the air is becoming chillier…the leaves are falling…you can smell pumpkin spice and leaves…caddy is upping the ante on his video production values…it must be…the-

(arr…)

something that the post-reboot caddicarus fans have sadly had to miss out on so far is the iconic month of terror - when the caddicarus channel would spend the entire month of october posting wonderfully scary episodes and sometimes bonus videos. most youtube channels of the comedic game reviewer variety take christmas seriously; a christmas special would usually be the last video of the year, and the season finale. but with the caddicarus channel, halloween was taken very seriously, and by god did we all have the time of our lives with it.

this event was officially named in 2015, but even before that the channel’s halloween specials were full of effort and passion. i myself was always hyped up for october to come because the caddicarus episodes would be on point. some of my greatest memories in the caddicarus fandom and the hiddenblock fandom by extension were had in october; for example, it was the month i opened my first youtube channel in 2014, and it was the month i began interacting with the fandom more in 2015.

so, as today is halloween, this entry will look back at the halloween caddicarus episodes pre-2020!

these are the three halloween specials that came out pre-2015, before the whole month was dedicated to halloween. the evil dead and top 10 scariest songs in video games episodes were filmed in a creepy old shed - the former episode being its first appearance. the latter was unlike any top 10 we’d seen before, with a much darker, somber tone with little humor. caddy describes the scariness of the songs as he walks through various areas outside. and you can’t forget those early 2010’s saturated video filters.

the 2014 special sticks out to me the most because it was the first one i was around for. it was on resident evil zero, and it was a collab with jordan underneath. this was the first special to be posted in november, and it wouldn’t be the last time the halloween festivities carried on into november! i believe this episode was filmed in cerys’ house at the time - the same house seen in the iconic bratz episode outro.

i specifically remember hauling ass to my room and turning this episode on with a freshly baked totino’s pizza, back when they were round. i remember how insane the outro was, with jordan killing caddy, and i remember being so underwhelmed when the next episode didn’t mention it at all because i just needed that deep early 2010’s game reviewer lore. XD

and now, onto 2015 - the first year in which the month of terror was official! from this year up until 2019, the caddicarus show would be entirely focused on spooky stuff through all of october, and the event would end with the proper halloween special - where caddy would wear a cool halloween costume!

this year, he explored these super cool and creepy old caves while he gave his top 10 games that got under his skin. then, for the halloween special, we got the very first 2-parter caddicarus - the long-anticipated casper: a spirited beginning review that was teased in the croc video 2 years earlier. for this special, he dressed up as a vampire…a MOHAWKED vampire! he even dyed it pumpkin spice-colored! XD

as i stated earlier, i have amazing memories with these videos and they’re still some of my favorite caddicarus episodes to date. overall, this is my 2nd favorite MOT. there’s nothing quite like cooltext logo-era caddicarus…

now 2016? to this day, this year is STILL my favorite for the MOT. not only did we get 6 banger caddicarus episodes, but current quickies also covered some spooky games for the occasion! although they’re not pictured in this screenshot, film fridays also went all out. this MOT was so damn awesome, it kept going on into november with a bonus scary ep after the official halloween special.

oh boy, the top 10 scariest things in non-horror games…i remember 14-year-old me getting a wave of scary fic inspiration from the ending of that one. i actually wrote a terribly narmy godawful fic called “trapped”, where caddy’s house became haunted…i’ve actually thought about rewriting it, but in the actual caddicarus show universe. spons basically haunts the house with advertisements and it’s a giant shitpost that’s also making a point. XD

and spice world!! that one aged extremely well imo, given how short it was and how there wasn’t extra time spent pointlessly over-analyzing it. the humor was in line with his style nowadays, i was laughing so hard watching it recently. i also have a fond memory with this one - i’d invited a new friend over to my house the day this episode came out, and this was their first episode. they drew me a fanart of caddy and i used it on the cover of my school binder for a long time!

the medievil episode was also fun. and then there was the top 10 horror games halloween special that saw caddy running around town in a deadpool costume…and a cameo from rosie!! then the next week, we had the creepy doll, a bonus episode!

2017’s MOT was the first one in the current house. there was a huge gap between these two videos, as the scheduled 2-week-break just happened to fall in the middle of october. because of this, the halloween special aired in november, just like in 2014.

we had knack II - or SHAT II - starting off this event. as you may imagine, the comment section was littered with dunkey memes…and i admit i contributed lmaooo. one thing that stuck out to me was the ending where caddy shot the game and it bled, leading him to freak out. that got me making angsty in-universe TCS AUs…dead serious. LMAO

and the halloween special on condemned - OMG. the review part itself didn’t stick out to me but what DID was the production value. all the decorations and stuff looked cool, and caddy’s costume- Y'ALL. 15 year old mel was looking respectfully.

and how could i forget “ces…or as they say…cerys…”

this is my least favorite MOT, mostly because the topics weren’t as interesting to me and i thought the videos weren’t as funny. there weren’t any bonus vids except for a review of the evil within. this is when i thought TCS was starting to decline in quality, and this was during season 9 - the season i used to think was the worst.

and now we’re in that weird era between the removal of slaughter/salvage and the channel reset! this was during season 11, and we were starting to see more experimental vids. one of these in particular was the super bowsette 64 video, which was completely out of left field at the time. with mega man 11, we started seeing topics that weren’t really “scary” being covered as part of the MOT with scary thumbnail art. and we finally got a proper resident evil review! it was the first time since 2016 that a PS1 game was covered during this event.

it’s definitely not one of my favorites, but i certainly thought it was better than 2017’s MOT. unfortunately this was when i was starting to slowly get out of caddy’s content, and the fandom as well. so i can’t really talk about these episodes in any meaningful depth.

now 2019 was an interesting one to look at - because i was absent for this one. i was three years late to checking these out. when these episodes were releasing, i was looking for another hyperfixation…i was crashing with ducktales until onward sucked me up into its tornadic pull, ironically exactly one year after i initially unsubbed to caddy, AND not too long after he retooled his content.

pushing the switch lite to breaking point was kinda eh, but i will tell y'all a story i had with this ep. back when this one came out, there was deadass someone in front of me watching it at church. although i wasn’t watching the videos anymore, i did know what was going on with the channel and all the changes that were happening because a fandom friend kept updating me. so the MOMENT i looked over and saw that brick wall behind the brown couch on that kid’s phone, i found it hard to hold in my laughter. watching an atheist talk about goose game during a youth group sermon, now that’s amazing.

then we had the yooka laylee and the impossible lair episode! again, not the greatest. season 13 absolutely excelled with episodes like the thomas game, the peppa pig album and the garbage game opinions, but not this one. nothing stood out to me.

only “scary” thing covered here was the medievil remake review, which was the halloween special where he dressed up as a goddamn gravestone. i think this shows how much crazier his writing had gotten since 2015, and it was one of the signs of things to come in 2020. XD

so yeah! that’s the history of the caddicarus channel in october. this man knew how to celebrate halloween!

i hope we get a halloween episode next year in the new style. the lumpies and germs need to have that formative scary-caddicarus-episode-in-october experience!