This coming weekend will see the debut of the 35th installment of The Simpsons’ annual Halloween special, “Treehouse of Horror XXXV.” Laughing Place was provided with an early screener of the episode, and below are my mostly spoiler-free thoughts on this installment. (A full recap will be posted after the episode airs on FOX this Sunday.)
Mark 2024 down as another year in which the new “Treehouse of Horror” will air after Halloween for some inexplicable reason, even though a fresh episode of The Simpsons was released this past Sunday as well. I don’t understand this choice and I never will, but I’m guessing it’s a network decision and not something the creative team behind the show would prefer. Either way, “Treehouse of Horror XXXV” kicks off with a parody of the 2013 Guillermo del Toro Kaiju-vs.-giant-robots movie Pacific Rim, but this time the monsters are materialized by political divisiveness. I’ll go into much more detail in my upcoming recap (check back Sunday night) but suffice it to say at this point that this segment is heavily inspired by the 2024 election cycle and the general animosity between every side. There are some great, very specific gags scattered throughout as Bart and Lisa must work together to battle red and blue monsters before they destroy Springfield and everyone in it. Again, I don’t want to spoil anything else that happens just yet.
The second segment of this year’s “Treehouse of Horror” is entitled “The Fall of the House of Burns.” That and a cameo appearance by Bart as “The Raven” from the very first Simpsons Halloween special point toward an Edgar Allan Poe theme, but anyone who has visited the Winchester Mystery House in Northern California or has seen the 2018 horror movie Winchester that it inspired will find more similarities there. Basically this period piece depicts Mr. Burns as the owner of a corn-syrup factory instead of a Nuclear Power Plant, and he mistreats his employees so badly that when they inevitably die from workplace mishaps they immediately come back to haunt him in his enormous, sprawling, ever-under-construction mansion. The design of this entire segment is unique and memorable, though there are a few jokes that get overused as the angry ghosts of the workers run rampant.
The third and final segment here is called “Denim,” and this is the one that the show’s writer and creator Matt Groening have been promoting most aggressively at conventions like San Diego Comic-Con 2024, with good reason. As the title implies, it’s a send-up of the Venom character from Marvel Comics and more specifically, the three recent movies starring Tom Hardy. Here, Homer is trying to figure out a way to woo Marge– in this universe they haven’t gotten together yet well into their adulthoods– until he’s literally joined at the hip by a pair of alien symbiote jeans (voiced by guest star Kevin Michael Richardson from Disney’s Lilo & Stitch) that help him become more confident and physically proficient. This bit is funny throughout, but the real star here is the animation, with “Denim” being generated in stop-motion by Seth Green’s Stoopid Buddy Stoodios production company, best known for Adult Swim’s Robot Chicken. The way Homer walks in these living jeans is particularly hilarious, but all the ways in which these two characters interact is incredibly entertaining to watch, with the 2D animation merging with stop-motion seamlessly– no pun intended.
“Treehouse of Horror” tends to be a highlight of The Simpsons’ new seasons, and that holds true even for a show that’s been going for nearly 35 years (that anniversary is coming up in December). It allows the showrunners and writing staff a platform to play with the series’ cast of characters in a way that the standard episodes most often do not, although that balance has been shifting in recent years, with more conceptual “non-canonical” outings taking place outside of the Halloween season. Regardless, the quality of this year’s spooky-season special remains strong, with both the animators and the voice cast matching what the writers have brought to the table in terms of laughs, pop-culture homages, and the appropriate level of cartoonish violence and gore. I just always hope next year they can get this thing out before Halloween.
The Simpsons – “Treehouse of Horror XXXV” will air this coming Sunday, November 3rd on FOX, and will be available to stream the following day, Monday November 4th, via Hulu.