Sam Downing

So every year Halloween kicks off a round of hand-wringing cultural-identity paranoia in This Dumb Country – Australia I mean, obviously – where people decide they’re going to do the whole costumes-and-candy thing (Halloween is always about “candy”, not “lollies”), and then a second group of people predictably start carping that Halloween mustn’t be celebrated in This Dumb Country because it’s an American thing, and then the first group even-more-predictably fires back that actually Halloween has been around for centuries and actually it’s an ancient pagan or Celtic or whatever thing or whatever and actually it’s not American at all.

Yes, it’s true Halloween was not invented by Americans, and nor were yearly customs that soon became annual traditions such as trick-or-treating or dressing in spooky costumes. However. Claiming that Halloween as it’s celebrated today is “not an American thing” is a bit like claiming Christmas is not a Christian thing because pagans (or Celts, or whatevers) were throwing winter festivals way before Jesus ever rolled up. Whatever Halloween used to be, it’s been swallowed up by a cultural tradition popularised by America and profoundly American.

This is not in itself a bad thing! If you’re an Australian and you want to celebrate Halloween, go right ahead. Costumes and candy are fun! But please be prepared to admit that you’re borrowing the modern phenomenon of Halloween from American TV shows and movies and pop culture. You just are.

(Also, please be prepared to admit a lot of Australians still don’t care much for Halloween, so if you’re out collecting candies, take the hint and bypass the undecorated houses.)

… is exemplified by the opening theme songs of the respective British and American adaptations of the children’s book series What-a-Mess, about a short and scruffy Afghan hound.

The British theme song is kind stylish and catchy (sadly you must visit YouTube to watch the clip, on account of some jerk disabling the embed function. HATE).

The American theme song does not compare:

It rings of “generic wackiness” rather than “delightful quirkiness”, which is pretty typical of lots of American cartoons. (Not that all American children’s animation of inferior quality – I have very fond memories of some US cartoons, while there was plenty of off-putting stuff that came out of the UK.)