Treehouse of Horror

The third episode of The Simpsons' second season aired on Fox on October 25, 1990, under the title The Simpsons Halloween Special. Marge opens the broadcast by stepping in front of the camera to warn that the material may be unsuitable for younger viewers, a device that announced the show was suspending its own rules for the night. What followed was an anthology of three self-contained stories, none of which would carry consequences into the following week.

Wes Archer, Rich Moore and David Silverman directed the segments, and the script came from John Swartzwelder, Jay Kogen, Sam Simon and Wallace Wolodarsky, with Edgar Allan Poe credited as the source for the middle segment. Alf Clausen wrote the score, his first for the series. James Earl Jones provided guest vocals across all three stories, appearing as an alien, a narrator and a haunted house.

The episode performed well enough that Fox ordered another the following year, and another after that. By 2026 the franchise had reached Treehouse of Horror XXXVII, which premiered on October 25 of that year with a stop-motion opening modeled on The Nightmare Before Christmas and a segment in which Survivor host Jeff Probst marries Marge. The original remains the template: three stories, no continuity, and a willingness to let the family come off worse than the monsters. [edit]

Marge stands in a bare set and addresses the audience directly. She explains that the episode about to air may be too frightening for children and suggests they go to bed. The warning is delivered with the mildest possible delivery, which makes it clear that nothing else about the next twenty-two minutes will be mild. Bart, Lisa and Homer then appear in the family treehouse to introduce the evening's stories, each one a separate short film with its own setting and its own rules.

The first segment, Hungry are the Damned, borrows its premise from the Twilight Zone episode "To Serve Man." A flying saucer lands near the Simpsons' house and the family is invited aboard by two aliens, Kang and Kodos, who speak in clipped, theatrical tones and treat their guests with elaborate courtesy. The ship's interior is all curved metal and soft light, and the aliens produce a succession of meals that Homer consumes without hesitation. Lisa, less easily charmed, begins to ask questions about the destination and the purpose of the voyage. She finds a book on board with a title that appears to read How to Cook Humans, and her suspicion hardens into certainty. The segment ends on the family's reaction to that discovery.

The second segment, The Raven, is a direct adaptation of Poe's poem, staged in black and white with heavy shadows and a bare room. Homer plays the grieving narrator, slumped in a chair and mourning a lost love. Bart appears as the raven, tapping at the window and then settling above the door, where he answers every question with the single word "Nevermore." Lisa and Marge watch from the edges of the frame as Homer's composure collapses. James Earl Jones narrates the poem and voices the raven, and the segment follows Poe's text closely, including its descent into the narrator's despair.

The third segment, Bad Dream House, opens with the Simpsons moving into a large, gloomy mansion they have acquired for an improbably low price. The house has a history, and it makes its presence felt quickly: blood runs from the taps, the walls speak in a low voice, and objects move on their own. The voice belongs to the house itself, also played by James Earl Jones, and it announces its intention to drive the family out. The family responds to each manifestation not with fear but with argument. Homer complains about the plumbing, Bart treats the disturbances as entertainment, and Marge tries to keep the household running. The house escalates, and the family escalates back, until the segment arrives at its resolution.

Each story is framed by brief returns to the treehouse, where Bart, Lisa and Homer comment on what has just happened. The framing device keeps the episode at a distance from its own horrors and reminds the viewer that these events are not part of the series' ongoing story. Nothing that happens in any of the three segments carries into the next episode, and the family ends the night where it began, in the treehouse, telling stories.[edit]