I never grew up with Elvira Mistress of the Dark even though I knew exactly who she was in a similar way to Vampirella, hell I didn’t really know the difference between both of them really other than they were horror icons. I somehow started to see some Elvira interviews and I loved her style even though I’m not huge on horror movies her character did everything right that I wanted to check a little more about her. Since she mostly hosted movie intros and commentary there isn’t as much media by herself that I could check out but I was able to find these three Elvira specials.
Elvira Halloween Special 1986
We begin strong with MTV’s Elvira Halloween Special from the awesome year of 1986 and here we get to see Elvira do all kinds of stuff from doing random short skits around Salem along with her usual style of presenting stuff in this case Halloween themed music videos. Add in some fake commercials here and there, her usual witty responses and we have a winner.
I’d say the main issue with it is that it’s a tad long and the horrible quality of the video. Sadly no other halloween specials seem to been made and there was definitely room to improve and have fun little specials every October, a missed opportunity indeed.
The Elvira Show
We move on to a failed pilot pitch feturing Elvira from 1993 about two witch aunts who live in a house by themselves with a talking sarcastic cat named Renfield when their young cousin who discovers she’s a witch joins in and they have crazy things. No, I’m not describing Sabrina: The Teenage Witch with Melissa Joan Heart but basically a previous show that used the same concept but wasn’t picked up.
This was definitely not as fun as Sabrina, it still reeks too much of the 80s, there is sexual humor but unlike normal Elvira isn’t able to deliver it well and in general things don’t really mesh together very well. It’s a shame really but I think trying to sanitize the Elvira way into a sitcom while still trying to do it just didn’t work and Sabrina made the formula work just 3 years later.
The Search for the NEXT Elvira
In the 2000’s when anything could have a reality show we had a few parody ones and the search for the next Elvira was one of them featuring 4 1 hour episodes. This clearly was a not a very serious reality show and it had a very short order of episodes, hell even the final reward is somewhat odd as no one wants a different Elvira than Cassandra Peterson and the winner never really replaced her either so what was the point?
Sadly the show is not that fun either as it drags and the different contests they make are just pointless or at worst boring. Maybe an 8 30 minute episode edit would’ve made it easier to sit through. Cheesy/pointless reality shows can be fun like Stan Lee’s “Who Wants to be a Superhero” but none of that charm was here, even Elvira herself isn’t always great her few scenes that she has and even then she was the most entertaining person in the whole show.
Overall I don’t think the last two formats worked for Elvira and her style but the MTV special showed that there was indeed stuff you could do with the character if handled correctly and she could do more than just host a horror movie marathons. If you enjoyed the article or have any thoughts let me know by commenting below or by tweeting at me. You can also share the article or hit me up an email with your thoughts, it’s nice to hear from other fans.
