The Simpsons: Treehouse of Horror XXV

October 20, 2014 12:29 PM - Season 26, Episode 4

The 25th annual Simpsons Halloween special brings three more spine-chilling tales.

School is Hell - Bart decides to enroll at a school in Hell.

A Clockwork Yellow - An extended riff on the films of Stanley Kubrick.

The Others - The Simpsons find their house haunted by spirits from another time.

posted by Small Dollar (8 comments total)

Homer's line towards the end of the last segment (about how he could never leave Marge for another version of her because "If there was a dot or a squiggle different, that would be too much") somehow manages to make the Hertzfeldt couch gag even more heartbreaking.
posted by Rhaomi at 1:22 PM on October 20, 2014 [2 favorites]

This is the first whole episode of The Simpsons I've watched in over a decade.

A few things did get laughs:
* The gag with the Car Seller's Bible and, "The power of Chrysler compels you!" felt like the old days for just a moment.
* Groundskeeper Willy carting off the bodies. (I am a sucker for a tasteless dead baby joke.)
* The alternate universe Simpsons had some good sight gags in there.
* Mr. Burn's perfunctory spiel when Bart and Lisa gated in from Hell to his office was all right.

That said, I think I'll check back in in another ten years or so, when they are inevitably still on the air. The rest was mostly pretty dire.
posted by mordax at 5:00 PM on October 20, 2014

The Kubrick parody was fantastic homage that just wasn't funny. I was extremely impressed by the animation throughout, but it's like they forgot to put any jokes in it. Other than that, I laughed at Groundskeeper Willie, too.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 6:54 PM on October 20, 2014 [1 favorite]

I loved the Kubrick parody. Not so much the end segment (mostly because Dan Castellaneta is the only one who nailed his old Homer voice.) That first segment was just tired, in my opinion. But eh, it's a Treehouse of Horror, which are always better than the regular episodes.
posted by Catblack at 9:23 PM on October 20, 2014

I laughed way too hard at the notion that the Simpsons home was being haunted by elements of their past incarnation, e.g. frosty chocolate milkshakes. I thought it was a missed opportunity for their TV to be stuck on Married With Children rather than, say, The Happy Little Elves cartoon from Season 1.
posted by Servo5678 at 7:56 AM on October 21, 2014

The Kubrick parody was fantastic homage that just wasn't funny.

Yeah, you nailed my feelings about it. They put so much thought into it, but I kept waiting for a gag in there. (In fairness to them, I guess Moe wearing the eye clamps on purpose was a decent one in principle, but the timing felt off, and I didn't laugh.)

I laughed way too hard at the notion that the Simpsons home was being haunted by elements of their past incarnation, e.g. frosty chocolate milkshakes.

I could have liked that one more, and it contained my single favorite moment in the episode, but making it all about Homer's love for Marge over Nostalgia!Marge felt like a weirdly narrow choice of issues. I would've preferred a bunch of alternate universe Simpsons in a battle royale or crisis crossover.
posted by mordax at 4:05 PM on October 21, 2014 [1 favorite]

I kept waiting for a gag in there.

C'mon, the Barry Lyndon didn't crack you up?
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 5:48 PM on October 21, 2014

"fantastic homage that just wasn't funny" seems like a pretty fair assessment of the past decade's top Simpsons moments in general
posted by DoctorFedora at 10:19 PM on October 22, 2014 [1 favorite]