Top Ten Treehouse of Horror Segments
By Edwin Davies
October 31, 2011
8. Nightmare on Evergreen Terrace (Treehouse of Horror VI)
Marge: [Voiceover] We were there to discuss the misprinted calendars the school had purchased.
Homer: Lousy Smarch weather! Do not touch Willie. Good advice.
A large part of why I love this segment is that I hadn’t seen any of the Nightmare on Elm Street films when I watched it for the first time, so because I didn’t know what it was parodying I found it terrifying, rather than ridiculous. The concept of someone being able to kill people in their sleep, even if the killer is Groundskeeper Willie and the person he kills is Martin Prince, was something I hadn’t encountered previously so I found the episode more disturbing than was perhaps intended. Obviously it’s still a hilarious segment in and of itself, but the weird disconnect between the intention and the effect it had upon me is a large part of why it has stuck with me all these years. Also, it features the image of a shiny smooth Nelson saying that Willie ran his floor buffer over him, which is just delightful.
7. Homer’s Nightmare (Treehouse of Horror II)
Mr. Burns: Smithers, hand me that ice-cream scoop.
Smithers: Ice-cream scoop!?
Mr. Burns: Dammit Smithers, this isn’t Rocket Science, it’s Brain Surgery!
Conceptually, this Treehouse of Horror segment is not as strong as some of the others on this list since the idea of doing a version of the Frankenstein story was pretty played out in 1991 and looks even more so now, but it more than makes up for that by having some absolutely brilliant jokes. Apart from the above quote, which is so wonderfully constructed and delivered it’s almost sickening, you have Mr. Burns beating an unconscious Homer with a shovel and shouting “Stop. Scaring. Smithers!” between blows and the sublime moment when Mr. Burns removes Homer’s brain, puts it on his head and proclaims, “Look at me, I’m Davy Crockett!” On top of that, the episode has one of the best endings of any Treehouse of Horror segment ever, in which Homer wakes up from his nightmare to discover that Mr. Burns’ head has been grafted on to his body, which goes from horrifying to banal in a matter of seconds as we see the way in which having two heads alters the cosy domesticity of The Simpsons’ household by forcing Homer to attend plant functions as Mr. Burns’ body.
6. Bart Simpson’s Dracula (Treehouse of Horror IV)
Homer: Oh, Lisa! You and your stories! "Dad, Bart is a vampire." "Beer kills brain cells." Now, let's get back to that... building thingy... where our beds and T.V... is.
One of the odd side-effects of The Simpsons running as long as it has is that some episodes have eclipsed the things that they are parodying in the public consciousness. (The best example of this comes from “Selma’s Choice”, which ends with Selma cradling her Iguana Jub-Jub and singing “You Are So Beautiful”, a reference to the TV series Murphy Brown which, at the time, was a huge cultural phenomenon and is now barely remembered outside of that Seinfeld episode where Kramer gets a role on the show as her secretary.) In the case of Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula, the show did such a good job of lampooning the excesses of that stuffy adaptation that it’s hard to imagine there was ever a serious version of Dracula in which his hair was styled to look like a butt. Apart from the pitch-perfect satire, the episode also has the Super Fun Happy Slide, Homer realising the American Dream by killing his boss (though not before driving a stake through Mr. Burns’ crotch), and an ending that rips off Peanuts because why not?
5. Clown Without Pity (Treehouse of Horror III)
Shopkeeper: Take this object, but beware it carries a terrible curse!
Homer: Ooh, that's bad.
Shopkeeper: But it comes with a free frogurt!
Homer: That's good.
Shopkeeper: The frogurt is also cursed.
Homer: That's bad.
Shopkeeper: But you get your choice of toppings.
Homer: That's good!
Shopkeeper: The toppings contain potassium benzoate.
[Homer looks puzzled]
...That's bad.
I think the above exchange speaks for itself.
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