Halloween: when spirits walk the land, the powers of darkness strengthen, and the damned souls tuning in to the newest season ofThe Simpsonsvainly search for any rationale for its continued existence. A lot of ink’s been spilled over the decline of America’s premiere mustard-colored family. But for all that can be said ofThe Simpsons’later years, its ongoing “Treehouse of Horror"series remains a staple of American Halloween TV (and its immediate November hangover). For over 30 years, these holiday specials have put the Simpsons and their neighbors through everything even tangentially related to the horror genre, from movie parodies to alternate realities, genuine frights to gross-out weirdness. There have been years where the “Treehouse” is the highlight of the season – and in other years, not so much – but it’s always a standout in some way. Here, we’ve ranked every “Treehouse” of Samhain Past,including the latest “Treehouse XXXIV.”
The Simpsons
The satiric adventures of a working-class family in the misfit city of Springfield.
34"Treehouse XXII”
Season 23, Episode 3
The worst of the “Treehouses” tend to share the same sins: minimal connection to the Halloween season, lazy “parodies” that go for the lowest-hanging fruit, indulging the most cynical and mean-spirited interpretation of the characters, and a lack of thrills or laughs. “Treehouse XXII” is guilty of all of these. It holds probably the worst individual segment, “The Diving Bell and the Butterball,” essentially one long fart joke. “Dial D for Diddly” leans heavily into the “Jerkass Homer” characterization. And “In the Na’vi” is about as generic anAvatarspoof as you can find, with gags that were tired within a few months ofAvatar’srelease. Even the opening, which can usually be counted on for some fun, goes for the most obvious jokes. This is an easy “Treehouse” to skip.
33"Treehouse XXIII"
Season 24, Episode 2
There isn’t much daylight (or moonlight) between the bottom entries on this list. “Treehouse XXIII” has almost all the same problems as its immediate predecessor. “The Greatest Story Ever Holed” is one gag stretched across an entire segment. “Un-normal Activity” goes for the easiest riffs onParanormal Activity, but deserves credit for spoofing ahorrormovie. The same can’t be said for “Bart and Homer’s Excellent Adventure.” Besides having nothing to do with Halloween, this time travel story plays the father-son relationship between Homer and Bart at its nastiest setting possible. One could argue a “Treehouse” episode is the place to do that, butThe Simpsonshad long fallen into the trap of making its stars be horrible to each other on a regular basis by the time this episode aired, so this is sadly not anything new.
32"Treehouse XXXII"
Season 33, Episode 3
Who thought aBambiparody was a good fit for Halloween? This “Treehouse” was hyped as having five segments instead of the usual three, but the opening parody and a stylized interlude withMaurice LaMarcheasVincent Priceare so short that they come off as padding tossed in to get the episode to 22 minutes. There are still three fully-developed segments, all of them duds. There’s aParasitespoof that serves as a framework for lazy class warfare jokes, a potentially fine tale of walking trees that doesn’t know where to go, and yet another “Lisa finally gets a friend” story. The “Poetic Interlude” with LaMarche is the best part of thisTreehouse, most of that value coming from the homage toEdward Goreyin the design.
31"Treehouse XXXIV"
Season 35, Episode 5
There’s a sense that the creative team was gasping for air with this year’s “Treehouse XXXIV,” and not because there was no space this time for a proper couch gag, or that the last segment revolves around Homer’s burps contaminating humanity. That entry, “Lout Break,” relies almost entirely on gags and Jerkass Homer indulgences that have been used more successfully in earlier Halloween specials. The first segment, destined to date badly, is an aggressively of-the-moment sneer at NFTs so boilerplate that it barely matters that the Simpsons are even in it. But there is some charm to the middle entry “Ei8ht,” a loose mash-up ofSe7en,Silence of the Lambs, and the chestnuts of the crime thriller genre. It’s more clever than funny, but it does have a good montage gag and a lot of shock humor in how bloody it gets. It also makes some fun choices in casting (Nelson and the bullies as good cops all grown up) and pulls off a nice twist.
30"Treehouse XXVI"
Season 27, Episode 5
Some of the lesser “Treehouses” are sadder than they are unpleasant because they contain great ideas that end up poorly executed.Sideshow Bobfinally killing Bart is one such concept, but “Wanted: Dead, Then Alive” doesn’t seem to know what to do with it except have Bob do the deed again and again. “Homerzilla” could have been a fantastic spoof, but it ends up another movie parody that plays things safe and toothless. Never having seenChronicle, I couldn’t tell you if “Telepaths of Glory” is similarly uninspired, but taken on its own merits, it’s a shapeless segment that happens to have a cute ending of Maggie messing with reality. This episode does have a wonderful opening tune with wacky animation by since-disgraced cartoonistJohn Kricfalusi.
29"Treehouse XXXI"
Season 32, Episode 4
ThisTreehousesets the tone early with an Election 2020 opening that, while accurate to that hell of a year, goes for every obvious (and unfunny) joke you’d expect latter-daySimpsonsto go for. The gags in Pixar parody “Toy Gory” don’t amount to much more than “isn’t Bart awful,” and the time loop of “Be Nine, Rewind” is as lazy as Comic Book Guy says it is in-show. But the middle segment, “Into the Homer-verse,” is almost a Hail Mary for the episode. It’s arguably a more creative spin on the “multiple Homers” idea of an earlier “Treehouse,” and it has fun with alternate versions of Mr. Burns and Smithers as well. Unfortunately, it’s also less funny than its predecessor. The references the various Homers represent are more clever than comedic, something the segment seems proud of. It’s a symptom that’s plaguedThe Simpsonsfor years in and out of the Halloween season. Nothing hurts cleverness like being a show-off about it.
28"Treehouse XXXIII"
Season 34, Episode 6
Yes, theDeath Noteparody looked great. Sure,The Babadookparody had some honest chills in it. Fine, theWestworldparody demonstrated some self-awareness aboutThe Simpsonsbeing past their sell-by date. But all three have something in common: flashes of fun and creativity that only briefly break through competent but largely unremarkable efforts. TheBabadookspoof is probably the best, being built around a character (Marge) who rarely gets to cut loose even in “Treehouse” episodes. TheWestworldsend-up is the weakest. Callback-heavy stories even outside the “Treehouse” season are more a sad reminder of what the show once was than a funny stroll down memory lane.
27"Treehouse XXVII"
Season 28, Episode 4
This “Treehouse” might be the worst offender at being less a Halloween special than an excuse for random ideas that wouldn’t work in an average episode.The Hunger GamesandMad Maxare a far cry from Halloween movie fare, but with that said, “Dry Hard” is one of the better parodies from the later “Treehouses.” The cheap shots are there, but mixing and matching dystopias helps to liven things up a bit. “MoeFinger,” a mash-up of James Bond andKingsman, can’t pull off the same alchemy;The Simpsonsdid better by Bond with Hank Scorpio. Awkwardly sandwiched between these movie spoofs is “BFF R.I.P.” With its themes of grisly murder and imaginary figures coming to life, it’s at least tangential to the holiday season. More appropriate is the opening, where Sideshow Bob leads a team effort of death, vengeance, and Riverdance.
26"Treehouse XI"
Season 12, Episode 1
This entry from the early middle years ofThe Simpsonshas generally good reviews, but for my money, it was the first “Treehouse” where all three segments were underwhelming. “G-G-Ghost D-D-Dad” is a little too much Jerkass Homer for my liking. “Night of the Dolphin” is certainly a more creative movie parody than later seasons – but it is downright weird, to the point where the weirdness overpowers the comedy. In between is “Scary Tales Can Come True,” a fairy tale spoof that goes for a lot of easy jokes but also boasts somegreat visuals. There’s also aMunstersspoof in the opening which is funnier than the rest of the episode.
25"Treehouse XXV"
Season 26, Episode 4
“A Clockwork Yellow,” the middle segment of “Treehouse XXV,” may take the prize for most movie references in a single segment. It’s also among the smuggest in lording its cleverness over characters and viewers alike, to the point where even Comic Book Guy admits he has no idea what piece ofStanely Kubrick’s oeuvre is being referenced. But a bit of cleverness may have done “The Others” some good. It’s another short that takes a great idea – the Simpsons meeting theirTracey Ullman Showancestors – and spends most of it on autopilot, in this case by retreading tensions in Homer and Marge’s marriage that have become a regular go-to for the show. The opener “School is Hell” has the most fun, visually and narratively, with its premise of the underworld as an elementary school.
