This year's installment sees Homer as a wandering spirit who must do one good deed before going to Heaven ("G-G-Ghost D-D-Dad"), Bart and Lisa as genre-savvy peasant children who end up lost in a fairy tale forest in "Scary Tales Can Come True", and Springfield's population at war with sea mammals in "Night of the Dolphin".
The episode first aired on November 1, 2000, beginning a practice of the show's Halloween episodes debuting after the holiday itself due to Fox's late-October prime time schedule being pre-empted by the network's coverage of the 2000 World Series. (Until 2010, all subsequent Halloween episodes save for 2009's "Treehouse of Horror XX" premiered in November; 2011's "Treehouse of Horror XXII" onwards has had the network resuming airing the episodes on or before Halloween save for 2020's "Treehouse of Horror XXXI" having premiered in November.) This was also the first Simpsons episode to have mixed-case closed captioning. The episode received positive reviews from critics.
Plot
The opening sequence is done as a parody of The Munsters, with Homer as Herman, Marge as Lily, Lisa as Marilyn, Bart as Eddie and Grampa as Grandpa Munster. Meanwhile, at the front of their mansion, an angry mob of townspeople attack the Munster Simpsons. They stab Marge and Grampa in the chest with stakes, set Homer on fire, and activate a bear trap on Bart's head, leaving Lisa unharmed; she then walks away from the scene while whistling, pretending that she had no connection to the monstrous family.
G-G-Ghost D-D-Dad
Homer's
headlock and gives him a noogie for all eternity. Homer screams in pain, but Satan tells him to be quiet as he will "wake up John Wayne
", who has already woken up for his day in Hell.
Scary Tales Can Come True
In a fairy tale setting,
witch. Lisa is wary as it is exactly like the story "Hansel and Gretel
", but Bart is too busy eating treats to care. Lisa tries to stall the witch by claiming she is lonely. The witch denies this, claiming she has a boyfriend named "George Cauldron". When Lisa scoffs at this, the witch attempts to throw her into the oven, but Homer arrives to save the children, eating his way through the gingerbread house's walls. The witch turns Homer into a half-chicken, half-fish creature with donkey ears and broom-arms. She then tries to shove him into the oven, only for Homer to overpower and shove her to her death in the oven, before George Cauldron comes to the door. The Simpsons are reunited, and are now living happily ever after with a mostly restored Homer still having a chicken's lower body as he produces eggs for the family, meaning that they will never go hungry again.
Night of the Dolphin
In a parody of
Lenny
during his whiskey-soaked night swim ("alcohol and nightswimming: it's a winning combination") and then the Sea Captain (who claims he can stop them) before marching towards the town on their tails. During the town meeting, Snorky takes the stage and reveals he is capable of speaking. Snorky tells Springfield that dolphins used to live on land but were banished to the ocean by humans. Now the dolphins want to banish all mankind to live underwater. The humans refuse to submit to the dolphins' will without a fight, only to find the dolphins greatly outnumber them. When Lisa is bitten by a small dolphin after removing a set of bottle rings around its face, Homer encourages the townspeople to fight back. A battle ensues between the dolphins and the humans, with heavy casualties on both sides. The end of the story reveals the humans lost the war and have been driven into the sea. Lisa admits she regrets freeing Snorky in the first place, but Marge comforts her that everyone will have to adjust to their new life as "marine animals". As Marge says this, several corpses, including Krusty the Clown, floating past form the words "The End?" nearby, much to her disgust and sadness.
Epilogue – Kang and Kodos
Meanwhile, after the final story ended, the two aliens Kang and Kodos complain that they have been left out of the Halloween special, until they get an offer to do commercials for Old Navy which they accept.
Production
Carolyn Omine wrote the last segment "Night of the Dolphin".
The episode was directed by
show runner, Mike Scully. It is Rob Lazebnik's first writing credit for the series with his second being the fifth episode of the season "Homer vs. Dignity".[1] The second segment, "Scary Tales Can Come True" is the second written by John Frink and Don Payne after "Insane Clown Poppy", but that did not air later in the season. The segment was the idea of another writer.[2]
The third segment, "Night of the Dolphin" was written by
Dr. Julius Hibbert fighting with hypodermics and one where Moe Szyslak puts a gas tube down a dolphin's blow hole during the humans vs. dolphin war.[2] During production, the writers included a scene with Kang and Kodos, which was mentioned at the episode's conclusion.[4] Several elements of the "Night of the Dolphin" segment was used in The Simpsons Game.[4]
Cultural references
The opening is a parody to
Grimm's Fairy Tales. The scene in which the baby's stroller starts falling down the stairs mirrors a similar scene in Battleship Potemkin. In "Night of the Dolphin", the scene in which Snorky jumps out of the water park and into the ocean is a parody of Free Willy.[4] Lenny being killed by dolphins during a night swim is a parody of the opening to Jaws. The dolphins outside the town meeting is a parody of The Birds. The title and plot are based on Mike Nichols's Day of the Dolphin. The witch remarking "George... George Cauldron" while looking at a cauldron is a parody of Jan from The Brady Bunch
doing the same while making up a name for a fictional boyfriend in the episode "The Not-so-ugly Duckling"; looking at a glass, she states his name is "George... George Glass".
Reception
Since its original airing the episode has received generally positive reviews. Matt Haigh of Den of Geek quoted "it is probably one of the funniest Halloween episodes of the show's history".[5]Matt Groening called the third segment one of his personal favorite scenes from all the series.[6]
Colin Jacobson of DVD Movie Guide gave the episode a positive review saying "Even in the weakest Simpsons seasons, you can count on the Halloween episodes to deliver good amusement. Or at least pretty decent comedy, as evidenced by the up and down "Treehouse XI". None of the segments excel, but none of them flop either, so they keep us entertained. It's really hard to fault a mainstream network TV series that references
glory holes, so "Treehouse XI" gets a positive appraisal despite a few missteps."[7] Mac McEntire of the DVD Verdict said the greatest moments of the episode was "Snorky...mad".[8]
References
^LaZebnik, Rob (2009). The Simpsons The Complete Twelfth Season DVD commentary for the episode "Treehouse of Horror IX" (DVD). 20th Century Fox.
^ abPayne, Don (2009). The Simpsons The Complete Twelfth Season DVD commentary for the episode "Treehouse of Horror XI" (DVD). 20th Century Fox.
^ abOmine, Caroline (2009). The Simpsons The Complete Twelfth Season DVD commentary for the episode "Treehouse of Horror IX" (DVD). 20th Century Fox.
^ abcdeScully, Mike (2009). The Simpsons The Complete Twelfth Season DVD commentary for the episode "Treehouse of Horror IX" (DVD). 20th Century Fox.
