Just rewatched last night for the first time in a long while...I'd say Cochran's plan DID work partially. He said the reasons were for witchcraft/sacrifice & to play the biggest Halloween prank of all...didn't seem COMPLETELY necessary. Cochran mentions on the phone briefly the commercial is going to have a 40%+ viewing share (can't recall the exact #)...so if we assume 2/3 of those kids watched....and melted...mission (mostly) accomplished.

@jorgito2001 said:

Just rewatched last night for the first time in a long while...I'd say Cochran's plan DID work partially. He said the reasons were for witchcraft/sacrifice & to play the biggest Halloween prank of all...didn't seem COMPLETELY necessary. Cochran mentions on the phone briefly the commercial is going to have a 40%+ viewing share (can't recall the exact #)...so if we assume 2/3 of those kids watched....and melted...mission (mostly) accomplished.

I agree. You would have kids that "trick or treat"ed like normal kids, as well as those who watched a movie or went to a party. Hell, even say a kid or two watching the Silver Shamrock commercial on "the wall of TVs" Electronic stores had in the mid to late 1980's would get zapped, but kids across the street may not be affected, or their parent(s) would notice the kids watching the TV squirming in agony and cover their kid's eyes... even with extenuating circumstances there would be 10s of thousands of children who collapsed into a puddle of slugs and snails, and puppy dog tails. Enough that Halloween as a holiday would be banned; the government would take the supernatural seriously (places like Stonehenge would be imminent domained under military watch) and you would have an Arlington Cemetery for the children and families that died that night.

Hell, that would make for an interesting movie on it's own: what kind of future would you see from the events of Halloween III?

@NeoLosman said:

The planet hadn't been wiped out in Halloween 4. Sounds like Tom Atkinson woke up, and realized that everything had been a dream

Halloween 4, 5 and 6 have their own timeline. Dr. Loomis is not dead, implying that the events of Halloween II weren't quite as.. "explosive".