“There’s more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!”
Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol1
On Halloween night of 1992, BBC broadcasted Ghostwatch, a documentary style television special featuring actors such as Michael Parkinson, Sarah Greene and comedian Craig Charles playing themselves in a live paranormal investigation of a house in the fictional neighborhood of Foxhill Drive. While keeping the genre trappings of a news special, the hosts call on experts in the paranormal to explain the entity, “Pipes or “Mr. Pipes”, haunting the Early family. As the special progresses, things get a bit spooky before becoming very spooky at the end of the hour and a half runtime. The special started with a disclaimer at the beginning of the program stating that the program was fictional, which was easily missed before watching, leading to some believing that they were watching a factual news program about ghosts being real and they were very angry at you in particular. That was the risk you took when you ran to the bathroom while watching television in the 90s.
Nearly four years later, Magic: the Gathering would release the Alliances expansion, introducing the world to Phelddagrif.
Ghosts are not real, trusting reader. It’s a harmless belief, so I won’t try to dissuade anyone of their delusions. For those of you reading that do believe in ghosts I promise that there will be no ghosts in this piece. No entities possessing you, no past sins rising from the graves, no hungry ghouls seeking vengeance on the living, and no spirits of the past haunting us in this piece. This is just a fun read for halloween, must like Ghostwatch is a fun Halloween watch.
While the ghosts in it are fun, Ghostwatch’s is a movie about hoaxes: the documentary brings on panelists from both sides of the “ideological debate” about whether ghosts exist to argue the veracity behind the paranormal. There’s lies within the plot, characters lying to each other, prank calls being pulled. Outside the movie, there’s a meta-experience of the “hoax” of Ghostwatch itself. Because of the viewers who missed the disclaimer at the beginning there were viewers who, maybe did not believe that ghosts were real but for 50 seconds thought ghosts were really real and began to freak out, leading to 30,000 calls from distressed viewers. But that’s part of the appeal of horror movies, isn’t it? Watching them and knowing that ghosts and ghouls aren’t real it’s easy to slip into some fantasy of thinking that we really see Mr. Pipes in the background.
While I appreciate the ambiguity from this Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds level gaff, others didn’t. Ghostwatch led to scrutiny and media attention around the network as a whole. This type of press would get people to talk and lead to a movie’s success 7 years later with another documentary style movie, but Ghostwatch’s association with the BBC, an actual news channel, caused conflict for the creators and a rift of growing distrust between the network and its viewers. (allegedly) Due to this controversy it was never re-aired, and, until 2017 when it became widely available through the Internet Archive, it was difficult to find a copy to watch and it was hardly mentioned and, perhaps to the BBC, hopefully forgotten.
Phelddagrif has roots in the earliest parts of Magic: an association with the playtesters, an inside joke both about the release cadence of Magic cards, that they would run out of ideas and be left with making truly ridiculous things like a purple hippo with wings, while also poking fun at the naming conventions of Magic cards after people in hidden anagrams, and the then Marketing Department at Wizards of the Coast wanting to impress by mentioning that the game’s creator has a PhD.
It feels like this past of Magic is a bit embarrassing for current magic now. The set release cadence of 1996 looks quant compared to 2026, to the point that there’s either a sense of hostility or resigned ambivalence for the amount of Magic product currently released, making it difficult to make a self-effacing joke about that on a card. While vanity references aren’t completely removed from the game, this habit has also diminished and are slightly less obtuse than an anagram. Magic’s creatures, outside of Universes Beyond, are now less outlandish than those of yore: look not for your fungusaurs, your brushwaggs, your phelddagrifs…
Perhaps Stephen Volk, the writer and creative mind behind Ghostwatch, did not intend to perpetrate a hoax, did not want to scare people into believing that our pasts are ready to lunge out of the past and scratch our faces; or that the mass of human psychology can summon entities from metaphysical realms and conjure our great fears and manifest what society deems an atrocity; in short, did not want to convince the British public that ghosts are real. And, if he did, I’m sure he didn’t intend to get so many people with his prank. (which, again, I don’t think it is) I don’t read a lot of literature around movies I watch, even year after year, but the mythos around Ghostwatch helps aid in its watching. The ire around the movie, the anger over being confused, those who did take it seriously, and the youths who got freaked out to the point of PTSD. But there is another thing that contributes to rewatches. “Mr. Pipes”2 is a shadowy figure acting behind the scenes of the movie/documentary. While it wouldn’t be fun if the ghost was always hanging around in plain view, there are scenes where you can see him. It’s rather spooky. It’s rumored that he appears in the movie 13 times during the movie’s 90 minute runtime, enough to tantalize the viewer without giving away too much.
Fans of Ghostwatch have only found 8 times when Pipes appears.
Well reader, you sharp wit! You caught me in my own hoax! Brushwaggs have returned three times! Fungusaur, now erratad to be a fungus dinosaur type, got a similarly typed creature in Jumpstart 2. I also swear this thing was a fungus dinosaur, but I guess not?
2026 has been a return for Magic’s sillier creatures: Noggles appearing in 3 cards in Lorwyn Eclipsed, while also getting a legend on Alchemy. Lumarets, purple frogs with wings, appeared on 8 cards (9 including Alchemy). 2025 breathed new life into squirrels with Bloomburrow, giving them a solid identity and portraying them as a bit more serious.3 Magic keeps returning to the oldies: Tarmogoyf is in standard for the first time! We got a new Homarid in Mystery Booster Commander, and it looks like they’ll be returning for Nauctis.
As Magic keeps returning to the past, as it keeps introducing weirder looking creatures, it feels like Phelddagrif is off in the periphery, that I’m catching glimpses of it out of the corner of my eye (metaphorically). The public can only handle so many brushwaggs, so many new homarids and oozes, before they get tired and want some new-old stuff. Is that Phelddagrif, hiding around the couch of Nauctis? Rattling the cupboards of Kamigawa: Titan Breach? Maybe, Phelddagrif is sneaking around the abandoned shed out back, or tapping at the windows with its long, protruding hippo nails. Let me in Phelddagrif is whispering to Wizards of the Coast’s design team. Let me in the next set, hot hippo breath on their cheeks Let me in…
Maybe there aren’t 13 appearances of Mr. Pipes. Perhaps it’s all a pig numbering prank and I’m the teacher looking for missing Pig #3. Maybe I’m a fool looking for more Phelddagrif, for looking under rocks and expecting more than dirt and bugs. Maybe I’m a sucker getting my hopes up watching Ghostwatch year after year. If that’s the case then I’m too far gone. It’s too late for me, I’ve been captured. I’m down for the count. I’m drawn into the alluring gravity of the promise of the past, or looking back to what you’ve already watched, what you know happens, and hoping something different occurs. It’s what brings me back to Magic set after set. Returning with the hope of seeing something old become new. The anticipation of seeing the ground shift, a monster uncovered, rising and chasing us through the grass.
- Remember to have a better diet than Ebenezer Scrooge this halloween, or else you’ll get scared! ↩︎
- Named for the mother’s rationalization of her children hearing a ghost as saying “It’s just the pipes.”, maybe the best part of the movie for me. ↩︎
- Briefly touched on this in this blog post. Gee, I just keep saying the same stuff over and over again. It’s like I’m in some sort of time loop horror movie like Groundhog Day. ↩︎