Writer and Lyricist: Daniel Chun
“The Gay Song” by Alf Clausen and Dan Castellaneta
The first two acts were rather weak, perhaps because the show has done Hitchcock and zombies before, but the opening with the monsters and their wives and especially the third act made up for it. The third act in particular not only had a good premise and lots of amusing gags, but the idea of it being a stage musical added a few amusing bits as well. I’d say that segment in particular goes up there with some of the finest Halloween sketches. So two rocks and two treats- an evenly mixed bag.
Good grief, they’ve gone from airing this in November to airing it two weeks before Halloween. Is there some restraining order keeping them from getting too close to the actual holiday?
Thanks for starting the thread though. I actually thought it was on next week and would have missed it.
Yes. It’s called the MLB playoffs.
Hey, I’ve seen Frankenstein’s bride. That wasn’t Frankenstein’s bride.
Haven’t we already seen the Grand Pumpkin episode before?
That was last year’s episode, which ran before the new one.
No, that’s Frankenstein’s trophy wife.
Good episode. Yeah, they did Hitchcock and zombies before but the musical was really great. The zombie bit was still pretty good. The Hitchock skit (is it a skit?) had its moments even if it wasn’t the best. I think I may have missed some of the bits from it, but they did get a good “Hitchcockian” feel to it, I think.
The opening was ruined by one detail…they had Marge dressed as a cat, but not like Cat!Marge from the Island of Doctor Moreau episode a few years ago.
Also, I thought the last segment went from ‘pretty good’ to ‘abysmal’ when they turned on the theatre conceit.
The show has done various Hitchcock spoofs and references, but I believe it’s the first time an entire THoH segment was devoted to one. I thought it was terrific, with the lion’s share of references coming from:[ul][li]Strangers on a Train - not just the plot premise, but lots of details: “Criss cross”, the tennis match, the lighter, the carousel[]North by Northwest - the 2nd set of music cues, plus Hitch’s cameo and Mt. Rushmore []Spellbound - the Dali dream sequence, including the eyes at the party, and the figure on the rooftop[*]Psycho - the 1st set of music cues.[/li][/ul]
And since nobody’s mentioned Sweeney Todd yet for the musical’s inspiration, I might as well. 
Overall, a thoroughly unimpressive THOH episode, the first and third acts were especially bland, and the zombie segment was uninspired, the whole Cow2X plotline seemed like it was cribbed from Zombieland/28 Days
the only bright spot being the “Monster’s Wives” segment, overall, this ep rates a solid “MEH!”
Flip to P in your dictionary and you will find an entry for “parody.” Seriously, you can’t “crib from something” when you are openly making fun of it. I didn’t see 28 Days Later or I Am Legend but I still knew they were parodying those movies.
The last couple of Halloween shows have had one really excellent segment and two that were mediocre. I thought the standout this year was the Hitchcock parody. The art was just amazing. That segment had the best jokes, too, as far as I was concerned.
The zombie story was okay, but almost nothing looks good compared to Dial ‘Z’ for Zombies. “He was a zombie?” is nearly untoppable as a joke. The funniest part of this bit was probably the title. The Sweeney Todd segment didn’t do much for me, although I liked Barney showing up as the Phantom of the Opera. And I think this was the first musical Treehouse segment, so at least that was new. It would’ve been scarier if they’d done it as a straightforward story, but maybe they felt they’d already done the cannibal thing and needed a new angle.
Like I said last year, I wish they would give up on the three-segment style and just do one full-length Halloween story. I would’ve enjoyed a half hour of the Simpsons doing Alfred Hitchcock more than the other stuff, just like I would have liked it if they did more with the ‘It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown’ thing. I’ll give them points for this: 28 Days Later and Sweeney Todd are more Halloween-y than Mr. & Mrs. Smith and Transformers.
I liked the Hitchcock segment; but I only audibly laughed once, at one gag in the zombie segment. Overall: Weak.
I am a bad father. I wasn’t paying attention to who was in the room when I started watching. The episode freaked out both my 4 year-old (at the beginning) and my 8 year-old (during the Zombie segment). Turned into a sleepless night.
Whatever happened to the warnings they used to put in front of the Halloween episodes?
They haven’t had those in a long time. They appeared in the first three and fifth specials, but that was it. The writers gave up on them around the time they dropped the “wraparound” bits and the gag tombstones.
I did like last night’s intro, but I’m not sure I saw the whole thing because the episode either started exactly at 8 or a little bit before.
My 7 year old was looking away at one point, one of the murder scenes in the first skit, I do believe.
She seems OK now.
Ahhh!
I figured Bill Donohue would have a problem with the “eating the body and blood of their savior” line, but the fact that he does so shows again the hypocrisy and double standards of Donohue and his organization, whose most famous complaint about The Simpsons was about a joke that was basically a non-sequitur. Donohue once complained about a joke about the Catholic stance against birth control on the show, but had no problem with an entire Catholic-themed episode which featured, among other jokes, Homer holding a pamphlet entitled “Plop 'Til You Drop.” Nor did, despite complaining about other jokes on other programs regarding the virginity of the Virgin Mary in the past, he complain about a Christmas episode where Homer, as Joseph, comments on his wife’s pregnancy by saying that a pregnant virgin is every husband’s nightmare and responds to a comment that she is filled with the spirit of the Lord with “That’s not the only thing she’s full of.” Not to mention the fact that Donohue freely allows Stephen Colbert, a Catholic, to make jokes about putting nacho cheese on the Eucharist and similar jokes he would complain about if a non-Catholic made them and even himself joining in the hypocrisy by slapping Colbert’s wrists with a ruler despite his complaints in the past about jokes about stern Catholic school nuns. Sorry, just had to get that off my chest.
teehee!
I liked the third act. I don’t know. I guess after 20 years of Halloween specials, it’s hard to avoid doing zombies and Hitchcock parodies more than once. They’re going to have to repeat some themes.
Lovejoy’s nervous reaction to the eating-the-savior joke was odd, considering he once said Catholic practices were as unfamiliar to him as a voodoo dance.