After our customary graveyard tour and another spooky couch gag (zombies instead of skeletons this time), we’re treated to a very different wraparound set-up for “Treehouse Of Horror IV” as Bart parodies the anthology series “Night Gallery” by introducing each segment with its own painting. Of course, Marge is still trying – in vain – to warn people how scary the programme will be. It’s only fitting that as the series was nearing the very height of its brilliance, the Halloween special would similarly hit a high note.
The Devil and Homer Simpson
“Let that ill-gotten donut be forever on your head!”
Dipping into classic American literature once more, The Simpsons plunder Stephen Vincent Benét’s similarly titled short story of Faustian bargain breaking. This time, it’s Homer’s casual tendency to offer up his soul that first lands him in trouble and then, ultimately saves him. The casting of Ned Flanders as the Devil is inspired and once again, the already great story is enriched by side and sight gags throughout its run, with Homer’s demon dispiriting spell in Hell’s ironic punishment department a potential contender for greatest Simpsons moment ever.
Terror At 5½ Feet
“Perhaps spending the remainder of your life in a madhouse will teach you some manners.”
It wouldn’t be a Simpsons Halloween Special without a homage to the Twilight Zone and this one’s a doozy as it mimics iconic Shatner-starring episode “Nightmare At 20,000 Feet”. Bart takes the role of the progressively more disturbed passenger on the morning school bus, increasingly desperate to convince his classmates and a sceptical Principal Skinner of the danger they are in. It doesn’t actually vary that much from the source material and it’s the characters themselves that make it funny and this year’s Kodos and Kang cameo works much better as they contend with a gremlin of their own.
Bart Simpson’s Dracula
“Kill my boss? Do I dare live out the American Dream?”
“Treehouse Of Horror IV” concludes with a swipe at various Dracula films, but none more so than Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula (which it arguably stakes far better and in wittier fashion than “Dracula: Dead And Loving It“) once again it’s the centering of the story on Mr Burns that pays off handsomely. From the super-fun happy slide to the frantic attempts to kill the head vampire, there are enough things to keep you laughing that you’ll almost forget to be flummoxed by the finale which takes a sharp left turn to homage “A Charlie Brown Christmas”.
