Wizard of Oz Icon Made Rare Return for Paul Lynde Halloween Special

Copyright Parade

On Oct. 29, 1976, The Paul Lynde Halloween Special aired on ABC. The campy holiday special, penned by Bruce Vilanch and a team of writers, featured actor/comedian Paul Lynde and a wild group of guest stars, including Tim Conway, Florence Henderson, Betty White, and KISS. H.R. Pufnstuf witch Billie Hayes, and The Wizard of Oz icon Margaret Hamilton were also main stars on the special. The TV special marked one of the only times Hamilton donned green face makeup and witch attire since filming the Wizard of Oz nearly 40 years prior. “We came up with the idea of Paul dressing up as a witch, which became part of the advertising campaign,” Vilanch told Woman’s World in a 2025 interview. “We also brought in famous witches to play his sisters, because it turned out he was from a family of witches. One was Margaret Hamilton, who played the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz, and the other was Billie Hayes, who played Witchiepoo on HR Pufnstuf, and he was going to visit them.” Getting Hamilton in costume was a major coup for The Paul Lynde Halloween Special. In the late 1930s, the actress was involved in a traumatizing accident while filming The Wizard of Oz when her broom caught fire. Hamilton suffered second-degree burns on her face and third-degree burns on her hand where the green makeup was. Oz expert John Fricke told People magazine that Hamilton endured excruciating pain as alcohol was applied to the burns as her face was cleaned off. Months later, she still had a green tinge to her skin. Ahead of The Paul Lynde Halloween Special, Hamilton’s only other reprisal in full witch makeup was an ill-fated guest appearance on Sesame Street earlier in 1976. Her segment about teaching kids to overcome their fears terrified many children, and the episode was pulled from reruns. For The Paul Lynde Halloween Special, Hamilton looked the part, but she portrayed a more comical, campier witch as she granted the host three wishes and introduced guest stars KISS alongside Saturday morning TV’s Witchiepoo. In an interview with the Television Academy Foundation, Vilanch also recalled casting KISS on The Paul Lynde Halloween Special. “KISS was on it, and they had never been on television before,” he said. “I mean that it was a gigantic coup to get them on primetime television. They had done The Midnight Special and Don Kirschner’s Rock Concert, but they had never actually been on a TV show. And of course, the great shocker was Paul had no idea who they were.” In a Q&A, KISS founding member Gene Simmons said the bandmates were more starstruck by Hamilton than anything. Noting that the band was a bit “off center” because they’d never done a TV show before, he added, “I was flipping out because Margaret Hamilton, the original witch from The Wizard of Oz was there.” Nearly 50 years later, pop culture fans still have fond memories of The Paul Lynde Halloween Special. “KISS was the main draw,” one commenter wrote on Reddit. “It was historic in another way. He had both Margaret Hamilton (Wicked Witch from Wizard of Oz) and Billie Hayes (Witchiepoo from Pufnstuf) together in costume.” “I love this special,” another wrote. “It’s an amazing time capsule of 70s kitsch love this special.” Vilanch, now 76, has also talked about how the special got a second life online. “One of the gifts of the internet is that crap you did 40 years ago shows up and a whole new audience begins to enjoy it and wonder how it got made,” he told BK magazine in 2023. “The Paul Lynde Halloween Special is one of those.”