Even after I'd given up on watching The Simpsons every week many years back, I continued tuning into their annual "Treehouse of Horror" specials, the most recent of which aired Sunday. After a few more years of watching just that one episode each year, I eventually let it go as well. But I've been watching this 20th Anniversary Season of the show, and reviewing it for the site, so I settled in to see what we'd be tackling this year.
As always, the special is broken into three parts. This year's batch: a send-up of Alfred Hitchcock films, 28 Days Later, and Sweeney Todd. That sounded promising enough, and yet ...
Maybe I'm too old for the "Treehouse." Or maybe they just try and do too much. Or maybe, as was the case with all three of this year's segments, they have decent enough set-ups, but their endings are all stupid.
You know, E! Online should choose its headlines a little more carefully. Or maybe they did it on purpose, heh.
The Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network is ticked that The Simpsons annual "Treehouse of Horror" special had a line from Nelson Muntz that they consider a gay slur. Muntz said "that's so gay" towards Milhouse in a scene in the episode this past weekend. A spokesman for the group says that Muntz should visit thinkb4youspeak.com, a site that asks people not to use the word gay in a negative way. I guess that will be a Very Special Episode of The Simpsons.
The funny thing is this is not even the first time that the show has used the line "that's so gay." I think I remember it being used by one of Nelson's buddies when he was dating Lisa several seasons ago. I think the line was something like "You have a girlfriend? That's so gay!"
So, is this a slur or are people just overreacting at a joke, being too PC?
This Sunday, FOX will air the annual Simpsons Halloween special "Treehouse of Horror" episode. We've already told you that this year's installment will spoof Peanuts, advertising, and Transformers. Now we have some screen shots of the opening credits, courtesy of Best Week Ever.
As you can see from the picture above, The Simpsons are doing Mad Men this season. Now, there's nothing particularly Halloween-ish or scary about Mad Men (though we could talk for hours about how Mad Men really is kind of frightening, with marriages and characters and the American Dream falling apart and all that), but I've been waiting for someone to parody the beautiful opening credits.
Hasn't The Simpsonsalready spoofed It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown on one of its many "Treehouse of Horror" episodes? You would think it would be a natural for them and it would have been done years ago.
The classic Peanuts show is one of the segments spoofed (it's called "It's The Great Pumpkin, Milhouse") on the annual Halloween episode of the show. The other segments include a Transformers spoof (the robots try to destroy Springfield, of course), and the segment I'm most looking forward to, a Mad Men takeoff. Seems that advertising agencies hire Homer to kill celebrities so they can make a bunch of money off of their likenesses. It's called "How To Get Ahead In Deadvertising." We'll see Homer falling off of a building a la Mad Men's opening credits.
As is often the case, the Simpsons "Treehouse of Horror" episode will actually air after Halloween, on November 2. After the jump, a video retrospective of the show's Halloween episodes and a sneak peek at one of the scenes from the new one.
(S18E04) I always try to give the Simpsons Halloween specials the benefit of the doubt, because obviously when they first decided to do one for each season, starting with "Treehouse of Horror I" in season two, they probably weren't thinking they might have to keep coming up with three new vignettes every year for almost two decades, with no clear sign of stopping anytime soon.
So I cut the series a little bit of slack when it comes to these Halloween episodes, because sometimes you just run out of scary things to spoof and you end up creating something like "You Gotta Know When to Golem," about a mystical Jewish creature who becomes Bart's unwitting slave. But even though this was the least of the three stories this year, it did have some funny moments. I loved how the family created a bride for the Golem out of Play-Doh, and how the Golem turned from a silent killing machine to a neurotic freak that won't shut up the moment he's allowed to speak.
A note to the people who put together these press kits: if you want to woo me, fill the kit with lots and lots of candy. I don't care if it has anything to do with the television program you're promoting or not. I want lots of damn chocolate, and I want it now. As you can see in the picture above, this press kit for the upcoming "Treehouse of Horror" episode of The Simpsons was stuffed with mini candy bars, Blow Pops and peanuts, all of which I scarfed down fairly quickly, growling under my breath like a starving dog protecting his food bowl.
I'll have a few review when the episode airs on November 5, but here's a taste of what you can look forward to:
The first vignette, titled "Married to the Blob," spoofs the classic camp classic The Blob, this time with Homer becoming an ever-enlarging mass of man-blob who just can't stop himself from eating every person he comes across. As always, it takes Marge to finally talk some sense into Homer, with a little help from guest star Dr. Phil.
You knew they'd have to get around to it sooner or later. The final segment of the upcoming Simpsons "Treehouse of Horror" episode on November 5 will take a few not-so-subtle shots at the current conflict in Iraq as aliens Kang and Kodos (who are featured in every "Treehouse of Horror") attack Springfield before the humans can get their hands on "weapons of mass disintegration". The connection to the Iraq war is made obvious, and there's even a line at the end in which a character evokes the actual Iraq debacle. Executive producer Al Jean says the line may be too obvious and not make it into the episode. It'll be interesting to see how the show handles the segment, though I wonder why they didn't try to tackle this subject as a full "regular" episode, which I think they could have done fairly easily. Then again, they may still have plenty of time to do just that.
Doesn't it annoy the heck out of you that, because of baseball, FOX doesn't air the annual Simpsons "Treehouse of Horror" episode until after Halloween? It annoys me. There's no reason why FOX couldn't pre-empt one of those insipid baseball pre-game shows to show the episode. I mean, really; does anyone actually think that a FOX game starts at 8 PM anymore? By the time Jeannie Zelasko pulls out every tired sports cliche in the book and Kevin Kennedy gives his "a ten year old could do this" analysis, 8:20 has rolled around and we haven't even seen the first pitch...
Aaaaannyway, if you're hankering for some "Treehouse", the Chowdaheads blog has what you need; they have posted video of all sixteen "Treehouse" episodes. The video embeds are pretty small, but at least you can see them all in one place. That is, if you don't have the "Treehouse" DVDs. And I do agree with the Chowdaheads: "Treehouses" two through nine are the best ones.
See, this is why it's so hard to get any work done. The official Simpsons Web site has an awesome video editor where you can piece together clips from the upcoming "Treehouse of Horror XVII" (November 5) to create your very own wacky/scary mish mash of Simpson-y goodness. I'm having enough fun just playing around with it, but if you're feeling competitive you can actually enter your creation in a contest for a chance to have it aired on FOX, or to win a trip to the 400th episode party. Other prizes include an autographed drawing from the episode courtesy Matt Groening, and a bunch of limited edition posters. I would enter my own creation, but I'm afraid it would blow everyone's mind. Or I'm just lazy.
(S06E06)When I first started covering the sixth season of The Simpsons for Retro Squad, some of you asked why I didn't cover one of the earlier "better" seasons. Well, there is a reason I chose this season instead of say, the fifth season (which includes one of my top five episodes, "Rosebud") but that reason no longer applies. What the heck am I talking about? Let's just say we had something cool planned, but it didn't pan out.
Nevertheless, this season had some great episodes, so I'm not at all sorry I chose to revisit them. Besides, if I hadn't picked this season I wouldn't be able to talk about possibly one of the best Halloween episodes ever. So if you'll take my bloody, severed hand, we'll get started:
Podcast time again! In this episode, Jason Hughes and Michael Pascua join me to talk about TV's doings this week:
Even after I'd given up on watching 
You know, E! Online should choose its headlines a little more carefully. Or maybe they did it on purpose, heh.
(S18E04) I always try to give the Simpsons Halloween specials the benefit of the doubt, because obviously when they first decided to do one for each season, starting with "Treehouse of Horror I" in season two, they probably weren't thinking they might have to keep coming up with three new vignettes every year for almost two decades, with no clear sign of stopping anytime soon.
No spoilers in this preview, Simpsons fans.
You knew they'd have to get around to it sooner or later. The final segment of the upcoming Simpsons "Treehouse of Horror" episode on November 5 will take a few not-so-subtle shots at the current conflict in Iraq as aliens Kang and Kodos (who are featured in every "Treehouse of Horror") attack Springfield before the humans can get their hands on "weapons of mass disintegration". The connection to the Iraq war is made obvious, and there's even a line at the end in which a character evokes the actual Iraq debacle. Executive producer Al Jean says the line may be too obvious and not make it into the episode. It'll be interesting to see how the show handles the segment, though I wonder why they didn't try to tackle this subject as a full "regular" episode, which I think they could have done fairly easily. Then again, they may still have plenty of time to do just that.
Doesn't it annoy the heck out of you that, because of baseball, FOX doesn't air the annual Simpsons "Treehouse of Horror" episode until after Halloween? It annoys me. There's no reason why FOX couldn't pre-empt one of those insipid baseball pre-game shows to show the episode. I mean, really; does anyone actually think that a FOX game starts at 8 PM anymore? By the time Jeannie Zelasko pulls out every tired sports cliche in the book and Kevin Kennedy gives his "a ten year old could do this" analysis, 8:20 has rolled around and we haven't even seen the first pitch...
See, this is why it's so hard to get any work done. The official Simpsons Web site has an awesome video editor where you can piece together clips from the upcoming "Treehouse of Horror XVII" (November 5) to create your very own wacky/scary mish mash of Simpson-y goodness. I'm having enough fun just playing around with it, but if you're feeling competitive you can actually enter your creation in 
When I first started covering the sixth season of The Simpsons for 
Mike Henry and Daryl Hall on a Cleveland Show Thanksgiving
The TV Squad Podcast: The Prisoner, '80s TV, soap news and more
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