Hi there everyone, are you ready to start another week of Lifetime of Simpsons? Well, in case you need something to sweeten that deal, we’re starting the week off with a Treehouse of Horror episode! Yay! And it’s mostly really fun! Oh, and we even get a super strange opening sequence that parodies that traditional opening, but this time full of horror movie references. It seems like it was designed by Guillermo del Toro, which I guess just means he told them ideas to put in it. Which is mainly a lot of references to his films, and other horror movies. It’s fun.

Oh, the Places You’ll D’oh!

Our first segment is a whole Dr. Seuss pastiche, that’s not really a parody of anything in particular, other than Cat in the Hat, I suppose. It’s done with some Seussian animation, and begins with Marge leaving Bart, Lisa, and Maggie so she can go to a Halloween party, because they all have the mumps. Apparently there’s no Homer in this situation, because when Marge leaves the kids suddenly find a visitor at their door. It’s a Homer-esque creature called the Fat in the Hat, and he’s here to show them a good time on Halloween. After throwing some weird shade at the Lorax for being a fucking sellout, man!

Once that’s taken care of the Fat begins taking the kids all around Springfield, getting into all sorts of hijinks. They go all around town, getting into shenanigans with plenty of Seuss references, before they finally end up at Mr. Burns’ mansion. And this is when things take a turn. Because the Fat ends up killing Mr. Burns, who looks like a bird, and feeds his corpse to some homeless folks. Which almost seems altruistic. But that ends when they go to Moe’s, where the Fat almost immediately robs him. And this is when the kids start to see some red flags. But the Fat won’t let them go, and ends up taking them on a whole voyage of chaos and destruction, killing and robbing. But eventually they’re able to escape him, and get back Homer. Unfortunately the Fat follows them there, so Maggie has no choice but to brutally kill him. And, with that taken care of, Marge comes home and everything is fine!

Dead and Shoulders

Hey, remember way back in Treehouse of Horror II when Homer has a nightmare that ends with Mr. Burns’ head being sewn onto Homer’s body? Well how about a whole segment about that! It all begins with Bart and Milhouse having out by an airport, flying kites so it bothers the landing planes. But this activity really tuckers Bart out, so he decides to tie the kite string around his neck and take a nap, causing a plane to rip his head clean off. Luckily though they’re able to take Bart’s sever head and sew it onto Lisa’s shoulder, just in time for him to survive. No one is overly pleased with this outcome, especially Bart, since he has no control over Lisa’s body.

Bart and Lisa do have to try and make this work though. But Lisa’s not really interested in this. She starts making Bart’s new life a living hell, driving him slowly mad. So, they end up taking Bart and Lisa to therapy, in the hopes that they can figure out how to live this new life. And, shockingly, it works. Bart and Lisa find some common ground, and actually manage to live a decent life. Well, until Bart realizes that he can control Lisa’s body when she’s asleep. And he immediately decides to be evil. He takes control of Lisa’s body and figured out ways to keep her basically always drugged with sleeping pills, so he can be in charge at all times. But that isn’t enough for him, so Bart devises a plan where he’ll cut Lisa’s head off her body with a saw mill, leaving him the primary head. Lisa comes to right before the impromptu surgery though. But Bart doesn’t care, and still goes through with it, until his head also gets cut off. Which then leads to Bart getting sewn onto Selma and Lisa onto Krusty, because why not?

Freaks, No Geeks

Out final segment is probably my favorite of the episode. Because it’s just straight up Tod Browning’s Freaks, which is a movie I like quite a bit. It’s set at an old-timey circus which is run by Mr. Burns. We see several folks from the circus, like Homer the strongman, Marge the acrobat, and Krusty the harlequin. But the people we focus on are the folks from the freakshow, such as Nelson the Donkey Boy, limbless Barney, Bart’s head sewn onto Selma, Kang and Kodos, and just straight up Moe. The freaks have their own little society, and are pretty ostracized by the rest of the circus, except for Marge, who hangs out with them. Which really bugs Homer, who wants Marge to hate them like he does.

But Marge won’t do it, and continues to hang out with the freaks, especially Moe. And one day Homer is mocking the freaks, and notices that Moe has an emerald ring, which Homer instantly decides is worth a lot of money. So he concocts a plan where he’ll convince Marge to marry Moe, so that they can kill Moe and take the ring, then Homer will marry Marge and get the ring. Simple! Homer then manages to convince Marge to marry Moe, without telling her the rest of the plan, and we’re treated to a freakshow wedding where they all sing “Superfreak,” which is hilarious. But, after the wedding, Homer decides to kill Moe by poising him. Marge finds him, and is not okay with the plan, yelling at Homer. Marge then reveals Homer to the other freaks, and they attack him, tarring and feathering him until he also becomes a freak. Which then becomes a parody of How I Met Your Mother, with this whole story being the story of how Homer met Marge.

This is a pretty fun Treehouse of Horror episode. Not all of it works, and it’s not one of the best or strongest Treehouse of Horror episodes I’ve done, but it was rather enjoyable. I’m not exactly sure that Dr. Seuss really ties in with the whole horror aesthetic that these episodes are usually going for, but that first segment was pretty fun. I liked seeing all of the Seuss references, and seeing Homer becomes some weird, cracked out Cat in the Hat that was obsessed with murder and chaos was pretty fun. The weird second segment is definitely the weakest of the bunch, and I still think it’s very strange that they just did a whole segment that revolved around a joke that they did twenty two years previously. I don’t know, there are some fun parts, it’s just kind of boring. But that last segment is what saved this episode for me. I love Freaks, and this weird little adaptation is pretty perfect. Plus, it makes the character Marge is portraying sympathetic, unlike the film, making the story even twistier. It’s also a whole lot of fun to see a bunch of Springfield citizens as classic circus freaks. It’s a lot of fun.

Take Away: Don’t trust fat men without pants, don’t fly kites by airports, and don’t trust strongmen.

“Treehouse of Horror XXIV” was written by Jeff Westbrook and directed by Rob Oliver, 2013.