TV Verdict

Dust off your theremins, folks! The Simpsons are back for their 19th stab at the “Treehouse of Horror” series—and while much of it had little to do with Halloween, compared to the lackluster entries in recent years, I thought this episode was frightfully good. As always, it features a trio of terror:

• In “Untitled Robot Parody,” Bart unwittingly gives Lisa a sentient transforming robot for Christmas, and before long Springfield is caught in the middle of an extraterrestrial throwdown between warring cyborg factions.
• Homer is approached by unscrupulous ad men who want him to off celebrities so they don’t have to pay to use their likenesses in commercials in “How to Get Ahead in Dead-vertising.”
• Finally, the parody fans have been waiting for (whether they knew it or not): Charles Schulz’s beloved Halloween special gets Simpson-ed in “It’s the Grand Pumpkin, Milhouse.”

In its heyday, The Simpsons‘ Halloween episodes skewered horror and sci-fi classics like The Twilight Zone, The Shining, and A Nightmare on Elm Street. At some point, though, the writers seemed to run out of recognizable material and began either making things up or taking on subjects that didn’t quite fit the scary formula. Now, in the show’s 20th season, it appears they’ve decided that everything is fair game as long as people get the joke. Hence, this year’s take-off on two very un-Halloween properties: the 2007 blockbuster Transformers, and AMC’s critic-bait Mad Men.

Of the two, “Untitled Robot Parody” is closest to the source material, and it’s also the weakest (though in fairness it’s pretty darn short). There are a few good laughs—”Finally, a Boxing Day that lives up to its name” and the Transforma leader named “Bestamus Mucho”—but “Parody” is more appetizer than main course.

From its pitch-perfect reimagining of the Mad Men opening credits, “Dead-vertising” is one of the best original Halloween ideas The Simpsons writers have come up with in a long time. Marrying bloviated concerns about intellectual property theft with Homer’s natural gift for killing celebrities results in some of the episode’s biggest laughs, several of which come at the expense of our 16th president. What better way to advertise a Presidents Day sale, for instance, than showing George Washington marrying and making out with Abraham Lincoln (an American hero Homer knows simply as “Mr. Pennyface”). The only problem with the segment is how much the army of deceased celebrities (including Prince, John Wayne, George Clooney, and Rip Taylor) reminded me of the rampaging ad mascots of “Attack of the 50-Foot Eyesores” from “Treehouse of Horror VI” and the gun-toting zombie corpses of “The Fright to Creep and Scare Harms” from “Treehouse of Horror XIII.” In fact, now that I think about it, “Robot Parody” had more than a little of 1996’s “Citizen Kang” in it. Too bad. The only excuse I can come up with is that after all these years the writers can’t remember the stories they’ve already done. At least this year they finally tackled the one story conspicuously missing from the past 19 years: the Halloween classic It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.

Matching precisely the look, feel, and sound of the Schulz/Melendez holiday special, “Grand Pumpkin” is one of the best Simpsons parodies in years—from Marge’s trombone gag to Bart’s holey ghost costume. I’ve never considered how Simpsons characters match up with members of the Peanuts gang, but I can’t imagine anyone doing better than Milhouse as Linus, Lisa as Sally, Bart as Charlie Brown, and Homer and Santa’s Little Helper sharing Snoopy duties.

If you’re as familiar with the original as I am, I’m sure you appreciated all the little touches, including the one-for-one remake of the opening shot and Lisa yelling that Milhouse owes her “restitution.” At the same time, “Grand Pumpkin” is completely The Simpsons (I can’t imagine Sally would trick or treat dressed like a Wiccan). I wasn’t sure how this segment would fare once it deviated from the source material and the Grand Pumpkin went on its killing spree. For the most part, the twist was effective, playing off the righteous anger a giant anthropomorphic pumpkin should feel at seeing humans stab, slice, and carve its diminutive brethren. I mean, even if it’s true that “all pumpkins are racist,” is it right to roast their unborn? I was a little disappointed at the segment’s conclusion, however. Bringing in giant Tom Turkey to dispatch the Grand Pumpkin felt as messy as the fruit’s explosive death. Still, considering it’s been many years since The Simpsons Halloween specials have aired in October, maybe this year’s tribute to the upcoming holidays (and this Tuesday’s election) is fitting.

So what did you think of this year’s more holiday-agnostic “Treehouse of Horror”? Was it a necessary move away from Halloween considering Fox isn’t likely to give up the World Series any time soon, or did it leave you wishing for the fright-fests of seasons past?