Treehouse of Horror XXIII
In this episode, three, no make that four spooky tales. First in the opening gag, ancient Aztec Homer declining to get sacrificed causes the Aztec gods to destroy the Earth in 2012. Then, a mini-black hole is created by a mini-hadron collider and Lisa decides to keep it in the basement to prevent it from hurting anyone else. The Simpsons begin using it as a garbage can, increasing it's mass until it devours everyone in Springfield except Maggie. The Simpsons find themselves taken to an alternate universe where they are greeted as guests due to their many "gifts". In the second tale, a parody of Paranormal Activity, strange nocturnal activities are occurring in the Simpson house, where it eventually turns out to save her sisters Marge made a deal with a demon. Homer manages to settle up with a demon three-way (and might be a little much for the demons). In the last tale, a parody of Back to the Future, Bart borrows Frink's time machine to buy an old comic book and accidentally prevents Homer and Marge's relationship from happening. Travelling home, he now discovers he's rich, with his father as Artie Ziff. Young Homer, who stowed away in the time machine, meets old Homer and the two steal the time machine to create a Homer army from history to punish Ziff and Bart. The duo actually easily defeat them but Marge falls for the Homers and marries all of them.
So this one is... fine. It has some occasional laughs but it neither feels too ambitious (even with a time travel story) or lazy and it lands squarely in the middle. The opening bit isn't the show at its strongest but the black hole one was fun, once again a tale pointing out that the short-sighted Springfielders' carelessness has once again lead to ecological disaster. There are some cute gags involving the various ways the black hole sucks things in but overall, it's no more than cute (though I feel bad for Maggie separated from her family forever.) That said, I also think it is my favourite, but they are all kind of the same quality.
The second one is a bit what you might expect from a parody of a then-popular film, having fun with some iconic scenes. Thankfully the first Paranormal Activity movie is simple enough that it doesn't feel like it has to cram in half a dozen touchstones like the far too busy and disjointed Stranger Things parody from a few years down the line. But for the most part, it's also a bit lacking in ambition. Most of the time lapse jokes are obvious, like Homer spending way too long peeing while the film fast forwards.
The last tale is the most disappointing to me. It does do some different things, like Bart intentionally keeping the relationship broken up and Homer being enamored of the decadence of the present. But I feel like there's more fun to be had with causality and the silliness that Homer's teenage years are now 38 years in the past when the episode was released, meaning Homer must be in his early 60s now. But mostly, like the rest of the episode, it's pleasant but kind of low ambition.
Other great jokes:
"Hey, uh, Marge, I'm setting my watch. Which baktun is it?"
"Lisa, do you have a stray dog down there?"
""Uh, it's a lot worse than a stray dog."
"Two stray dogs."
"It's a black hole!"
"That was going to be my next guess."
"Are you sure it wasn't going to be three stray dogs?"
"...Maybe"
Other notes:
I know the show isn't expecting me to think about this but does that mean Ziff has less busy hands in this universe or is Bart pretty OK with Ziff considering what he did in the original flashback episode referenced.
The fact that historical Homers didn't include Aztec Homer is... a surprising missed opportunity.