I was puzzled when I first saw the trailer for this special. What does Michael Jackson have to do with Halloween, outside of the "Thriller" video, which was actually about horror movies rather than about the holiday?The characters looked cute, so I thought I would give it a try. What I saw was 42 minutes of something that played out like a movie based on a video game. The two protagonists, Vincent and Victoria, make their way through a series of challenging areas... a pumpkin patch, a haunted house, a cliff, for example. They encounter strange anthropomorphic characters along the way, some are helpful, some are villains. All this time they are fleeing from an evil magical woman named Conformity, who, like her name suggests, hates individuality and freedom of expression. She is a manifestation of the main characters' real-life job experiences; they both work for unappreciative employers who view them as mere cogs in a machine.What about Michael Jackson? Many hints are dropped throughout the special: a concealed figure with a gloved hand, a chimpanzee chauffeur named "Bubbles" (remember M.J.'s pet chimp?), a Michael Jackson- shaped icon that leads Vincent and Victoria to the next level in their journey. This leads up to an actual encounter with Michael that lasts maybe a couple of minutes.I'm still trying to figure out the rationale behind creating a Halloween special which revolves around a celebrity who died in 2009. Does he return from the dead every October 31? Has he become a zombie, a reference to the "Thriller" music video? So many unanswerable questions. I didn't hate this special. There was a vague "don't give up on your dreams" message to it, which has been overdone. But I think the concept would have had more potential as a video game, with its villains and challenging levels. I highly doubt I would view this a second time, if it is ever rebroadcast.

Hmmm...what to think? Made for TV is all I can say! I didn't want to give this cartoon 5 stars because I had some enjoyment out of it. But it was a mediocre Halloween cartoon. The animation is phenomenal and some of the dancing is pretty darn good considering it mimics Michael Jackson's dances and what he was known for. I did enjoy that part. And of course the music was nicely incorporated with a decent mix of MJ songs with one of Rockwell's songs called 'Somebody's Watching Me'. However, I don't remember seeing the moon walk done on this cartoon, but their legs were so skinny and I could have missed it. Everyone knows the moon walk, right? That was a certain memory of Michael Jackson in my opinion and for some reason, I either missed it or it wasn't all that pronounced. They did do a lot of spinning though....and Michael Jackson in a cartoon made his debut appearance. Neat, MJ!! Dancing in his spirit. Well, for what it's worth, it wasn't all that bad. The story line was a bit corny and halloween-ish, but I gave it some credit because it's all with the spirit of Halloween and what can you expect but a piece of fantasy. I truly got into the 'dog's' character though and thought that was a cool cartoon dog.

The title, to me, seems pretty misleading. They're calling this "Michael Jackson's Halloween Special". While they do have a lot of references to Michael Jackson throughout this, Michael Jackson is not the main character. It's kind of like how the title, "The Legend of Zelda" confused people even me because the protagonist in the franchise is not Zelda but rather Link. Therefore, they could've called this "The Michael Jackson Clues Halloween Special" or "The Case of Michael Jackson Halloween Special".The story was unclear, it didn't seem to tell me exactly what the kids' quest was. Was it a quest for them to grow? Was it a quest for them to find a way to break the spell? It just seems all over the place.The characters are pretty annoying and contrived. The two protagonists' names both start with a V and I don't like it when main characters or a bunch of characters have names that start with the same first letter because then I get the characters mixed up.All of the jokes fall flat and didn't get anything but a little chuckle from me.The only redeeming quality about this sub-par cartoon is probably the little bit of action somewhere in the last 10 minutes of it.If Michael Jackson was still alive, he'd probably be pretty disappointed in this. I don't care if it's for kids. I don't even think kids over the age of 9 would be interested in it anyway. It's too silly for older kids. Younger kids might get a kick out of it.

I don't think Michael Jackson would've approved this. Actually, I'm pretty sure MJ would've been offended by it.Cheap animation, an extremely generic story with shoe-in characters and a terrible use of Michael Jackson music and references end up presenting one of the worst animated TV specials of all time. Stay away from it.