"The Simpsons" Treehouse of Horror (1990)

User Rating:

8.1/10   

Directors:

Wesley Archer
Rich Moore

Writers:

Matt Groening (creator)
James L. Brooks (developer) ...

TV Series:

"The Simpsons" (1989)

Original Air Date:

25 October 1990 (Season 2, Episode 3)

Genre:

Animation | Comedy

Plot:

In this trilogy of horror-themed Halloween stories, Bart and Lisa attempt to scare each other with tales of the macabre...

Plot Keywords:

Raven | Satire | Halloween | Macabre | Alien

Cast

Dan Castellaneta	...	Homer Simpson (voice)
Julie Kavner	...	Marge Simpson (voice)
Nancy Cartwright	...	Bart Simpson (voice)
Yeardley Smith	...	Lisa Simpson (voice)
Harry Shearer	...	Kang / The House (voice)
James Earl Jones	...	Moving Man / Serak the Preparer / Narrator (voice)

Runtime:

30 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Certification:

Argentina:Atp

Company:

20th Century Fox Television

Trivia:

Edgar Allan Poe is listed in the opening credits as a writer as the episode refers to and quotes from his classic poem "The Raven".

Quotes:

Narrator: Quoth the raven...
Bart: Eat my shorts!
Homer: D'oh!

Movie Connections:

Spoofs Frankenstein (1931)

First And Best Treehouse Of Horror

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Treehouse Of Horror

I'm going to make a change to my usual review style and write a separate review for all of the segments individually.

Bad Dream House: Now, this is probably gonna sound really wimpy, but this is probably the only segment in the history of the Halloween episodes to kind of freak me out. Now it's not so much that it terrifies me, but it gives me the creeps. The strange dream-like quality to it (particularly the house itself) disturbs me slightly. But there's also some genuinely funny bits as well and to me that mixture of typical Simpsons humour mixed with a somewhat genuinely scary element is to me, what should have featured in other future segments.

Hungry Are The Damned: A good segment. Probably not as good as Bad Dream House but in probably any other special, it would really stand out. Of course it features the debut of Kang and Kodos. Not really horror, more sci-fi except for the cannibalism (even if, it wasn't really cannibalism.) Kang and Kodos aren't as wacky as they would be later, but even though they lack their usual humour they're still good characters...shame there wasn't more Serak The Preparer in further years.

The Raven: Probably the most literate stance the show has taken, it's brilliantly performed with James Earl Jones as the narrator (a great actor in himself, of course.) a little too light-hearted with it's Loony Toons style than I would've wanted, but it still gives the piece great character.

Overall, three beautiful segments make one beautiful episode and of my all-time favourites.