New at BOP: Review: Matrix Resurrections Movie Review: Moonfall Movie Reviews: Scream The #1 Movie in America November Forecast The Many Saints of Newark October Forecast New Trivia Question All site updates Share & Save   Tweet Print this column

Something about the Treehouse of Horror episodes of The Simpsons it's easy to forget after ten years or so of diminishing quality and years of neglect from Fox in favor of playoff baseball, is that once upon a time these episodes were among the very best of the year, brilliant in their own right. By letting the talented Simpsons writers loose with their imaginations, they created some of the very best and twisted stories with their characters, without having to worry about canon or a reset button, as well as giving them room to parody some of the best in sci-fi and horror entertainment. In recent years, the Easter and fairytale themed episodes have started to surpass the Halloween ones for the same year, but overall the early Treehouse of Horror shows remain the gold standard, not just for Simpsons themed episodes, but for any series playing around with its own themes. Below are my ten favorite segments and quotes from this series.

10. Night of the Dolphin – THOH XI

The most recent segment to make this list – and that it's now closer to the beginning of the show's run than the start says something – this has a lot of the classic elements of a great THOH segment. Lisa's do-gooder nature leads her to free a captive dolphin from an aquatic show, where he's revealed to be the King of the Dolphins, and none-too-impressed about the way he's been treated, forced to perform tricks like a common seal. He leads a revolution against humankind back on land, revealing that ages ago, mankind actually forced dolphins into the sea, and they've never been warm or mucous-free since. Where this segment succeeds is in laying easy on the dolphin jokes and simply letting the absurdity play out (and there's at least one legitimately chilling scene as Springfield is herded out to sea by a phalanx of angry dolphins.

9. The Genesis Tub – THOH VII

Another Lisa-centric segment, with Lisa accidentally creating a miniature new civilization in a tub filled with cola, a tooth and a static spark. As it rapidly progresses in technological complexity, it identifies Bart as its enemy, and then eventually decides to bring Lisa, who they regard as their God, into their own little world. A lot of the fun here comes from watching the miniature civilization evolve (something Futurama would turn into a more biting satire with Godfellas) and then the eventual reveal of what they've interpreted the larger world to be. Like a lot of the THOH segments, it just sort of stops rather than completes the story, but at least there's a bizarre little punchline at the end. Also: the spaceship attack sequence on Bart is some of the best animation the show has done.

8. Attack of the 50-Foot-Eyesores – THOH VI

This segment features a frequent theme – something viewed as innocuous comes to life and embarks on a destructive warpath. In this case, it's Springfield's advertising mascots, who awake after a freak electrical storm and begin to eat, torture and otherwise make life miserable for Springfield's citizens. It's in part set off by a typical act of misanthropy – Homer's stealing of the Lard Lad giant donut, and then setting the 50-foot tall mascot after Ned, then Moe. Other than the delightful scenes of mayhem the mascot wrought, there's also a bizarrely funny sideways move in the plot, which sees Lisa engage the services of an old-school ad-man to sell Springfielders on the idea of ignoring advertising, which is a nice, mind-bending idea.

Continued:       1       2       3