"Treehouse of Horror XXII" is the twenty-second Halloween episode of the animated comedy series The Simpsons. It won a '12 Annie Award for Best Television Writing.
Synopsis[]
Opening[]
When Bart, Lisa and Maggie come home from trick-or-treating, Marge switches out the candy with dental hygiene products and asks Homer to deliver the candy to a drive for the troops overseas. Homer instead runs off with the bag to eat its contents in privacy at a canyon cliff. Unfortunately, Homer trips and falls to the bottom of the canyon with his arm pinned. Fueled by his need to get the out-of-reach bag of candy, and reluctant to wait twenty minutes for help, Homer is forced to chew off his arm. Though he manages it after a few tries, Homer learns that he was carrying a bag of vegetables, as Bart, Lisa and Maggie had secretly stolen back their candy.
The Diving Bell and the Butterball[]
Homer begins to decorate the house for Halloween and is reaching for a decorations in a box. Unfortunately, there is a real Black Widow spider in the box and when Homer is grabbing for what he thinks is a plastic spider, he gets bitten by the real one. The bite leaves Homer unable to move or talk. When Lisa reads for him, she discovers that he can communicate through flatulence. The Simpson family is amazed at the result and Lisa helps Homer tell Marge how he feels about her. When he is again bitten by another spider (a radioactive one), he spontaneously gains the ability to make spider webs and have the same abilities as Spider-Man, even when still paralyzed. Homer is able to shoot spider webs out of his rear end.
Dial D for Diddly[]
After hearing who he thinks is God tell him to murder people, Ned Flanders becomes a serial killing vigilante, targeting characters who are Homer's enemies. When Flanders discovers that Homer is the one who has been duping him into committing murder (by way of a Bible-shaped receiver), Homer argues that God does not exist and starts burning Ned's bible only to be stopped and strangled to death by God Himself. Marge begs God to reverse everything that has happened, but God tells her that Satan is the one who is running the world. When Flanders thinks that this scenario cannot get any worse, it is revealed that Satan is having sex with Ned's deceased wife, Maude.
In the Na'Vi[]
In the future, Krusty the Clown is still alive, but has trouble entertaining his Nazi audience. On the distant planet Rigel Seven there is a sacred extract called Hilarrium, which causes people to get in a better mood. Krusty desperately needs this sacred extract and uses military force to obtain it. The military recruits Bart and Milhouse to befriend the alien race in avatar bodies. They succeed in this and Bart ends up getting Kang's daughter pregnant. It turns out that the extract Hilarrium, which is excreted by their queen, is primarily used by the natives to reduce the mood swings from pregnant women and Bart and Milhouse are shown where the alien race gets it from. Milhouse then reveals the location of the extract to the military, which then attacks the natives. In the battle, the natives are helped by all the animals of the planet, which eventually defeats the military. Kang and Kodos then admit that they would have just given the Hilarrium to the humans.
Songs[]
- Uncredited
- "Flight" from Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (Bernard Herrmann)
- "Skip to My Lou" - Dan Castellaneta
- Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance: March No. 1 in D
- "Carol of the Bells" (instrumental)
Production[]
As it is tradition with most Treehouse of Horror episodes, this episode featured the use of "scary" names in the credits, which is to write alternate names for cast and crew in a "scary" fashion. Aron Ralston, who was the subject of the Searchlight picture 127 Hours, came up with his own scary name for the credits, which was Aron "I gave my right arm to be on 'The Simpsons'" Ralstump.
The episode marks the first time of all the Treehouse of Horror episodes that an actual theremin was used for music cues. Previously, the show had trouble locating a theremin player, who could work under the time constraints of the show. Instead, the show used a synthesizer keyboard to play a theremin sample - much to creator Matt Groening's displeasure. The situation turned when a scene in "Homer Scissorhands" was written to feature Milhouse playing the theremin. Now the crew had to find a suitable theremin player and Charles Richard Lester was hired for that episode as well as "Treehouse of Horror XXII".
The opening segment had many parodies and references to films. When the segment opens, the Simpson family is dressed up for Halloween. Here Maggie pops out of Bart's astronaut suit, dressed as a baby alien, which is a reference to the film Alien from 1979. Homer is dressed as Doctor Manhattan from the superhero film Watchmen from 2009. During the middle, there is a spoof of the 1960 film Psycho, as the same music and similar scenes are used (E.G: Reverend Lovejoy eyeing Homer in his car. In the end of the segment, it turns into a spoof of 127 Hours, in which Ralston loses his arm after being trapped under a rock.
"The Diving Bell and the Butterball" was a satire of the French film The Diving Bell and the Butterfly from 2007, in which a paralyzed man learns to communicate through moving his eyelids. Instead of moving his eyelids, Homer communicated through flatulence. The segment took off in different direction when Homer was bitten by another spider and turned into a paralyzed Spider-Man with reversed colors, swinging around Springfield and fighting crime. The last part references the Spider-Man musical, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark that was plagued by stage malfunctions and sometimes left its performers to dangle in mid-air. The many accidents caused five people to become injured while working on the musical.
The last two segments were also parodies of popular culture. "Dial D for Diddly" featured various references to the television series, Dexter, the titular character whom Ned Flanders is supposed to represent when he goes on a killing spree. The music in the segment is the original music from the main title theme of Dexter by Rolfe Kent, although the title references Dial M for Murder. Two of the targets, Patty and Selma, were killed in similar fashion to the style of Wile E. Coyote. "In the Na'Vi" was a parody of the 2009 James Cameron film Avatar. In the end Kang and Kodos mentions that "there is no word for ‘yours’ or ‘mine.’", which is why they do not enjoy the film Yours, Mine and Ours from 1968 (or the 2005 remake).
Notes[]
- One of the robbers looks like one of the robbers thwarted by Everyman in "Homer the Whopper".
Cast[]
| Voice actor/actress | Character(s) |
|---|---|
| Dan Castellaneta | Homer Simpson Krusty the Clown Kodos Abraham Simpson II |
| Julie Kavner | Marge Simpson |
| Nancy Cartwright | Bart Simpson Kearney |
| Yeardley Smith | Lisa Simpson |
| Hank Azaria | Bank Robber #1 Chief Wiggum Superintendent Chalmers Cletus Cab Driver Moe Szyslak |
| Harry Shearer | Bank Robber #2 Ned Flanders Mr. Burns God Otto Kang Seymour Skinner |
| Jackie Mason | Rabbi Hyman Krustofski |
| Aron Ralston | 911 Dispatcher |
| Chris Edgerly | |
| Pamela Hayden | Jimbo Jones Milhouse Van Houten |
| Tress MacNeille | Miss Springfield Crazy Cat Lady Mrs. Muntz Brandine Dolph Kamela |
| Maggie Roswell | Maude Flanders |
External links[]
- "Treehouse of Horror XXII" at The Simpsons.com
- "Treehouse of Horror XXII" at the Internet Movie Database
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| The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror | |
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I • II • III • IV • V • VI • VII • VIII • IX • X • XI • XII • XIII • XIV • XV • XVI • XVII • XVIII • XIX • XX • XXI • XXII • XXIII • XXIV • XXV • XXVI • XXVII • XXVIII • XXIX • XXX • XXXI • XXXII • XXXIII • XXXIV • XXXV • XXXVI See also: Halloween of Horror • Not It • The Most Wonderful Time of the Year • Simpsons Wicked This Way Comes | |