Treehouse of Horror (The Simpsons episode)
"Treehouse of Horror" is the third episode of the second season of the American animated television series The Simpsons. It originally aired on Fox in the United States on October 25, 1990. The episode was inspired by 1950s horror comics, and begins with a disclaimer that it may be too scary for children. It is the first Treehouse of Horror episode. These episodes do not obey the show's rule of realism and are not treated as canon. The opening disclaimer and a panning shot through a cemetery with humorous tombstones were features that were used sporadically in the Treehouse of Horror series and eventually dropped. This is also the first episode to have the music composed by Alf Clausen.
"Treehouse of Horror"
Season 2
Episode 3
Bad Dream House:
Wes Archer
Hungry Are the Damned:
Rich Moore
The Raven:
David Silverman
Bad Dream House:
John Swartzwelder
Hungry Are the Damned:
Jay Kogen
Wallace Wolodarsky
The Raven:
Edgar Allan Poe
Sam Simon
7F04
October 25, 1990
The plot revolves around three scary stories told by the Simpson children in the family's treehouse. The first segment involves a haunted house that is based on various haunted house films, primarily The Amityville Horror (1979) and Poltergeist (1982). In the second segment, Kang and Kodos are introduced when the Simpsons are abducted by aliens. The third segment is an adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's 1845 poem "The Raven". James Earl Jones guest starred in all three segments. The episode was received positively, being included in several critics' "best of" lists. Critics singled out The Raven for praise, although Simpsons creator Matt Groening was concerned that it would be seen as pretentious.
Plot[edit]
On Halloween, Bart and Lisa sit in the treehouse and tell scary stories. Homer, who had just come home from trick or treating, eavesdrops on them.
"Bad Dream House" (told by Bart)
The Simpsons move into an eighteen bedroom house they got a good deal on. The walls of the cursed house begin to bleed and objects begin to fly through the air, Lisa senses an evil presence in the house (judging by the ghostly, echoing voice that tells the family to get out). There is also a portal to another dimension, a vortex, in the kitchen: Homer tests it out by throwing an orange in it. A piece of paper is thrown back at him as a response (on it is written "Quit throwing your garbage into our dimension"). Marge expresses the desire to leave, but Homer asks her to sleep on it. That night, the house possesses Homer and the children, manipulating their minds and making them chase each other with axes and knives. Unlike the others however, Marge is using her knife to spread mayonnaise on a sandwich and intervenes, breaking the trance. Afterwards, Lisa discovers the source of the haunting—a Native American burial ground hidden in the basement (something which the realtors had apparently mentioned to Homer repeatedly). After the house threatens them again, Marge confronts the house, demanding that it treat them with respect during their stay. The house thinks it over and opts to destroy itself rather than live with the Simpsons.
"Hungry Are the Damned" (told by Bart)
The Simpsons are abducted from their backyard by two aliens named Kang and Kodos. The aliens take the Simpsons to their home planet Rigel IV for a feast. En route they present the Simpsons with enormous amounts of food and watch eagerly as the Simpsons gorge themselves. Suspicious of the aliens' intentions, Lisa finds a book in the kitchen titled How to Cook Humans. Kang blows off space dust obscuring the real title, How To Cook for Forty Humans. Enraged at Lisa's mistrust, they return the Simpsons to Earth. Kang explains that Lisa has ruined the family's chance at paradise.
"The Raven" (read by Lisa)
In this adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven", Bart is depicted as the raven, Homer appears as the poem's narrator, and Marge appears in a portrait as Lenore. The Narrator, infuriated by the Raven's mockery of his grief over his lost Lenore, flies into a fit of rage chasing it across his study, ending with the Raven's eventual victory and the Narrator staring helplessly at it as he sits on the floor amid a scatter of books and broken objects.
Homer returns to bed, terrified of the stories the children told.
Reception[edit]
In its original broadcast, "Treehouse of Horror" finished 25th in ratings for the week of October 22–28, 1990, with a Nielsen rating of 15.7, equivalent to approximately 14.6 million viewing households. It was the highest-rated show on Fox that week, beating Married... with Children.[13]
Since airing, the episode has received mostly positive reviews from television critics. In 1998, TV Guide listed it in its list of top twelve Simpsons episodes.[14] The Guardian named it one of the five greatest episodes in Simpsons history.[15] The authors of the book I Can't Believe It's a Bigger and Better Updated Unofficial Simpsons Guide, Warren Martyn and Adrian Wood, said the first two segments worked better than the third, "but this is a marvelous episode, and set a high standard for the Halloween specials to come".[16] In 2008, Canwest News Service chose "Treehouse of Horror" as one of the top five scariest episodes from television's past. They singled out Marge saying "This family has had its differences and we've squabbled, but we've never had knife fights before, and I blame this house" as a memorable line from the episode.[5] Two of the episode's segments were singled out by critics as exemplary parts of the Treehouse of Horror series. "The Raven" was selected as the second best Treehouse of Horror segment by Ryan J. Budke of TV Squad in 2005. Budke described the segment as "one of the most refined Simpsons pop references ever" and knows "people [who] consider this the point that they realized The Simpsons could be both highly hilarious and highly intelligent".[17] "Hungry are the Damned" was selected as the fifth best Treehouse of Horror segment by Eric Goldman, Dan Iverson and Brian Zoromski of IGN in 2008. The IGN reviewers singled out the How to Cook for Forty Humans section of the segment as its funniest moment.[18]
Critics also praised the episode's relationship to various television shows and Poe's "The Raven". Michael Stailey of DVD Verdict described the three Treehouse of Horror segments as "brilliantly crafted tales capturing the best elements of The Twilight Zone, Outer Limits, and Alfred Hitchcock Presents, injecting them into the Simpsons' universe".[19] DVD reviewer Doug Pratt described "The Raven" as a "perfect adaptation".[1] Kurt M. Koenigsberger said in his book Leaving Springfield that The Simpsons, while "not strictly a literary form ... is certainly the most literate of all situation comedies".[20] Koenigsberger uses "The Raven" as one example in support of the statement "The Simpsons is steeped in the American literary context into which Arnold Bennett made such a splash on his tour in 1911."[20]
In popular media[edit]
A clip from the "Hungry are the Damned" segment is shown on a TV in a hotel room in Gus Van Sant's 1991 film My Own Private Idaho.