Retro Review: Treehouse of Horror V

Original Airdate
October 30th, 1994

Or the One Where
"The Shinning" - No TV and no beer make Homer something something.
"Time and Punishment" -  Homer mucks up time via a time machine toaster.
"Nightmare Cafeteria" - Facing a lack of funds and overcrowded detention halls, Principal Skinner begins cooking the troublemakers and serving them for lunch.

The Setup
Marge addresses the audience warning them about the nature of the episode, saying it is so scary that Congress won't allow it to be broadcast, before Bart and Homer take over the feed to broadcast the episode. 

Notable Notes
This is the first Halloween episode to lack a framing sequence before and after each segment (ie telling scary stories in Bart's treehouse or nightmares triggered by too much candy), though it still contains the "worried Marge warns away the audience" intro, the last such episode to do so.

A framing sequence was devised for this episode, but it was ultimately cut to allow each segment more time. While probably a wise choice in the long run, I do miss the framing sequences, as they gave each episode an air of Halloween even if the individual stories weren't always that Halloween-y.

Last Week in Pop Culture #6: All Halloween Edition

TV and movies make a big deal out of most of the major holidays, but Halloween, arguably, gets the biggest inflation in scope from "real life" to "fiction". Once you've outgrown trick-or-treating, there isn't a whole lot to the day. I celebrate it by going to a party (in costume, of course), listening to appropriately-themed music in the weeks leading up to the holiday, and watching suspense/horror/Halloween-themed movies and TV shows.

Yet while Christmas remains my favorite real world holiday, Halloween is probably my favorite when it comes to fictions about the holiday itself, as the stories, imagery and sensations on display in fiction are so much larger and impactful than they are in real life. And as much as there are some Christmas movies I love, and some fantastic Christmas-themed episodes of favorite TV shows, I have much more fun plowing through the fiction of Halloween every October than I do that of Christmas in December (in part because there's plenty more real world stuff to do associated with Christmas).

Anyways, here's my thoughts on some Halloween-themed TV shows I watched last week.

Sleepy Hollow: John Doe

So the lost colony of Roanoke is lost because the Horseman of Pestilence (aka Conquest) infected it with a plague then sent it forward in time so Pestilence could be unleashed on the modern world, but the colony was protected by the ghost of Virgina Dare, who gave the water healing properties, at least until one of the colonists was lured out by the Horseman and pierced the time barrier, entering the modern world and bringing the plague along with him?

Goddamn, I love this show.

Last Week in Pop Culture #4

Sleepy Hollow: The Lesser Key of Solomon

Something kinda cool I realized about this show watching this episode: not only does this show have an African-American female lead who isn't romantically involved with the other lead, but one of the (presumed) supporting characters is also an African-American female, and at multiple times this episode managed to pass the Bechdel Test. Neither of those things should need to be commented on in this day and age (they should just be), but unfortunately, they do, and its kinda neat the way this show can be somewhat unique on TV even beyond its batshit crazy plot elements.

Retro Review: Treehouse of Horror IV

Original Airdate
October 28th, 1993

Or the One Where
"The Devil and Homer Simpson" (Homer sells his soul for a donut), "Terror at 5 1/2 Feet" (Bart is menaced by a gremlin on the school bus) and "Bart Simpson's Dracula" (Bart is turned into a vampire by Mr. Burns).

The Setup
In a parody of Night Gallery, Bart introduces a series of paintings which inspire horrific stories.

Notables Notes
This is the last episode of the show Conan O'Brien worked on for the show (he primarily worked on the framing sequence). It is also the last Treehouse episode to feature a framing sequence uniting the three segments (a framing sequence was written for the next Treehouse episode, but was cut to give the actual segments more time; the tradition was never revived after that).

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween, everyone!

May your pumpkin patch be found the most sincere, and may your vampire attacks be carried out by the genuine ones, not the sparkly kind.

Retro Review: Treehouse of Horror III

Or the One Where
"Clown Without Pity" (Homer is stalked by a killer Talking Krusty doll), "King Homer" (King Kong re-imagined with Homer in the title role), and "Dial Z for Zombie" (Bart accidentally raises the dead").

The Setup
Marge hosts a Halloween party for all the kids in lieu of trick-or-treating, with Lisa, Grandpa and Bart each telling a scary story at the party.

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween, everyone!

May your pumpkin patches be found the most sincere, and may TV and beer be plentiful enough to keep you from going insane.

Horror at Hannah's

My good buddy Hannah has been spending the month of October celebrating all things horror on her blog, Musings of a Palindrome (so named because her name is a palindrome, not because she thinks she can see Russia from her house). As part of that celebration, she hosted a short story contest (less than 1,000 words) in which she asked for stories in the horror/suspense genre designed to freak her out.

And I won! Wahoo!

Go here to check out my story. I'm totally surprised, as this is probably the first horror story I've ever written (I don't read a lot of horror/suspense, and thus I get very few story ideas in that vein). I was just trying to freak Hannah out, so I'm glad I accomplished that.

And now the new Stephen King book (amongst other goodies) is winging its way to me! Thanks Hannah!

Retro Review: Treehouse of Horror II

Or the One Where: Lisa's nightmare (a wish-granting Monkey's Paw leads to alien domination), Bart's nightmare (Bart is an omnipotent being who grows to love his father) and Homer's nightmare (his brain is transplanted into a worker robot by Mr. Burns).

The Setup: Following trick-or-treating, Lisa, Bart and Homer all gorge on candy, which gives them all nightmares.

Teebore's Ten Favorite Treehouse of Horror Stories

With Halloween just around the corner and twenty Simpsons Halloween specials in the bag (giving us sixty stories total!), let's take a look at my ten favorite Treehouse of Horror stories of all time.

Retro Review: Treehouse of Horror

Or The One Where: "Bad Dream House" (the Simpsons move into a house possessed by an evil spirit), "Hungry are the Damned" (the Simpsons are taken into space by aliens) and "The Raven" (Lisa reads Edgar Allan Poe's famous poem to Bart).

The Setup: Before the opening sequence, Marge speaks directly to the audience, warning them that the show is scary, and that if they "have sensitive children, maybe you should tuck them into bed early tonight instead of writing us angry letters tomorrow."

A Work In Progress: This is, of course, the first of the yearly Halloween specials. The framing device of this episode, in which Bart and Lisa swap scary stories in Bart's treehouse on Halloween, provides the inspiration for the titles of the subsequent specials, despite the fact that this framing sequence is unique to this episode.

The Halloween-themed opening featuring the camera zooming in over a graveyard with tombstones featuring humorous epitaphs is also used for the first time. The funny gravestone gag will be used in subsequent "Treehouse of Horror" episodes until it was dropped permanently after the fifth special (in the sixth season).

The tradition of opening each Halloween episode with a warning to parents and children begins in this episode; it will be used on and off throughout "Treehouse of Horror V", when it, like the tombstone gags, will be dropped because the writers found it too difficult to come up with new material for the gags each year.


Finally, Kang and Kodos, the green, one-eyed, squid-like aliens, appear for the first time. It is an unwritten rule that they must make an appearance in all Halloween episodes, and their presence is usually seen as an indicator that the events of an episode are non-canonical (they've appeared outside "Treehouse" episodes a few times).

Favorite Lines:

Homer: Mr. Bloot? Homer Simpson here. When you sold me this house, you forgot to mention one little thing: YOU DIDN'T TELL ME IT WAS BUILT ON AN INDIAN BURIAL GROUND! ... NO YOU DIDN'T! ... Well, that's not MY recollection. ... Yeah? Well, all right, goodbye! ... He said he mentioned it five or six times.

Kang: We offered you paradise. You would have experienced emotions a hundred times greater than what you call love. And a thousand times greater than what you call fun. You would have been treated like gods and lived forever in beauty. But, now, because of your distrustful nature, that can never be.
Marge: Mmmm...for a superior race, they really rub it in.

Bart: Lisa, that wasn't scary. Not even for a poem.
Lisa: Well it was written in 1845. Maybe people were easier to scare back then.
Bart: Oh, yeah. Like when you look at 'Friday the 13th, Part 1'. Pretty tame by today's standards.


Teebore's Take: Managing to pay tribute to while parodying "Outer Limits", "The Twilight Zone", "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" and Gothic American poetry, "The Simpsons" first Halloween episode sets the standard and raises the bar for all that follow. This episode is also another early example of how, in the second season, "The Simpsons" is showing it can do more than standard sitcom jokes and crude humor and foreshadows the close relationship the show will have, both in the Halloween episodes and regular episodes, with culture, pop and otherwise, in the years to come. The clearest example of this, my favorite of the three segments in this episode,"The Raven", manages to create an eerie and creepy "Halloween" mood even if it isn't, as Bart and Lisa suggest, all that scary. It's worth it just to hear James Earl Jones' rendition of the poem.

Classic:

A definite classic that sets the stage for some truly hilarious entries in the series.

Halloween:

Between the framing sequence and a clear effort to tell scary stories, this is one of the more Halloween-y "Treehouse" episodes.

Retro Review: Treehouse of Horror X

AKA: "I Know What You Diddily-Iddily Did." (Werewolf Flanders), "Desperately Xeeking Xena" (Bart and Lisa get superpowers), and "Life's A Glitch, Then You Die"("The Simpsons" does Y2K)

The setup: The Simpson family, as they appeared in various Halloween episodes, watches a variety show featuring Kang and Kodos, at which Lisa asks "what do aliens have to do with Halloween?" and is promptly blasted by Alien Maggie.

Favorite Lines:

Homer: Okay, Marge, you hide int he abandoned amusement park; Lisa, the pet cemetery; Bart, the spooky roller disco; and I'll go skinny-dipping in that lake where the sexy teens were killed a hundred years ago tonight.

Milhouse: Check it out Lisa, I'm Radioactive man
Lisa: I don't think the real Radioactive Man wears a plastic smock with a picture of himself on it.
Milhouse: He would on Halloween.

Teebore's Take: As the opening of this episode suggests, by this point in the show's run it's often pointed out that most segments of the annual Treehouse of Horror episodes are more sci-fi (or just plain whackier than normal) in nature than they are Halloween-y. I think this has less to do with the segments than it does the lack of a framing sequence.

In the early Treehouse episodes, there was always some kind of Halloween-themed sequence that surrounded the tales: Bart and Lisa telling scary stories in their treehouse, the family getting nightmares from Halloween candy, etc. The actual stories varied wildly, but the framing sequence helped make the episode on the whole feel Halloween-y. For example, there isn't anything inherently scary or Halloween-y in the hialrious King Kong parody from the third Treehouse episode in season four, but it seemed less out of left field because it was ostensibly a tale told at a Halloween party.

Once the writers did away with that particular device, the Halloween episodes just became segments with no real connection beyond the unusual or absurd, and as a result, the lack therein of anything scary, horiffic or Halloween-y became much more obvious (of course, it didn't help that has the years went by, Fox began to air these episodes AFTER Halloween more and more often).


In this episode, the first segment's parody of "I Know What You Did Last Summer" with Werewolf Flanders is easily the most Halloween-y (and the strongest of the three despite the abrupt ending) though the second segment involving Bart and Lisa getting superpowers pays lip service to the holiday by showing the kids in costume at school and has some good gags. The third segment has barely any story at all; it's rather a string of lame Y2K jokes with a bizarre ending (Homer and Bart end up on a rocket filled with Z-List celebrities heading towards the sun).



Treehouse of Horror episodes are always outside the normal realm of the show, so its hard to rate their zaniness or Jerk-ass Homer quotient. Let's just call this one two Jack O'Lanterns out of five for general Halloweeness.

Happy Halloween!

The Doom O'Lantern* wishes you a happy Halloween. Doom asks that you not smash his pumpkins, for that is the way of rowdy, no-good teens and that cursed Richards!

Happy Halloween everyone: may your pumpkin patch be sincere, and may you receive more than rocks in your trick-or-treat bags.

*Doom O'Lantern appears courtesy of Dave's Long Box.