Treehouse of Terror XIII
Fall is right around the corner. Oh, it's still a bit warm but outside my window the leaves are turning a glorious orange. We are heading into Halloween, a wonderful season to treat myself to horror, one of my favourite genres. I have a big pile of horror comics sitting on my shelf from last year that I never got around to from the previous (and maybe even the year before). And since I'm only doing half the work I used to with my new job, I might have time to watch a horror movie a day. But for now, I am intentionally trying to avoid absorbing horror material until the time is just right for spookems. Only a couple weeks left...
In this episode we have three more tales of terror. First, Homer discovers a magic hammock that creates clones. At first, Homer uses the clones to do work around the house but when one murders Flanders, Homer tries to get rid of them. They learn to self-replicate and besiege Springfield until Lisa comes up with a plan to destroy them... accidentally only leaving a clone Homer alive. Marge learns to deal with it. In the second tale, Lisa is in a cemetery when she discovers a gravestone of William Bonney, a young man who died during the old west. Seeing a epitaph that wishes for a world without guns, Lisa vows to make his dream comes true and petitions for a gunless Springfield. She succeeds, only for the town to learn that William Bonney was Billy the Kid and he has returned as a ghoul to take advantage of a gunless town along with his posse of zombies. Prof. Frink sends Homer back in time to save the day, making gun violence the answer. In the last tale, the Simpsons take a vacation on an island owned by Dr. Hibbert, who has widely reported as having gone mad. It turns out he's been turning vacationers into animals, including Marge and the kids. As Homer tries to reason with Hibbert and the animal-people who has chosen to accept their new forms, Homer accidentally ends up talking himself into joining, realizing it's a life of sloth, gluttony and sex.
The future of the Simpsons isn't too bright at this point but it would be understandable to think otherwise with this one. It's not the strongest episode, but it is completely solid AND each of the stories are scripted by three writers taking their first cracks at scripting an entire episode. The first story is written by Marc Wilmore (brother of Daily Show correspondent Larry Wilmore), who sadly died this year of complications related to COVID. Marc would go on to be an executive producer on the show for 219 episodes. I think this might be the strongest of the three, feeling both like the plotting, gags and sense of pacing are all as good as they need to be. I feel like a lot of the later Halloween episodes are particularly weak on this front so I appreciate that it is all working here. A lot of the jokes feel like archetypical, almost basic Simpsons, which is understandable if this is your first chance to get your reigns on the show and I don't think it's to the segment's detriment, crafting a decent little short.
The second segment plays a little weird now. The joke is gun violence gets to stop gun violence. The irony here is not lost on the show but it's weird since the narrative to a lot of pro gun advocates is much the same, which makes the aforementioned irony just a little less fun in this outing. Thankfully, it is still solid in the same fields the previous segment was, only this time with the writer trying to get a little clever with it's attempted subversion (I assume) of the gun narrative and its reveal of the villain (which probably wasn't a surprise to some old west enthusiasts). Again, some of the jokes are also very good, especially with the appearance of Kaiser Wilhelm, who, in all honesty, could have gotten a little more play for my taste.
The final tale is the only one that is an overt spoof on a specific film rather than a trope of topic. The original Island of Dr. Moreau is a commentary on human cruelty of animal experimentation (particularly vivisection) but appropriately this becomes about humans giving into their baser instincts,. I like that Homer is by coincidence the last hold out and when he has a chance to think about it for a minute is like "wait, why am I holding out?" It's probably the weakest but, again, it's a solid episode. It's written by Kevin Curran, a former Married... with Children vet who ended up writing The Wife Aquatic, one of the funnier later season episodes. Sadly, Kevin has also passed on, having died of cancer complications in 2016.
It's nice to see a solid Halloween ep. I feel like a lot of the anthologies, in being focused on being joke machines, feel more interested in doing a Mad Magazine-esque parody rather than using the opportunity to tell fun stories with the characters so it really is nice to see a decent episode with three very solid tales.
Other great jokes:
"The hammock man! I'm glad he's a little early today."
"Then after World War Two, it got kinda quiet, 'till Superman challenged FDR to a race around the world. FDR beat him by a furlong, or so the comic books would have you believe. The truth lies somewhere in between... "
"Does Dad seem a little... dumber than usual?"
"Boy are we evenly matched!"
"Me concur."
I like Homer's clones raising their hands to get shot.
"I'm sorry. I can't live without passion."
I also like that he's... just buried in Springfield.
"Now let's rob the bank, give the money to the poor, then rob the poor and shoot the money!"
"Noe to get me some caveman hookers!"
"Think what Shakespeare might have accomplished if he had the eyes of an eagle or could spray stink on his critics."
"She's become a monster! Though you have to admit, I kind of suspected during the sex."
"Manimals! Invertibroads!"
Other notes:
The opening bit is quite weak, though. I feel like a Simpson saying their full name when they don't need to is a sign the show think's it's being ironically hokey but is just hokey.
Despite my mostly positive take on the episode, the show is definitely falling back on old lines like "He had a good run" and "It's a good group".
The line read for "Anything for Homers" sounds really off. Was it a different voice actor for some reason?
"The Fright to Creep and Scare Harms" is a great title.
