Why don’t they make the Halloween episode the season premiere? Because the season hasn’t started for The Simpsons yet. In fact, after the Treehouse XIV, they advertised for the “Season Premiere” next week. So, it would be even further into November. IIRC, the Simpsons season premieres kept getting pushed back because of World Series coverage or something and now it doesn’t come on until the first Sunday after Halloween. Does anyone know why?
Also, I loved Milhouse’s suggestion that they get ahead on all their homework and shocking everyone when they “are on the red level in Adventures in Reading!”
The death segment reminded me more of Piers Anthony’s book On a Pale Horse (a man who is about to commit suicide manages to kill Death instead and must take his place).
The best was the clockstopper episode and the opening.
Thank God we finally got the obligitory “The Simpsons sucks now” post. Although the equally obligitory “The Family Guy is funnier” post was already provided. Let’s keep track of our Simpson’s thread bingo slots people. Still a spot open for a strained “jumped the shark” cliche though.
Al Jean said in an interview with the New York Daily News that as long as Fox shows baseball, they won’t get their Halloween shows in October. (They poked fun at the lateness with the Kang and Kodos joke this year.) I’m guessing Fox waits until the season ends since baseball is just as big a ratings-getter (maybe even more) than The Simpsons is, and besides, ever since the AFL “Heidi game,” it’s been in contracts to show a sports game in its entirety.
Fox has hit upon the strategy of waiting until after the World Series to the start their fall season (in general). They’ve decided that people lose interest in a new show if they air a couple of episodes in September before the playoffs start, then the show goes off the air for most or all of October. People either forget about the show or find another show to watch in the same timeslot when Fox returns to its normal schedule in late October/November. Not saying if it has any basis in reality, but its how Fox thinks.
This idea didn’t do much for “Skin”, which Fox just spiked after three episodes and 1,000,000 promos during the playoffs. Oh well.
