No talk show does Halloween like Live with Kelly and Mark, and nobody can better attest to that than the show’s longtime executive producer, Michael Gelman.

“We always try to top last year’s show and it’s always tougher and tougher, but somehow it works out,” he told DECIDER during a recent phone call.

Titled Live‘s Halloween Shockin’ Eve, this year’s special led by co-hosts Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos plays into the fact that it’s airing on the eve of All Hallows’ Eve, a la Dick Clark’s Rockin’ Eve, a fan-favorite annual New Year’s Eve special. As teased during Monday’s (Oct. 26) “Halloween Vault: Reality TV Edition” episode, Friday’s show features appearances from guests Andy Cohen, Zach Braff, Lisa Rinna, Jerry O’Connell, and a “special guest.”

When asked if the “special guest” is none other than frequent Dick Clark’s Rockin’ Eve host and Live alum Ryan Seacrest, Gelman kept mum, but teased that there might be more than one undisclosed familiar face.

“I can’t divulge yet. But I would say, you know, that’s not a bad guess, and you may see a bunch of surprises,” he shared. “There’s more than just one surprise guest. I will say that.”

In terms of other spooky surprises in store, Gelman highlighted that they are “doing even more live quick changes than usual,” with sixty costume changes taking place. The bits that the talk show team is tackling include spoofs on hit shows like Heated Rivalry and viral trends such as Squishies, the latter of which you can get a sneak peek at below.

As for which of the bits was Gelman’s favorite, he conceded that their take on The Traitors “is funny.”

“We do homage to different characters on reality TV, and just in TV and movies. I do a Rob Rausch-type character that I thought was kind of fun,” he revealed.

For more on Live “leaning into” nostalgia via their “Vault” segments, the most difficult part of a segment with such “high production value,” and what went into the lead-up to the spookiest morning on daytime television, keep reading the rest of our chat with Gelman.

DECIDER: [On Monday, a] special aired that was sort of a Halloween segment for Live about reality TV’s influence on Live‘s recent Halloween shows. The show, in general, has also been incorporating this Live Vault segment into episodes. What inspired this?

MICHAEL GELMAN: First of all, it’s a huge trend with the nostalgia, legacy TV, clips. I mean, online, you’re seeing all this retro stuff really go viral, and then I was noticing that people were hijacking our material and some old clips of our show. So, I was like, we need to make a really concerted effort to kind of lean into this trend because no one has more nostalgia than us. We’ve been doing this for 40 years, and so we’ve got a vault with thousands and thousands of hours that haven’t been seen in ages of some really great moments. So we posted some fun old clips, like the one where Regis and Kelly were talking about the iPhone, and some other things. We also — not, funny, very serious — but our moments [of] what happened during 9/11 live on the air, which was very triggering and and upsetting, but it was fascinating to look back. People had posted that before, but, we posted it and got tens of millions of views on a lot of these old clips. So we’ve been leaning into it more on the air, and on our socials. And so we figured we had so much great Halloween material, which oftentimes barely gets seen and it’s one of our highest-rated shows every year and it’s won the Emmy a bunch of times. But it’s kind of on a live show, it’s here and gone. you know what I mean? You’re not really getting to fully appreciate it. Occasionally, we’ll look back at some things. So I figured, let’s look back and do an entire show of some great moments. So we kicked off our pre-Halloween week with that [on Monday]… I thought it was very entertaining for even for me to look back.

It was a cool format of getting to see you in the interviewer or like host chair, and having them kind of switch places and be the subject of the interview.

Yeah, I mean Kelly is so busy acting in these skits and we do so many of them, that [for] a lot of them, her reaction is like, “Yeah, I don’t remember that! I can’t believe that. That was great!” I was really more to prompt their memories, and and they were there to give their opinions on what was going on. But it was kind of fun. We did it in sort of a mock-documentary feel. Very casual.

While the episode [on Monday] was kind of a look back at some past shows, it also teased what’s in store for this year’s Halloween show, and it announced that Andy Cohen, Zach Braff, Lisa Rinna, and Jerry O’Connell, as well as a “surprise guest,” will be featured on this year’s show. With the name being “Live‘s Halloween Shockin’ Eve,” I have to ask if the special guest is Ryan Seacrest? Or if you can tease anything about the identity of who it is?

Well, I wold say… I can’t divulge yet. But I would say, you know, that’s not a bad guess, and you may see a bunch of surprises. There’s more than just one surprise guest. I will say that.

How early on do you typically settle on the Halloween show’s overarching theme, and when’s the latest that additions or changes can be made?

We try to keep current to the year, but there are overriding trends that, you know, they’re not waiting from year-to-year or from Halloween-to-Halloween. So, some things we couldn’t even get to, or happened too late before Halloween to even put them in the Halloween show. So, we start our new list and the creative… literally, now for next year is even in the picture. But definitely, the minute this show is over, we’re all on lookout. Elyssa Shapiro is the kind of organizing, coordinating producer on this, one of my old-time producers. She always does the Halloween show. So she starts keeping lists, and we’ll talk over the year. But we have our really big needing with the rest of the team of producers who tend to work on that show and then we’ll go over things in early August to really start honing things down. Because some things happen and they maybe go viral, and then you forget about them by the next September. So we keep on going over things and then some things are late to the game, whether it be the Theranos documentary [You Can See Everything], or something new that’s happening. And then we may try to squeeze those in at the last minute, either in a live costume or in a skit that we and pull together.

It will be announced that there will be 60 costume changes in this year’s Halloween show. Do you have a favorite costume or bit that you can tease?

This Traitors bit, I think is funny. A lot of times you mash things up. We do homage to different characters on reality TV, and just in TV and movies. I do a Rob Rausch-type character that I thought was kind of fun. So, there’s that. This show also is different because this year we’re doing even more live quick changes than usual, where [during] a commercial break, [we have to] flip costumes again real quickly. Also normally we just have one live guest, but this year we have Lisa [Rinna] and Jerry O’Connell, who are also going to be helping us judge the costume contest. So, yeah, I think it’s going to make for a good show. We always try to top last year’s show and it’s always tougher and tougher, but somehow it works out.

You can only fit so much into an hour-long show. Are there any pop culture moments that were up for consideration that didn’t make the cut that you can share? Or any ideas that were an immediate “no” from you?

I don’t want to say what it is because I’m not even sure. But we’re cutting some of the skits right now, and there’s a full skit that we thought was very funny that may not even make it into the show because we have so much other good material. So if it doesn’t, I think we’re going to plan on just releasing it digitally. But I don’t want to say what that is because we’re still seeing if we can fit it in.

There’s a million things you can’t do. But also, some things are a little too… either edgy or negative, and we don’t want to do that. Some things you don’t want to make fun of, even though they were a big part of pop culture. We try to stay non-controversial. But I mean, we’re going to have some looks like with Spider-Man and Traitors. We’re doing a bunch on the Squishies… Some things are, kind of, “if you know, you know.” Pop culture is not as broad as it used to be in that there used to be one trend. If it was “Who shot J.R.?” [Ewing on Dallas], everyone in the entire world knew about it. Nowadays, people who know the Squishies were like, “Oh my God, that’s the biggest thing ever,” anyone who had kids. Anyone who didn’t had no idea. Or different reality shows are the same thing. Even though they’re pretty popular, it’s not like before where everyone was watching the same thing. So we try to hit a lot of different areas.

What would you say is the most difficult part of this whole endeavor?

It’s just very high production value. The most difficult part is coming up with the ideas, trimming those ideas down to the ones you’re going to do, and then for the team that’s working on it, writing these scripts and putting together these tape pieces. The costuming is difficult. Obviously, you need to be a good actor. Kelly and Mark are both actors, so that really brought us to a new level. A lot of times you have talk show hosts who are doing some acting, but these are, like, two actors doing it and they’re both great mimics. So it’s really upped the game, and I think you’re gonna like the show.

Outside of the show, how are you celebrating “Spooky Season” this year?

Normally, we end up leaving the city during Halloween weekend. But because the show is on a Friday and we’re live, we’re going to stay in the city and probably go to this kind of costume karaoke party that some old friends give every year. So, I’m going to have to figure out which of my costumes I want to borrow for the evening, but I think I know which one. I have to see. It’s a couple’s costume, and I have to see if my wife would be into wearing the other half of it.

I love that. I mean, it’s nice to have that whole selection at your disposal from the show.

Well, the thing is this: certain ones we rent and they just go right back. Those are not available to me. The ones that we have and aren’t going to be sent back until later on, or that we’re throwing away, then I can borrow that from the evening and then return it to the costume closet [laughs].

You mentioned that you have writers writing the scripts for these skits. Do you bring in any additional staff, or is this all coming from your core production team?

No, we don’t have staff writers. As producers on this show, we write. Some of the producers are my kind of Halloween specialists. The same four people generally do all those skits, and it’s a big job, but they love doing it. They all need a huge break by the time Halloween week is over.

Is there anything else you’d like to share, or that you can tease about the Halloween show?

We’re doing some big stuff leading up… Science Bob’s coming on to do kind of Halloween-related stuff in the lead-up to Halloween. He hasn’t been on in a while, and that’s gonna be fun, doing all these kinds of spooky science experiments.

One other thing, actually. Because this is sort of taking off on Halloween Eve — [a la] New Year’s Rockin’ Eve— we are going to be kind of doing a Halloween version of our check-ins around the world. That’ll be fun. I think you’ll get a kick out of that.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Live with Kelly and Mark‘s “Halloween Shockin’ Eve” airs on Friday, Oct. 30. Check out the show’s website for your local listings.