"The Simpsons" Treehouse of Horror XIV (2003)

Director:

Steven Dean Moore

Writers:

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

TV Series:

"The Simpsons" (1989)

Original Air Date:

2 November 2003 (Season 15, Episode 1)

Genre:

Animation | Comedy

Plot:

First, Homer kills the Grim Reaper and takes his place in Reaper Madness. Then, Professor Frink's father is revived...

Plot Keywords:

Halloween Spoof | Halloween | Nuclear Power | Dysfunctional Family | Principal

Cast

  (Episode Credited cast)

Dan Castellaneta	...	Homer Simpson (voice)
Julie Kavner	...	Marge Simpson (voice)
Nancy Cartwright	...	Bart Simpson (voice)
Yeardley Smith	...	Lisa Simpson (voice)
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Hank Azaria	...	Professor Frink / Moe (voice)
Oscar De La Hoya	...	Himself (voice)
Jennifer Garner	...	Herself (voice)
Pamela Hayden	...	Milhouse Van Houten / Rod Flanders / Jimbo Jones (voice)
Dudley Herschbach	...	Himself (voice)
Jerry Lewis	...	Professor John Frink, Sr. (voice)
Tress MacNeille	...	Agnes Skinner / Dolph (voice)
Maggie Roswell	...	Helen Lovejoy / Miss Hoover / Luann Van Houten (voice)
Harry Shearer	...	Kang (voice)
Russi Taylor	...	Martin Prince / Sherri / Terri (voice)
Karl Wiedergott	...	Additional Voices (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:

When Lisa takes the phone and vows to tell professor Frink that he's won the Nobel Prize, she finishes the call with the words "Tack för att ni förärar vår stad". That is actually real Swedish, meaning "Thank you for honoring our town" (albeit with a questionable pronunciation).

Movie Connections:

References "Curb Your Enthusiasm" (2000)

The real Horror: the Simpsons' Treehouses of Horror lose their touch

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

This may be a strange time of year to write a review on a Halloween special, but then again, it was originally aired in a strange time of year for a Halloween special- November. I've always thought the Halloween-themed Treehouse of Horror episodes were so good they ought to be put in museums- THOH I-IX, anyway. In fact, even though The Simpsons began to decline in quality during season 10, the THOH episodes were still all right. I found THOH X, XI, and XIII enjoyable, at least in parts. Alas, like the rest of the show, they've now fallen apart. Later THOH episodes have been horrible; the decline seems to have started here with THOH XIV. More specifically, the Treehouses of Horror lost it after the first segment of this episode. The first segment, featuring Homer becoming Death, is actually good.

First we have an opening scene where the Simpsons fight and kill each other; some might think this scene is a bit too extreme, and personally I did think they went too far in having 10-year-old Bart calling 8-year-old Lisa a "hussy." But anyway, with the Grim Reaper storyline the episode improves. It's been noted Family Guy already did a similar story- this is one of the rare times where a case can be made that The Simpsons took from Family Guy rather than the other way around. But I don't much care (as South Park noted, everything's been done), especially given that The Simpsons do it well. "Death?" Homer asks the Reaper at the door. "We don't want any." Some of the jokes are actually clever, like the wind joke and the Curb Your Enthusiasm reference. The swipe at According to Jim was funny because that really was an awful show, but it might be hypocritical coming from a fifteenth season Simpsons episode since that show went bad, too. And indeed, this very episode went bad with the next segment, a spoof of Frankenstein. Actually, the Simpsons already did a Frankenstein spoof- in THOH II. There's little reason to justify this new one, as it lacks energy. I guess I mean it lacks wit and compelling writing. The only good things to say about it is that we hear Lisa describing the 2000s, we have Flanders' death and some female nudity (non-frontal). The next segment is a parody of the movie Clockstoppers (2002). It wasn't a relevant reference- this is a movie that was already forgotten when the episode aired, which has a 5.0 average here on IMDb (as of this writing) and a 28% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The pranks Bart and Milhouse pull here make for juvenile humour and Homer being decapitated yet still surviving is just dumb.