The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror - A Personal Retrospective

Fall is my favorite season for many reasons; Halloween, horror movies, the air is cooler and cleaner, pumpkins, football and the beginning of a new Simpsons season, which means a new episode of the Treehouse of Horror.

The Simpsons were an integral part of my childhood, a family tradition that was honored every Sunday night with each new episode. Aside from the fact that the writing for the Simpsons was much stronger when I was young, my personal favorite episodes were always the Treehouse of Horror, which should be obvious based on the theme of this blog post.

I make no attempt to hide the fact that I am obsessed with everything horror and Halloween related so naturally I was drawn into these episodes which paid homage to all things horror including; film, tv, literature, comics and even video games in the form of clever cultural references. Personally I did not start making these references until I was a bit older, but I can remember my Dad pointing out some of the more obvious ones, especially the references to the Universal Monsters.

Each episode of the Treehouse of Horror is made up of multiple short segments, usually 3, with some reoccurring traditions that show up in almost every episode. These traditions include; the opening sequence, the appearance of Kang and Kodos, the altering of the creators names with "Scary Names", such as Matt Groening turned into Bat Gronening and of course the cultural references.

So in dedication to my childhood, the Simpsons and more specifically the treehouse of horror, I will be "reviewing" each episode from now until Halloween. Currently there are 30 episodes with the 31st expected to air in October of this year. Just to be clear I am using the term review very lightly. Each review will include a brief overview of the episode, with special callouts for each horror reference I notice as well as my general thoughts. On Halloween I will release a video with my top 10 favorite segments from the 31 episodes as well as a written post.

I hope you all decide to check out my reviews and enjoy these posts. Either way you should take some time to watch the episodes to help get you in a more Halloween mood.