Witches, goblins and ghosts, oh my! Monstober returns to Family

MONTH-LONG HALLOWEEN LINEUP INCLUDES NEW SERIES, MOVIES AND SPECIALS

TORONTO, Sept. 30, 2014 /CNW/ - Family Channel delivers the chills and thrills this October with the return of its annual month-long Halloween programming event. Complete with spell-binding new series, mischievous movie nights and shriek-tastic specials, this Monstober is set to be the most spook-tacular to date!

Monstober officially kicks off on Monday, October 6 with the premiere of Deadtime Stories. Based on the popular children's books, the spine-tingling series chronicles kids' spooky encounters, from hauntings to monsters to supernatural occurrences. In each episode, viewers are taken on ghastly adventures as "The Babysitter" (Jennifer Stone, Wizards of Waverly Place) shares stories from her collection of creepy tales. New episodes will air Mondays and Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT throughout the entire month. 

Family Channel brews up a Halloween Night of Premieres on Wednesday, October 8 with a bewitching evening featuring supersized-pumpkins, mysterious hayrides and grueling ghost stories.  

Premieres for Wednesday, October 8:

• I Didn't Do It – "Next Of Pumpkin" – 7 p.m. ET/PT: Delia grows a 10-foot pumpkin in hopes of beating her arch-nemesis, Great Granny Wrinkles, for the biggest pumpkin award. 
• Austin & Ally – "Horror Stories & Halloween Scares" – 7:30 p.m. ET/PT: When a power outage leaves Austin, Ally, Dez and Trish locked in Sonic Boom overnight on Halloween, they pass the time by seeing who can tell the scariest ghost story.
• Deadtime Stories – "Invasion of the Appleheads" – 8 p.m. ET/PT: When Katie and Andy's parents disappear on a haunted hayride, the siblings realize that there's something rotten going on in Appleton – and only they can stop it.

A second Night of Premieres haunts the network on Friday, October 10; the eerie evening begins at 5 p.m. ET/PT with ahhh-mazing encores leading into two new episodes and concludes with the fan-favourite flick, Return to Halloweentown at 8 p.m. ET/PT.

Premieres for Friday, October 10:

• Liv and Maddie – "Helgaween-A-Rooney" – 6:30 p.m. ET/PT – The Rooney's Halloween celebration takes an unexpected turn when a magic amulet turns Liv and Maddie into triplets.
• Girl Meets World – "Girl Meets World: Of Terror" – 7 p.m. ET/PT – The kids face a trilogy of terror when Riley has a sleepover at Maya's with her Gammy Hart (Charlotte Rae, Facts of Life) and pet ferret; Auggie confronts the monster under his bed; and Farkle tackles his most terrifying fear yet – playing softball.

It's a night of Howl-o-ween programming on Friday, October 17 with back-to-back episodes of Dog With A Blog beginning at 6 p.m. ET/PT and the debut of a fang-tastic feature film, Vampire Dog.

Premieres for Friday, October 17:

• Dog With A Blog – "Howloween 2: The Final Reckoning" – 6:30 p.m. ET/PT – When Ellen and Bennett overhear Stan talking, the kids go to great lengths to convince their parents the house is haunted to help keep Stan's secret.
• Vampire Dog – 8 p.m. ET/PT – An enduring friendship forms when a boy unwittingly adopts a 600-year-old talking vampire dog named Fang (voiced by Norm MacDonald, The Middle). Together, they discover if they face their fears, they can do anything.

The ex-fear-ience continues on Friday, October 24 with a special extended "Night of the Living Dead"-inspired Phineas and Ferb featuring special guest stars Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, George Romero (Night of the Living Dead), Noah Wyle (ER) and Bella Thorne (Shake It Up). The boo-tiful evening also includes the premiere of the mysterious movie, Evermoor.

Premieres for Friday, October 24:

• Gravity Falls – "Little Gift Shop of Horrors" – 6 p.m. ET/PT – In three separate mysterious tales, Stan is cursed by a Witch, Waddles (voiced by astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey) accidentally eats a bowl of brain-enhancing jelly and builds a machine that allows him to speak for the first time, and Mabel faces her fear of Claymotion.
• Phineas and Ferb – "Night of the Living Pharmacists" – 6:30 p.m. ET/PT – Doofenshmirtz's latest "-inator" accidentally turns the citizens of Danville into contagious Doof-zombies who run rampant all over town.
• Evermoor – 8 p.m. ET/PT – When American teen and aspiring mystery writer Tara Crossley moves with her newly-blended family to the beautiful, but isolated, Evermoor Manor, a series of mysterious incidents unfold.

Family.ca gets into the spirit with a terror-iffic new "Monster Maker" activity where kids can upload their picture and instantly transform into a monster! The website also features exclusive behind-the-scenes Halloween interviews with Family stars and a variety of ghoulish games. Boys and ghouls can also help Phineas and Ferb save the world from zombies in the new game "The Walking Doof." Family OnDemand will offer various Halloween-themed episodes as they become available weekly beginning Friday, October 10.

Family Channel is a premium, commercial-free network offering the best in family television entertainment in approximately 6 million homes across Canada. Dedicated to celebrating family life and providing a fun experience for all, Family airs a unique mix of series, movies and specials, with a large portion of programming supplied by Disney. Family Channel also offers Family OnDemand, a television-based Subscription Video on Demand (SVOD) service and Family OnLine, an internet-based, streaming service, these services, available at no additional cost, present hit Disney movies and series, plus top-rated Canadian series to subscribers when they want it, where they want it. Visit us at Family.ca.

About DHX Television
DHX Television is comprised of Family Channel, Disney XD and Disney Junior (English & French) and is part of DHX Media Ltd. (www.dhxmedia.com), a leading broadcaster, creator, producer and marketer of family entertainment. The Company markets and distributes its library of more than 10,000 episodes of entertainment programming worldwide, and licenses its owned properties through its dedicated consumer products business. DHX Media Ltd.'s full-service international licensing agency, Copyright Promotions Licensing Group Ltd. (CPLG), represents numerous entertainment, sport and design brands. DHX Media Ltd. has offices in Toronto, Los Angeles, Vancouver, Halifax, London, Paris, Barcelona, Milan, Munich and Amsterdam, and is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the ticker DHX.

SOURCE: Family Channel

Joanna Landsberg, Publicist, DHX Television, [email protected], 416.956.8547