This has taken quite a lot of detective work so make sure you read until the end and let us know what you think…
Announcements have been thin on the ground since HHN28 ended but that hasn’t stopped the fan community from speculating, and in some cases wildly speculating! However, while we wait for the next official announcement (which I have heard is strongly rumored to be very, very soon), I wanted to take a punt at two properties that have the potential to be possible selections for our beloved upcoming Halloween fest…
Now I preface this by saying that I have not seen either of these shows, so I have no attachment to them whatsoever, so here goes, just my suggestion following hours of detective work, they are:
Nightflyers
The Curious Creations of Christine McConnell
So why these two little known shows?
1. Genre
They both have horror elements, with the latter having horror and comedy which is perfect for HHN! Nightflyers is described by imdb as, “Set in the year 2093, Nightflyers is a psychological thriller that follows a team of scientists aboard the Nightflyer, the most advanced ship ever built, as they embark on a journey to find other life forms. Their mission takes them to the edge of the solar system, and to the edge of insanity, as they realize true horror isn’t waiting for them in outer space-it’s already on their ship.” One person I spoke to who knew the show better than me, said it’s a little like Alien meets The Exorcist. Which could make it great fodder for a potential HHN.
TCCoCM is described by imdb as, “Part cooking show, part sitcom in the vein of the Addams Family and the Muppet Show set inside the enchanted home of Christine McConnell, who has attracted hundreds of thousands of social media followers with her creepy edible creations.” HHN has actually had a horror cookery show before, but it was at HHN Hollywood and no one remembers it (read more about that and the other forgotten shows here), so having a show with comedy and a hint of horror would be an excellent second best to Bill and Ted (RIP 😢) or to replace Academy of Villains who likely won’t be at HHN forever.
2. Ownership and tie-ins
Following extensive public record checking I found that both properties are made by smaller-subsidiaries of NBC Universal and both are distributed by Netflix. And we know HHN has the attention of Netflix following the HUGELY successful appearance of their property Stranger Things at HHN28. Could these NBC Universal/Netflix produced properties also make easy gains for HHN following other studios being less likely to allow their properties at HHN? And we know Universal loves a good marketing-synergy-crossover tie-in with their recent releases for HHN. But it gets even better….
3. Trademarks
We all know the supposed saga of Universal’s naming of their new theme park, but diving into the US Government’s Patent and Trademark Office’s records we can see that while Universal have been trademarking names for their new park they have also been recently trademarking names, logos and merchandise for both of these shows (literally at the exact same time!). Included in the documents are 100s of items but some of the most interesting include the following:
T-shirts
Sweatshirts/hoodies
Shotglasses (mentioned in the first line!)
Caps
Keychains
Wallets
Toys and dolls
Bubble making wands?
Costume masks
Playing cards
Halloween costumes
Temporary tattoo transfers
Posters
Bottle openers
Now not only are many of these very common forms of theme park merch but they are also very, very common types of HHN merch. It could be possible that these items are just due diligence for some wider national marketing tie-in’s, should the shows be popular with audiences, but mentioning these specific items is very fishy isn’t it? And we don’t see them doing this for their other shows in a rush, so why these shows and why now?
It’s very interesting! So case closed? Maybe we should do more digging around…
So there you have it, what do you think? Do you think our detective work is onto something? Let us know in the comments and keep your eyes peeled!
And remember, nothing is confirmed or fact until Universal confirms it, just RUMORS and in this case, speculation!