How long does it take something to become an official part of tradition? Is 25 years good enough? If so than The Simpsons: Treehouse of Horror is officially part of the American Halloween celebration. Since 1990 (season 2 of the show for those counting), The Simpsons has been bringing a yearly Halloween special putting the four fingered bunch into a wide variety of horror, sci-fi, and all around supernatural situations. At this point the yearly anthology has become as much a part of Halloween as those 60’s claymation specials of Rudolph and Frosty have become a part of Christmas. There’s always been something overly appealing about seasonal specials of TV shows, it’s that inability to watch TV and escape the decorations and party planning from the outside world…it forces the season on you, but in a good way.
Each special is divided into three mini-stories , generally with an intro telling you to put the kids to bed as what follows may not be suitable….just another way you know you’re not watching a normal episode. Even the usual tour of Springfield is amended to a more spooktastic version with the usual witty Groening application. As I mentioned previously, there are 25 specials to date…now my math isn’t great but that makes 69 separate stories told throughout the run. I’m not going to recap them all….in the words of Inigo Montoya, “Let me explain…no, there is too much, let me sum up”. From its inception THoH has brought us parodies of just about every major property in the Horror genre (including its sub-genres), not to worry, if your favorite scary movie wasn’t the main focus there was sure to be at least a reference somewhere. Hell, even the decidedly un-family friendly A Clockwork Orange got a nod with Bart dressing up as Alex.
The first few years followed some great common strains, having every year include a Willy the Groundskeeper-centric episode which generally ended up with Willy having an axe planted somewhere in his back. Willy is actually the co-star of my still all-time favorite, which was a parody of The Shining …or as Willy says “The ShinNing, what…do you wanna get sued?” in THoH V. The episode was perfect early Simpson’s and started the tradition of including some of the most memorable lines from the entire series in the Halloween episode. For proof of this one needs look no further than “No TV and no beer make Homer something, something” or “My bologna has a first name, it’s H O M E R”. The most memorable episode has to be “Homer” where, while trying to hide from Patty and Selma, Homer happens upon an inter-dimensional portal behind the bookcase in their house. Doesn’t sound so special, that is until you mention that it was done partly in CGI. No big deal now, but in 1995 this was something to see. Not only did we get to see a 3D version of Homer but we also got to see him transported to our world, walking down the street in all his CGI glory (transporting cartoon character’s to the real world was yet another thing to be later borrowed by Family Guy). The latest THoH episode aired just this past Sunday, showing that the special, much like the series, has no intentions of stopping. I know some think otherwise but I hope The Simpsons keeps it going as long as humanly possible. Seeing re-runs of your favorite shows with your children is fine but personally I hope to one day sit with my son watching new episodes of The Simpsons the way I did with my dad some 20+ years ago.
Below is the 2:30 couch gag into done by Guillermo Del Toro courtesy of FOX. Check it out!
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