Treehouse of Horror XI
"Treehouse of Horror XI" is the first episode of the twelfth season of the American animated television series The Simpsons, the 249th episode overall, and the eleventh Halloween episode. The episode features "G-G-Ghost D-D-Dad", "Scary Tales Can Come True" and "Night of the Dolphin" and was written by Rob LaZebnik (story by Mike Scully), John Frink and Don Payne and Carolyn Omine and directed by Matthew Nastuk.
"Treehouse of Horror XI"
Season 12
Episode 1
G-G-Ghost D-D-Dad:
Rob LaZebnik
Scary Tales Can Come True:
John Frink
Don Payne
Night of the Dolphin:
Carolyn Omine
BABF21
November 1, 2000
This year's installment sees Homer as a wandering spirit who must do one good deed before going to Heaven ("G-G-Ghost D-D-Dad"), Bart and Lisa as genre-savvy peasant children who end up lost in a fairy tale forest in "Scary Tales Can Come True", and Springfield's population at war with sea mammals in "Night of the Dolphin".
The episode first aired on November 1, 2000, beginning a practice of the show's Halloween episodes debuting after the holiday itself due to Fox's late-October prime time schedule being pre-empted by the network's coverage of the 2000 World Series. (Until 2010, all subsequent Halloween episodes save for 2009's "Treehouse of Horror XX" premiered in November; 2011's "Treehouse of Horror XXII" onwards has had the network resuming airing the episodes on or before Halloween save for 2020's "Treehouse of Horror XXXI" having premiered in November.) This was also the first Simpsons episode to have mixed-case closed captioning. The episode received positive reviews from critics.
Cultural references[edit]
The opening is a parody to The Munsters.[4] "Scary Tales Can Come True" is a parody of Grimm's Fairy Tales. The scene in which the baby's stroller starts falling down the stairs mirrors a similar scene in Battleship Potemkin. In "Night of the Dolphin", the scene in which Snorky jumps out of the water park and into the ocean is a parody of Free Willy.[4] Lenny being killed by dolphins during a night swim is a parody of the opening to Jaws. The dolphins outside the town meeting is a parody of The Birds. The title and plot are based on Mike Nichols's Day of the Dolphin. The witch remarking "George... George Cauldron" while looking at a cauldron is a parody of Jan from The Brady Bunch doing the same while making up a name for a fictional boyfriend in the episode "The Not-so-ugly Duckling"; looking at a glass, she states his name is "George... George Glass".
Reception[edit]
Since its original airing the episode has received generally positive reviews. Matt Haigh of Den of Geek quoted "it is probably one of the funniest Halloween episodes of the show's history".[5] Matt Groening called the third segment one of his personal favorite scenes from all the series.[6]
Colin Jacobson of DVD Movie Guide gave the episode a positive review saying "Even in the weakest Simpsons seasons, you can count on the Halloween episodes to deliver good amusement. Or at least pretty decent comedy, as evidenced by the up and down "Treehouse XI". None of the segments excel, but none of them flop either, so they keep us entertained. It's really hard to fault a mainstream network TV series that references glory holes, so "Treehouse XI" gets a positive appraisal despite a few missteps."[7] Mac McEntire of the DVD Verdict said the greatest moments of the episode was "Snorky...mad".[8]