloween Thoughts
After the previous season took things in a different direction, the final season brings back the costumes, pranks, Halloween party, and general holiday silliness and that's the good news.
The bad news is that the episode gets a little too ridiculous even by Home Improvement standards. You have to accept that Tim is remarkably gullible, and the story stretches believability pretty far even for a sitcom Halloween episode. Natalija Nogulich makes a fun guest appearance, and Tim dressed as a flying monkey is worth seeing at least once.
Unfortunately, the episode comes from a period when the show was clearly running out of gas, and despite all the Halloween decorations, there isn't much here that sticks with me once the credits roll.
Halloween Theme: B Re-Watchability: C
Season Seven, Episode Five – “A Night to Dismember”
Original Air Date: October 28, 1997
Mark and his friend make a horror movie starring the Taylor family. What initially seems like a goofy filmmaking project turns darker when Mark portrays himself as the forgotten member of the family, leaving Jill worried that the movie might reflect how he actually feels.
Halloween Thoughts
Ah, late-series Mark Taylor.
Home Improvement ran into a problem during its final couple of seasons: nobody seemed to know what to do with Mark anymore. Brad was the troublemaker. Randy was the smart, sarcastic one. Mark had originally been the cute little kid. Then he stopped being little.
So they made him goth.
Outside of this storyline, I honestly struggle to remember much of anything Mark did during those final seasons. To the episode's credit, “A Night to Dismember” isn't terrible. The homemade horror movie idea actually works fairly well, and there's some interesting material involving Mark feeling overlooked by his family.
The problem is that it barely feels like Halloween, thus the reason I moved this to the bottom of the list.
There are a few decorations and costumes scattered around, but compared with the elaborate haunted houses, prank wars, parties, and trick-or-treating of earlier seasons, this one feels strangely disconnected from the holiday.
It's more of a Home Improvement episode that happens to take place around Halloween than a true Halloween episode.
Halloween Theme: D Re-Watchability: C
Final Ranking
“The Haunting of Taylor House”
“Crazy for You”
“Let Them Eat Cake”
“I Was a Teenage Taylor”
“Borland Ambition”
“Bewitched”
“A Night to Dismember”
At its best, Home Improvement understood something that a lot of sitcoms didn't: if you're going to make a Halloween episode, make a Halloween episode.
Decorate the house. Put everybody in costumes. Send kids trick-or-treating. Build a ridiculous haunted basement. Let Tim Taylor turn pumpkin carving into a potentially lethal power-tool demonstration.
The early seasons especially capture that wonderful ’90s sitcom version of Halloween where the holiday seemed to take over the entire world for twenty-two minutes.
And nearly thirty-five years later, “The Haunting of Taylor House” is still one of the first episodes I want to watch every October.
The Anthropic Public Benefit Fund will have increased flexibility and scale, enabling us to pursue our mission in new ways: for example, we might explore large donations to traditional nonprofits or direct distributions to specific populations.
A little mysterious. I wonder what they have in mind (or if they know).
Me and my 1979 Honda Civic. First car I paid for. It was a disaster.
STATUS: Sitting at a computer when I'm not supposed to be
TODO: Clean the inside of my car's windshield. Gross.
READING: "Stolen Focus" by Johann Hari
LISTENING: Saxon, "Hell, Fire and Damnation"
I was planning to stay away from computers today. I've been partially successful. I'm staring at my notebooks and thinking that I'm doing it wrong. I recently bought the gorgeous and expensive Plotter, but I don't know how it fits. Or if it fits. I wish I needed it, but I don't think I do. Great, more $$$ down the tubes on a just-in-case.
On a positive note, season 4 of The Diplomat is out and I love it. There's something about smart people doing difficult jobs as best they can.
Anyone else notice that people don’t flash lights at oncoming traffic to warn about a speed trap? (I still do.) Has this practice just been forgotten or is it the result of thin blue line propaganda? I remember when country folks and cops weren’t friendly. Not hostile, but certainly not trusting.
An unexpected effect of the (not so) new job: I’m rarely in Bloomington anymore. It was such a big part of my life for thirty years. Now I’m there less than once a month. So many cool things there, but now I think, “All the way to Bloomington? In that traffic?” 😄
There's a fun site that keeps track of Codex resets. OpenAI is in the middle of a nutty 28-day challenge to ship new features every day or give resets. Feels like a "bank error in your favor" every few days.
Human Stuff is a free weekly-ish newsletter. You’re welcome to share parts of this letter that connect with you on social media, or send to someone you love. Thank you for reading, ‘heart’ing, commenting, sharing, for helping this newsletter continue by being here. In the midst of so much noise, your presence with my words truly means something.
I read the news; my heart breaks. I witness my daughter leave behind one stage of life for a new one; my heart breaks. I see someone I love hurting; my heart breaks. I forget to respond to the text; my heart breaks. I miss them (so many people and places and animals); my heart breaks. Time moves too quickly; my heart breaks. I read the news again; my heart breaks. More bombs, more guns, more loss; my heart breaks. A mentor from afar has caused harm; my heart breaks. The forgetting of what actually matters; my heart breaks. I feel the guardedness everywhere; my heart breaks. People are hungry even though there is plenty of food; my heart breaks. Legislation ignores humanity; my heart breaks. Things change, end, come to a close; my heart breaks. I read the news again; my heart breaks.
I think my heart broke for the first time when I was just a few hours old and my birth mother left — maybe it broke in the womb, somehow knowing the separation was coming soon — I think it’s been broken since then, even when I learned the art of building walls, the precision of pretending, the act of pushing down, the practice of ignoring, bypassing, minimizing. My heart’s been broken open and it hasn’t ever been fixed. I tried fixing it with cigarettes, with hiding, with avoiding, with faking it til I make it. I tried fixing it with performative positivity, with assuming the role of helper, with convincing myself I have more control than I do. I tried fixing it with perpetual optimism, with the refusal to acknowledge what was true. I tried fixing it with leaving too soon. I tried fixing it with staying too long. I tried fixing it until, at some point in my late 20’s/early 30’s, I realized fixing it was never the task, or the need. And I’ve been learning how to live with a wide open heart ever since.
An open heart doesn’t need closing; it needs tending. An open heart doesn’t need closing; it needs witnessing. An open heart doesn’t need closing; it needs space. An open heart doesn’t need closing; it needs un-aloneness. An open heart doesn’t need closing; it needs reverence. An open heart doesn’t need closing; it needs boundaries. An open heart doesn’t need closing; it needs permission. An open heart doesn’t need closing; it needs holding. An open heart doesn’t need closing; it needs recognition. An open heart doesn’t need closing.
a bright spot, 35mm film
I used to think my broken open heart was the problem. I thought it was weak or flimsy, like it should be able to just take it all, forget it all, sprinkle a glimmering saying over it all and move on, orient toward the good constantly. I wanted to be able to control it like I was a machine operator and it was a machine under my precise direction, under my wise guidance, like I was larger than life and all I needed was to figure out the right buttons to press in order to keep it contained, solid, together, like I knew better than what my heart was actually so wisely and preciously attuned to.
There are a lot of awful things happening in the world. Things that make me want to rage and scream and cry in the middle of the road so everyone will just stop pretending and look, say something, do something. Are we all sleepwalking, I wonder? What are we even doing? Are we all just going along like normal because everyone else seems to be? This, of course, happens right alongside all the glorious, awe-inducing things, all the mundane and boring things, all the things silently brewing that we have no clue are on the way. And I am doing my best to keep my heart open to all of it. Every last bit. I’m doing my best to say of course my heart is broken, rather than assuming it’s a personal flaw or failing.
I want to stay open. Open is alive. I want to stay present. Present is alive. I want to stay with the hurt. Hurt is alive. I want to stay on the ground. On ground is alive. I want to look. Looking is alive. I want to pay attention. Attention is alive. I want to witness. Witnessing is alive. I want to feel it. Feeling is alive. I want to be with. Being is alive.
And sometimes, open sucks. Open hurts. Open is inconvenient and exposing, harsh and uncertain. Open is looking at the faces of the parents who lost their child in a school shooting. Open is sitting with the fear of my trans friends. Open is the confrontation of what is out of my control, and what I’m avoiding that I actually do have a say in. Open is the truth, and the truth isn’t always easy to sit with.
lookout, 35mm film
Somatics practitioner and writer Prentis Hemphill once asked, “Can we say it? Can we say we’re afraid yet?” and I think more of us are saying what’s true now. Having an open heart is scary — looking honestly at what’s going on is scary — noticing the decaying around us is scary. Facing the facade is scary. I’m scared.
Yet being open to what’s true is the only way we can also stay open to the truth of love, the truth of connection, the truth of our values, the truth of what we desire and seek, the truth of finding ourselves again and again, the truth of imagination, the truth of taking the next step, making the next move, and admitting all we’ll never know.
A broken heart is a testimony. It is a salve. A healing agent. A broken heart is the signature of the willingness to look. To notice. To pay attention not just to the things that bring awe but to the things that feel raw. To take in what is being done, being asked, being looked over. To say the thing that needs to be said. To do what needs doing. To stop ignoring what’s obvious in favor of what’s easy. To let joy in when it’s there, too. To let love soak up our tender spots. To go toward what matters instead of performing what sells, what gets likes. To act. To move. To empathize. To respond. To witness, acknowledge, see clearly. To fucking feel. To offer care by not looking away.
Here is a story to break your heart. Are you willing? This winter the loons came to our harbor and died, one by one, of nothing we could see. A friend told me of one on the shore that lifted its head and opened the elegant beak and cried out in the long, sweet savoring of its life which, if you have heard it, you know is a sacred thing., and for which, if you have not heard it, you had better hurry to where they still sing. And, believe me, tell no one just where that is. The next morning this loon, speckled and iridescent and with a plan to fly home to some hidden lake, was dead on the shore. I tell you this to break your heart, by which I mean only that it break open and never close again to the rest of the world. — Lead by Mary Oliver
wild beauty, 35mm film
May we let our hearts break open and never close again to the rest of the world. May we let our open hearts hold both the magnificence and the disgust. May we acknowledge what it takes to not turn away, to not numb out. May we let ourselves take a step back from feeling it all when needed. May we rely on the hearts around us to tether to when it’s all too much. May we stop assuming heartbreak is a sign we’re not healed enough. May we let heartbreak be a signal of aliveness, of being willing to look. May we surrender to what is true and soften there when we can. May we notice where we’re hardened and let the thaw happen slowly. May we find what we need to stay rooted to what matters. May we choose to hone our broken hearts with care, with nurturance, with love. May we let our open hearts take in all the beauty that exists here, too.
I originally wrote this in 2023, yet it feels more relevant and true than ever. Sending so much care to you, dear reader, amid it all.
Thanks, as always, for being here.
And a reminder that you can find more information about Heart Space HERE.
