Chosen One of the Day: Mr. Boogedy

I've said it before, I'll say it again: The '80s was a truly batsh*t time for children's movies. And as today officially marks the start of spooky season, I have dug deep into my youth for a truly strange baby-horror offering: the 1986 Disney Sunday Movie Mr. Boogedy.

Mr. Boogedy followed a family who moves into a very clearly haunted house, something only the children notice while the parents are all, "Green slimy footprints appearing up a wall out of nowhere? Must be a funny prank and a new business venture for me, Richard Masur, who apparently dedicated the late '80s and early '90s to specifically giving Courtney weird fever dreams that would haunt her into adulthood!" 

But the real star is the titular Mr. Boogedy, who, as John Astin explains via a pop-up book and from under a massive amount of crepe hair and facial prosthetics, was a pilgrim who didn't like mimes or juggling and would yell "BOOGEDY!" at children. I have really just unloaded a lot of words on you so please take all the time you need to take them all in.

He got turned down by a woman and went full old-timey-incel and sold his soul to Satan for an invisibility/general magic cloak that would, in theory, give him this woman he was so entitled to, then kidnapped her child and held him hostage until the woman agreed to marry him, then he blew up. It's your standard kids' movie. Anyway, he, the woman, and her son are all ghosts now. The son glows.

Credit: ABC/Disney

Live Boogedy was a real piece of sh*t but dead ghost Boogedy is actually pretty cool. He just makes toys move and toasters shake and give everyone lightning hair, and he taught me at a very early age to never see the potential for good in weird men who shout at children, even though he was totally right on the mime thing. Also he loves his cape, is nearly defeated with a strong sneeze, and then dies of vaccum.

What I'm saying is there's still time to change the ending of that Joker movie.