Laughing Place has received another advance screener for a horror-anthology episode of The Simpsons, this one being entitled “Treehouse of Horror Presents: Simpsons Wicked This Way Comes.” Below are my thoughts on this installment, with a full recap coming this Sunday evening after the episode airs on FOX.
Well, here we are in mid-to-late November still talking about “Treehouse of Horror.” A couple years ago The Simpsons released an episode-long spinoff of the annual Halloween tradition entitled “Not It” (a parody of Stephen King’s It) under the “Treehouse of Horror Presents” branding, and a few years before that there was “Thanksgiving of Horror,” but both of those aired around the appropriate time of year. So now we’re nearly a full month from Halloween and we get “Treehouse of Horror Presents: Simpsons Wicked This Way Comes.” My only guess as to why it’s being put out this weekend is because of the word “Wicked” being in its title, though it has nothing to do with the new movie musical based on the smash-hit Broadway show prequel to The Wizard of Oz. Instead this is a lovingly crafted tribute to the works of renowned 20th Century science-fiction / horror author Ray Bradbury, some more familiar than others.
“Simpsons Wicked This Way Comes” (the title being a riff on the 1962 Bradbury novel Something Wicked This Way Comes) begins with Our Favorite Family visiting a mysterious circus that popped up overnight in Springfield. There, Homer (voiced, as always, by Dan Castellaneta) and Bart (Nancy Cartwright) are more than happy to gawk at the freaks and geeks, but Lisa has a beef with carnivals like this– having gotten three of them shut down already this year. Fortunately this one only exploits humans and not animals, and so she is left to wander alone until she encounters the Illustrated Man (the title of a collection of Bradbury short stories from 1951) who allows her to gaze into his many hypnotic tattoos and experience the strange and twisted stories that inspired them. The first of which is a parody of Bradbury’s radio-play-turned-short-story “The Screaming Woman.” Here an alternate-universe version of Bart hears a scream coming from under the ground, and runs around town trying to get help, only to find that no one believes him.
The second segment is a Springfieldian take on “Marionettes, Inc.” from the aforementioned The Illustrated Man anthology. Basically Superintendent Chalmers (Hank Azaria) learns from Carl (Alex Désert) that he can get a robotic copy of himself made so he no longer has to spend time around his nemesis Principal Skinner (Harry Shearer). Naturally– this being based on a Bradbury story– things do not go quite as planned, and Chalmers finds himself scrambling to put things right before the robot takes over his life. The final segment of this episode is a riff on one of Bradbury’s most famous (and frequently adapted) stories, namely the 1953 dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451. But instead of firemen burning books, this time around Homer is enlisted to eliminate anything deemed “low-brow” entertainment, leaving only prestige television series like a Succession-esque drama called Robber Barons that baffles and confuses him. Soon Homer discovers the illicit, no-thought-required joys of watching America’s Funniest Home Videos and other programming of its ilk, becoming addicted to the very thing he is sworn to eradicate.
All three of these segments and the wraparound premise have their own memorable gags, but what I am most impressed with here is the tribute to literature (as opposed to the usual “Treehouse of Horror” reliance on other pop-culture intellectual properties– Edgar Allan Poe’s narrative poem “The Raven” excluded), meaning that this episode of The Simpsons might actually inspire its audience to seek out these Ray Bradbury stories, turn off their various electronic devices, and read for once! I mean, in doing some research on the origins of “Marionettes, Inc.” I put The Illustrated Man on my wish-list. That alone makes this outing worth it, and it’s very cool that its writers and animators cared enough about Bradbury and his output to put together an entire episode in tribute to the esteemed author. Again, my only, extremely minor nitpick is that both “Treehouse of Horror” installments missed Halloween again this year, but hey, maybe the word “Wicked” will get people to tune in after all.
“Treehouse of Horror Presents: Simpsons Wicked This Way Comes” will air the evening of this coming Sunday, November 24th, on FOX.