The Daily Bulletin Archive

The Burchfield Penney Art Center will host a screening of Witch's Night Out, the Canadian animated television Halloween special, on Thursday, October 23, from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. in the Peter and Elizabeth C. Tower Auditorium as part of its Ideas Prime fall series.

Witch's Night Out premiered on NBC October 27, 1978. Produced in a Toronto studio, it was the sequel to the 1974 special The Gift of Winter, with vocal talents from Dan Aykroyd and Valri Bromfield. It featured the voices of Fiona Reid as Nicely and Catherine O'Hara as Malicious, with Gilda Radner as the witch. Like the earlier special, Witch's Night Out was produced by John Leach and Jean Rankin for CBC Television. It later aired on the Disney Channel every year from 1983 to the late 1990s. This cartoon film was released on videotape August 5, 1995, by Family Home Entertainment.

The plot involves a witch who accompanies two children named Small and Tender with their babysitter,
Bazooey, to a Halloween party and transforms them into a werewolf, Frankenstein's monster, and a
ghost (previously their Halloween costumes). The witch takes them to the Halloween party in progress
at her house. Other citizens of the town get offended. They try to catch these supernatural and paranormal beings as a mob. The children and Bazooey spend the night as eerie creatures but decide they need to become human beings again.

Ideas Prime is a series of screenings, lectures, and conversations designed to promote the exchange of ideas and understanding of how local and global issues are interrelated. The center will host a wide range of presentations with topics and panelists each Thursday designed to bring people from diverse backgrounds together to lead, build, and foster positive change. Programs are free with gallery admission.

More information is available on the Burchfield Penney website.