Original airdate: October 30, 2022
The premise: “The Pookadook” is a Babadook parody. “Death Thome” is a Death Note parody. “Simpsonsworld” is a Westworld parody.
The reaction: I usually dread having to write the reviews for the newest Treehouse of Horror since I always have the same criticisms every single time. And briefly looking back at the last few annual reviews, I open every one of them saying the exact same fucking thing. But not this year, as this is most definitely the best Treehouse of Horror in… maybe fifteen years? Certainly of the entire HD era. It feels like they used up their worst Treehouse impulses on “Not It,” so this one was able to get away with being more creative. “The Pookadook” is based on a movie I loved when it came out, but I don’t remember a lot from it. But the story is digestible enough on its own, which is a good thing: an evil spirit inhabits Marge to try and kill Maggie. It actually got pretty intense, as Marge sends the rest of the family away and Maggie is genuinely terrified as they’re leaving. There’s an element of the story that gets introduced late where the spirit is feeding on Marge’s frustration and resentment of the family for having to clean up all their messes. It’s annoyingly spelled out aloud by Marge at the very end, but I kind of which that aspect were introduced at the beginning to make the story feel more complete. Plus these segments are always running against the clock, so it’s not a huge deal. “Death Thome” got a lot of Internet buzz in the last week, as it was animated out-of-house by a South Korean studio, emulating the Death Note anime. The segment looks incredible, as clearly a ton of work went into capturing the look of the series and adapting all the Simpsons characters and locations to an anime style. There’s lots of great touches throughout, like the detailed portraits of Abe and Santa’s Little Helper, and the sailboat painting above the couch emulating a famous Japanese woodblock print. The story itself also feels appropriately adapted, with Lisa attempting to rationalize murder by only taking out “bad” people, like Snake holding a kitten at gunpoint, or Mr. Burns and his executive board before they can poison the planet. This turns into a nice bit where she starts to run out of causes of death, as you can’t have write down the same death twice (“Liquefy in a giant blender.” “Already did that.” “That was ‘pureed.’ Totally different setting.”) It’s a really fun segment, and the passionate embrace of the different visual presentation clearly shines through. “Simpsonsworld” riffs on Westworld, presenting a Simpsons theme park filled with robotic versions of your favorite characters, re-enacting classic episodes for your amusement, at least until one Homer gains self-awareness, gathering the rest of the family up to escape. It’s pretty much reference-palooza, as we see in the fake Springfield and the behind-the-scenes is filled with wall-to-wall references to past episodes. The amusement park is run by “real” flesh-toned humans, as we see in a great shot of one of them extending their arm as they remove their glove, revealing five fingers. They still have the standard Groening overbite design though, I think like it would have been cooler if they looked more humanoid. There’s not a lot of substance to this segment compared to the other two, which it doesn’t really need to have, but I’ll give it to them, it doesn’t wholly rely on references-as-jokes, cleverly re-contextualizing a couple of classic moments (an army of Ralphs ominously saying, “We choo-choo-choose you to die” was genuinely disconcerting.) It’s all very charming and cute, which is a pretty good descriptor for the whole episode. Unlike many of the past years where these specials seemed to just be on autopilot, switching up the parodies and getting by on either “I recognize that reference” or the same shoddy jokes they’d do in any regular episode, for whatever reason, you could really feel the effort put into all three segments here, both in the storytelling and the animation. Especially with the latter two stories, they felt like things the show had never done before. Between this and “Lisa the Boy Scout,” I’m pretty stunned to be this positive this early in the season. Both episodes were definitely more experimental and meta stories, but last season’s “Portrait of a Lackey on Fire” was a successful grounded story about a secondary character. Shockingly, the show does have some creative life in it, but how much we’ll see of it as the season continues awaits to be seen.
Three items of note:
– “Death Thome” deserves to get signaled out regarding its animation, but the whole episode was very well animated. There was some especially great stuff in “The Pookadook” when Marge is possessed; the sequence of her leaping up and pounding the basement door down was really fantastic. Speaking of which, the back half of that story makes great use of Julie Kavner, her more gravelly, weakened voice actually being a strength to make her sound more malicious.
– Just like with It, the Simpsons Treehouse of Horror comics also did their own Death Note parody years ago, done in a really wonderful manga style. But unlike “Not It,” both the comic and TV versions feel equally enjoyable, and it’s neat to see two successful renditions inspired by the same source material. In “Murder He Wrote,” it’s Bart who gets his hands on the Death Book, so the story plays out in an entirely different way. It’s definitely worth checking out.
– Knowing about the “Simpsonsworld” segment, I wondered if it would exclusively feature references to only the first ten seasons, and yeah, that’s pretty much what it was. We see the Grumple, and a couple of the Lisa and Abe robots were dressed in outfits from the Al Jean era, but besides that, it’s entirely material from the 1990s. Maude getting shot with a T-shirt cannon and Abe re-enacting “Old Man Yells at Cloud” were the only other “newer” references I caught, both of which are over twenty years old. This is something I always point out whenever the show does a direct reference to the past, it’s always to the classic era, ignoring the nearly two decades of episodes that followed. I can’t exactly fault this episode for it, though; if they’re building the fantasy of a Simpsons theme park, of course it’s going to be focused on the monorail episode, the Stonecutters episode, the Be Sharps… you gotta give the people what they want. We also get another repeat of the Homer sinks into the hedge meme, which this show has referenced a couple times, which was kind of groan-worthy, but here, Homer vents his frustration at the pushy tourists forcing him to do it (“I’m so sick of that stupid hedge!!”) He then pushes the tourists through the hedge instead, killing them instantly as a pool of blood seeps out underneath the topiary. Good stuff.
Me Blog Write Good 
I have to agree that this was the best Treehouse of Horror in years, and I think there might be a reason for that (and not just because of the Death Note parody): This was the first Treehouse of Horror since season 14 (in 2002) to have 3 writers, one per segment, instead of having one writer for all 3 segments.
I noticed that, too. I believe that allowing three different writers to make their own Treehouse of Horror segment ideas for the same episode after 20 years really streamlined the process. One person being assigned to write three Halloween stories at once is more likely to dedicate a majority of their time, focus and creative passion to only one of the three stories they put into the episode, like “Wanted Dead Then Alive” from XXVI, “BFF RIP” from XXVII, or “MultipLISAty” from XXIX. I can see the good effort from this episode seep into later Treehouse of Horror segments with twisted tales of their own, like “Ei8ht” from XXXIV, “The Fall of the House of Burns” in XXXV, and “Plastic World” from XXXVI.
Although “Death Tome” was the segment that got the most attention, I was mostly interested in “The Spookadook”, which was based on the 2014 film “The Babadook”. Interestingly, the show decided to not do a one-to-one take on the film itself, which featured a monster that served as not only an external threat but also as an internal analog to anxiety (and, for a series that loves to reference for the sake of references, they didn’t do the “Why can’t you be normal?!” scene that is the only thing people seem to remember), but chose to simplify it as a general antagonist cause something like that would take too long to narrate and explain (or they just weren’t interested). I strongly expect it to be ranked as one of the weakest segments in history in hindsight, but it was something that I genuinely liked on a personal level.
From an animation perspective, “Death Tome” (originally titled “Lisanime”) was very solid, but from a narrative point of view, it was just… fine; they opted to play it safe instead of doing anything too radical. There is a bit of obscure trivia to be had where all of the targets in her book came from an NES baseball game. I think the impressive thing was how malleable the Simpsons actually are if you take them out of their original style (like “Brick Like Me”), and hopefully they’ll try to experiment more.
Honestly, “Simpsons World” might be one of the worst segments in recent history, though that’s probably due to the segment just focusing on self-references rather than building a narrative around the Westworld TV series, which felt more like an excuse to justify the endless references. The ending annoyed me where the family ended up at Bob’s Burgers, which I thought would’ve been a little funny, only for it to be revealed that they ended up in another attraction set in a Bob’s Burgers amusement park and the land is dotted with various parks where people would immerse themselves in adult cartoons. I found it depressing that they considered “SpongeBob SquarePants” to be part of this adult cartoon menagerie, although the series has attained cultural elite status through hundreds upon hundreds of memes and reactions, but more so that they had an area devoted to “Big Mouth”. Though I heard Big Mouth World is popular with pedophiles. As for the reason why the show just keeps going back to the first ten seasons instead of highlighting later season content that did become memes like Marge krumping or Milhouse tossing a frisbee to himself, it’s perhaps a combination of fans preferring that era but also the writers thinking that if they highlight anything after that, it will be responded to negatively, like it is blasphemy to acknowledge the existence of episodes AFTER Season 9! At this point, anyone who stopped caring has long since stopped watching the new episodes and just cycles the old episodes on repeat.
Lastly, there was a 3D-rendered Kang and Kodos bit to close the episode just to put them there, but since it was for the credits, I doubt anyone would give a rat’s ass.
“Though I heard Big Mouth World is popular with pedophiles.”
Wouldn’t it be hebephiles? Since the characters are pubescent middle schoolers, and not prepubescent children (well, except Nick in like the first two seasons).
Hebephile is just a fancy word pedophiles use to hide the fact that they are attracted to children.
(Not implying anything about you, personally.)
@Sincere “Hebephile is just a fancy word pedophiles use to hide the fact that they are attracted to children.”
I hate to be that kind of guy but hebephilia is actually a real paraphilia which is different from pedophilia.
Pedophilia is an attraction to prepubescent children (ages 10 and younger), while hebephilia is an attraction to pubescent youth ranging in age from 10 to 14 (generally 11 to 13).
There’s also ephebophilia which is an attraction to older adolescents who are almost done or ARE done with puberty (ages 14 to 19).
I am sure there is nothing blasphemous about acknowledging the existence of any good moments and memes from The Simpsons after Season 9. One of my most memorable Bart quotes was “The ironing is delicious” in Gift of the Magi from Season 11 before Lisa corrects him. I also fondly remember Bart’s “I am pee” spelling joke from Season 14, which was made even funnier by two other Nancy Cartwright characters responding to his spelling and making fun of the letters in the word imply.
A pretty decent outing and definitely the best Treehouse of Horror since season 15.
“The Pookadook” was a solid entry with good animation and some pretty tense scenes. Maggie being terrified and begging her family to stay was especially impacting.
“Death Thome” was alright but the animation is was really stood out to me.
“Simpsonsworld” was a fun entry and I loved seeing all the classic references.
This along with “Lisa the Boy Scout” have really stood out in an otherwise weak season so far.
Death Thome was really fucking cool and the best thing they’ve done on this show in a long time.
The Pookadook and Simpsonsworld were kind of bland, but by no means terrible. I really liked the recapturing of the old art style and the self-awareness joke of the latter.
In your earlier zombie Simpsons reviews, you are a lot angrier, even claiming (joking?) that you’re yelling at the screen over how awful the episodes are.
Have you just mellowed out over time (it has been a decade) or has Zombie Simpsons actually gotten better the past couple of years?
Mostly the former. Reviewing all twenty seasons in rapid succession and seeing the show crash and burn was a uniquely depressing sight, but now watching them at a slower pace live and after having seen so many bad episodes, I don’t really feel as affected. And I would say the show has gotten marginally better. There’s still a lot of crap (four episodes so far!) but at least I can see some creative impulses shining through over the last few years that have been absent for over a decade. Whether those impulses are successful is subjective (like “Pixelated and Afraid,” which I didn’t care for, but lots of fans loved), but at least they’re there.
“And I would say the show has gotten marginally better.”
And there you go!
I usually avoid modern Simpsons besides these reviews just as I’m a college student and I would rather be spending what time I do have to watch stuff watching other things, but Death Note strikes a chord pretty deep into my teenage years, so I had to check out the parody and it was actually really well done. What I was dreading with the segment is that it would feel exactly like a group of out of touch adults (a la the Saturday Night Live writers room) trying to make a parody of Death Note with their only knowledge of the series being the synopsis, but the attention to detail was pretty insane. I loved seeing all the frames and shots they cut straight from the source material, such as Lisa’s pencil flicks and when she first meets the shinigami which is pretty much 1-to-1 with the anime and manga. Really great stuff guys, actually made it feel like fans were behind the helm of this parody instead of a bunch of adults trying to seem cool and hip.
I do have a few nitpicks though despite how much I enjoyed it- I wish L had a larger role to play in the short (although the El Barto gag was pretty great) but also I can get why that wouldn’t be the case as I imagine most audiences watching this wouldn’t be super familiar with the source material so they put extra time and care into setting up the world and the rules of it for those unaware. Also kinda wish they did Milhouse as Misa- it just seems obvious to me. Misa is probably the third most iconic character from the series besides Light and L, and Misa is an abhorrent admirer to Light throughout the series just as Milhouse is to Lisa. Just felt obvious but again, I understand why they didn’t include it which was likely just because of time constraints. Still, as a big fan I was definitely pleased and am pretty elated that it turned out to be a knowledgeable and well done parody instead of just a bunch of out of touch adults repeating the same million anime cliche jokes that have been done to death. Great job, guys.
Millhouse as Misa would have been absolutely hilarious.
I was majorly impressed with this year’s THOH. I heard people talk about the Death Note parody, but I figured it was just going to be another generic story where you needed to see the source material to get. What a pleasent surprise to see them actually do something interesting with it ON TOP of going all out on the animation. I actually want to see more of this anime-esque animation style used for Simpsons episodes. All of it made sense, though it was a bit weird initially to her their voices coming out of characters that look nothing like them. Lisa being Light fit so well along with Bart being L.
I liked The Babadook, though I wasn’t in love with it as others (can’t believe it came out in 2014 though). I enjoyed this segment a lot, but what i found really odd was how there was no actual introduction to this year’s THOH. It just jumps right into this segment and I totally forgot there was no intro beforehand after the first minute or two. It was clever.
Finally, I also really liked the Simpsonsworld one. Yes, it rode on nostalgia, however, I feel that was the point. It was parodying itself and doing it in a positive way. I also have to hand it to the team for having the animation resemble the old styled animation. I know next to nothing about Westworld beyond it just being canceled, so the fact that I was able to enjoy this segment without knowing that was a real treat. I especially loved the ending where they end up in Bob’s restraunt. Oh it makes me so mad they gyped fans on a 4K release of the Bob’s Burgers movie by only doing one printing exclusive to Best Buy, who never actually carried it in store.
Overall, this was hands down the best THOH in at least 20 years. Hell, probably the best since the one with The Homega Man. I am very happy and shocked. Let’s hope maybe they can continue this trend with future seasons.
I noticed how you didn’t put quotation marks when you put it out they’re parodies of other properties, even though all three are parodies. This is a very clever hint about how you actually enjoy the episode.
I never watched Death Note in my life, but I still think this Treehouse of Horror parody of it with Lisa was very well done, even redrawing The Simpsons’s characters in an edgy-looking anime art style, working the creative gimmick of them looking completely different while still having the same voices. It made me long for another Treehouse of Horror episode which could bring back DR Movie to parody another dark anime series in a way that fits with the show’s characters and brings in new The Simpsons anime designs by focusing on other characters who were not in Death Tome. I got it! I would like to see how The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror could parody Magical Girl Madoka Magica, which starts out bright and cheery but suddenly takes a dark turn.
The edge that makes Treehouse of Horror episodes truly special, both good and bad stories, is that when they do not lean too much on senseless gore or empty parodies, they are an entertaining new outlet to put the Simpson family and other The Simpsons characters into bizarre new scenarios that the main series continuity does not do. Newer Treehouse of Horrors since XXV add another layer to this by showing that, if they are not creative and varied with their stories, they can at least be creative and varied with different art styles and animation.
That is not to say that these creative Halloween stories and creative animation are mutually exclusive. Death Tome showed how one can animate The Simpsons characters in a completely different style while still remaining true to their main characters’ personalities and voices in a hyperrealistic-looking anime setting. In The Simpsons’ usual art style and animation, The Pookadook was creative as a supernatural manifestation of Marge’s anxieties and frustrations about her families. In other recent THOH episodes before XXXIII, BFF RIP, MultipLISAty and Be Nine, Rewind were some of the best Treehouse of Horror stories I ever saw in recent years. All of these focus on Lisa and did an excellent job of telling a story around her internal insecurities that balances relatability with the supernatural.