A Halloween Tradition: The Simpsons' Treehouse of Horror (Part 1)

The Simpsons is by now recognized as one of the greatest cultural forces in television history and one of the annual celebrations within this culture is the Halloween special. They call it the Treehouse of Horror because the original one (10/25/90) took place in Bart's treehouse where he and Lisa told each other scary stories. It has however evolved over the years to become quite elaborate often spoofing the greatest horror films in history. It has always maintained the three-story format and it has always abondoned all rules regarding happy endings in the true spirit of Halloween.

Treehouse of Horror

Season 2 (1990)

Bad Dream House - A play on the Amityville Horror films, The Simpsons leave Evergreen Terrace a buy a big haunted mansion. Problem is, the walls bleed and the family are soon at each other with sharp knives. The house eventually, after time to think about it, decides to destroy itself rather than to coexist with them.

Hungry Are The Damned - The family is aducted by Kang and Kodos and are to be taken to Rigel-4 as guests of honor at an integalactic feast. Lisa offends them with her accusations about their How To Cook For Forty Humans Cookbook and they are berated and returned to earth.

The Raven - In this retelling of Edgar Allan Poe's classic poem, we get guest star James Earl Jones as the narrator. Did I mention that he also plays Seral the Preparer, an alien chef in Hungry Are The Damned and a mover in Bad Dream House?   

Here, Homer longs for lost Lenore a/k/a Marge and Bart plays the Raven who makes him go mad by constantly repeating that word..... "Nevermore."

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Treehouse of Horror II

Season 3 (10/31/91)

Instead of a treehouse format, we are witnessing Bart, Lisa and Homer's nightmare's which (according to Marge) are brought on by eating too much candy before going to bed.

The Monkey's Paw - Lisa's nightmare is about a creepy souvenir the family picks up at a Frogurt stand in Morocco which grants wishes. Homer wishes for a turkey sandwich and Flanders saves the world.

The Bart Zone - In a spoof on the classic Twilight Zone episode "It's a Good Life which was by the way redone for the Twilight Zone Movie (1983) actually starred Nancy Cartright (a/k/a Bart Simpson) as the evil sister Ethel. This had to have been inspiration only now the woman who played Ethel now gets to play the little boy with the magical powers. Crazy, huh?

If I Only Had a Brain - Mr. Burns makes his Halloween debut by scooping out Homer's brain so he can put it into a super-robot. Problem is the robot's got Homer's lazy brain.