Most unique Simpons Halloween episode

Cafe Society
1

OK, they went triple-X a couple of nights ago for the Simpsons Halloween Special, and yeah, color me hard to believe its been 30 years, but … meh… probably, amirite?

There was a thread a while back trying to list which were Twilight zone references: https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=864647&highlight=simpsons That thread didn’t attract too much interest, after all, as I pointed out then, too many references are older than even the Twilight Zone.

So how about this question: Which one ***isn’t ***a reference to something else, and made up entirely by the writers. Or at the very least, is so heavily changed, it really only uses the most basic tropes.

This might be harder than I think. I was going to suggest the one where the Simpsons kill Flanders, but he comes back as a werewolf. Then I remembered that was essentially the plot to I know what you did last summer, and is even referenced in the title and episode content.

2

Off the cuff, I’d think the one where the giant logo men came to life was unique and not a parody/homage.

3

Here’s a list, ones marked N/A don’t have an apparent homage.

The title of Attack of the 50-Foot Eyesores is based on Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, though.

4

My two favorite Halloween episodes are the one when Lisa creates a universe in a petri dish and becomes the goddess of this world and the one in which Homer accidentally invents a time-traveling toaster and isn’t able to return to the present time without altering the timeline. I can’t think of works these two episodes are parodies of.

5

The first is at least an homage to several sci fi stories of a similar nature, such as Dragon’s Egg.

The time traveling toaster is basically Heinlein’s A Sound of Thunder, which is the basis for every “butterfly effect” story.

6

So many good ones. The stories “Time and Punishment” (A Sound of Thunder) and "Homer’ (Little Girl Lost) are my favorites, but so many more are so good. Hard to say which entire episode was the best.

7

Ray Bradbury’s Sound of Thunder, not Heinlein’s.
L. Sprague de Camp was so annoyed by it that he wrote his own Time-Travelers-Hunt-for-Dinosaur story in response, A Gun for Dinosaur, which has become a classic in its own right.

8

Public domain yet? Do you have a link? I love L. Sprague de Camp.

9

Here’s a scan of its original magazine publication in Galaxy:

Decades later, deCamp wrote a series of sequels, which were collected with the original story in the anthology Rivers of Time.

There have been lots of other Dinosaur Big Game Hunter stories (and attempted movies) since, but I think this is enough of a hijack.

We now return you to our regularly scheduled Simpsons thread.

10

The first one may be also based on Sturgeon’s “Microcosmic God” (which also influenced Futurama’s Godfellas)

11

That’s probably the best we can hope for, in that, although the name matches, content isn’t really a perfect match. Also, thanks for the Wikipedia list, because it certainly helps – it only helps 'tho, there’s lots of stuff missing on that list.

12

To quote a relevant person: D’OH!

13

That’s odd, usually the blood gets off at the second floor.

14

Well…there went the last remnants of my heterosexuality.

15

Hey, Flanders gave us toothpaste!

Mini-toothpaste!

16

“It’s too bad we filled up on children before we got to the Flanders’ house. BRAAAAAPP!”

17

The Raven from the first Treehouse of Horror has never been beaten. A classic tale done Simpsons-style.

18

^ Oh, I hate Hallowe’en.

19

Did anyone see that movie “Tron”?

20

Yes. I mean, no.