S3E07: Treehouse of Horror II
Hello, everyone. Before last year's Halloween show I warned you not to let your children watch, but you did anyway. Well, this year's episode is even worse.
Wish I’d had the good planning to release this entry on Friday the 13th but I didn’t and here we are.
Following a night of trick-or-treating, too much candy causes the more gluttonous Simpsons (Lisa, Bart, & Homer) to have nightmares. Annoyingly, unlike the last Treehouse of Horror, each segment is not given its own title.
Lisa’s Dream:
While on holidays to a non-descript Arabic country, Homer purchases a monkey paw that grants wishes but exacts a horrible cost, blah blah you get the sitch.
Maggie wishes for a new pacifier and that’s fine. Bart wishes for fame and fortune, but the town slowly comes to resent their ubiquity.
Lisa wishes for world peace, and, in a nod to Twilight Zone episode A Small Talent for War, Earth’s pacifism leaves Springfield ripe for invasion by extraterrestrials.
Given the few sequences where Bart is wearing his lucky red hat and the Twilight Zone reference, I suspect this episode was written by John Swartzwelder.
Bart’s Dream:
This segment is also a Twilight Zone reference, but given the lack of hat, really impossible to say who wrote it. In fact, it’s less of a reference and more of a frame-for-frame recreation of It’s a Good Life, including narration by a Rod Serling sound-alike
Presented for your consideration: Springfield—an average little town—with a not-so-average monster. The people of Springfield have to make sure they think happy thoughts and say happy things because this particular monster can read minds. And if displeased, can turn people into grotesque walking terrors.
And did I mention that the monster... is a ten-year-old boy? Quite a twist, huh? Betcha didn't see that one coming.
It’s Bart. Bart’s the monster.
Homer’s Dream:
When Homer is fired from the nuclear power plant, and replaced by a mechanic worker welded together in Burn’s laboratory, his brain is appropriated to power the cybernetic salaryman.
Homer’s brain corrupts Burns’ vision, and when Burns is crushed by his technological technician, Homer and Burns are restored to their former selves (human/alive).
The ‘Since last we spoke’ section implies a hierarchy: episodes that deserve a write-up, and episodes that deserve a summary. If S3E07 wasn’t a Treehouse of Horror (rare, only occurring once per season), it would fall strictly within the realm of 'deserve a summary’.
Which is why, this is basically a summary. As episodes go…mid.
Review: 2.5/5
Since last we spoke:
S3E05: Homer Defined (2.5/5)
When Sector-7G approaches critical mass, it falls to Homer Simpson to save the day. Following a tense rehearsing of “Eeny-meeny-miny-moe", the day is saved and Simpson is awarded employee of the month—all the time knowing it was luck that saved Springfield, not skill.
With the undeserved admiration of his family, colleagues, and Magic Johnson, Homer is incapacitated by the fear of being found out (aren’t we all).
Meanwhile, Milhouse is forbidden from being friends with Bart by the first appearance of his mother, who looks oddly like his father.
S3E06: Like Father Like Clown
You’d think this is the episode where Homer goes to clown college. WRONG. This is the episode where Krusty reconnects with his father and his Jewish heritage.
In a piece of peculiar continuity, Krusty has dinner with the Simpsons to thank them for un-framing him for robbing the Kwik-E-Mart, way back in Season One.
HOMER: He's talking funny talk.
LISA: No, Dad, that's Hebrew. Krusty must be Jewish.
HOMER: A Jewish entertainer? Get out of here!
LISA: Actually Dad, there are many prominent Jewish entertainers, including Lauren Bacall, Dinah Shore, William Shatner and Mel Brooks.
HOMER: Mel Brooks is Jewish?!
The story is an episode-long homage to The Jazz Singer (with fortunately much, much less blackface). Lisa & Bart take it upon themselves to bring Krusty and his father together, studying Hebrew literature and engaging in Socratic dialogue to convince the rabbi that his son’s decision to become a performer is holy.
