Michael Myers, Del Taco, and new footage made Halloween's first TV broadcast weirdly historic

If you were an unsupervised kid on October 30, 1981, NBC was ready to scare the ever-living shit out of you with a broadcast of the still-recent Halloween. Warning only that the movie contained “elements of shock and suspense” before it began, the TV version offered both a convenient way to give unsuspecting viewers years of nightmares and a bunch of extra footage and promo material that set it apart from the theatrical cut.

It’s the latter stuff that makes Halloween’s first airing so interesting. As pop historian Dinosaur Dracula writes in a look back at the Friday Night At The Movies version, NBC required director John Carpenter and producer Debra Hill to bulk up the movie’s run time with 12 additional minutes of footage. Since Halloween II was in production around the time the NBC deal was struck—both it and the TV version of its predecessor were released on the same Friday in 1981—Carpenter shot the requested footage, using the additions to foreshadow some of the sequel’s plot points. Dinosaur Dracula links to a summary of these new scenes, which focus on Michael’s backstory and connection to Laurie. He also uploaded one of them, too, which you can check out below.