Ahh, the very first Treehouse of Horror. A tradition that prevailed through the all of classical era and into the modern days. While the modern Treehouse Of Horrors are mostly lacklustre and forgettable, the Halloween special during the classical ages are a true show of the writers talents. For only one occasion every year, they are allowed to throw away plot believability, and write whatever their imagination carries them. In the classical era, the Treehouse Of Horror is a true indication of the writers' creativeness, and is still relevant years to come.
To me, Halloween specials don't necessarily have to be scary. Meaning, I don't really should have to have trouble going to bed after watching it. In a world where there are already children murdering their parents and people being burnt alive, it is getting increasingly difficult for people to be scared. However, although Treehouse Of Horrors don't necessarily have to be tamed, plot still must be coherent and characterisation must be at least reasonable: that means Homer is only allowed to want to kill Bart if he is possessed, but not by his own will.
Only the first Treehouse of Horror actually involves a treehouse, where the kids tell three scary tales in the treehouse with Homer outside eavesdropping on the stories. The first one involves your typical haunted house. When the Simpsons move into a house that is ridiculously under price, they find that the house is haunted. However, due to the low price saving Homer thousands of dollars, the Simpsons sleep through the night with the house mind controlling them into wielding a knife and running around in circles attempting to kill one another. When Marge finally confronts the talking house, the house is given a choice of destroying itself or living with the Simpsons. Seeing how the Simpsons is unwilling to leave, the house destroys itself.
The second story involves our first appearance with the aliens Kang and Clang. The aliens visit the Simpsons house and pick up the Simpsons onto their spaceship. At first, the aliens seem nice enough to give the Simpsons good food. However, a suspicious Lisa finds a cookbook titled "How to Cook Humans". The aliens interrupts and blows off some dust to reveal the title as "How To Cook For Humans". Lisa blows off some more and find it to be "How To Cook Forty Humans". And Clang changes it to "How To Cook For Forty Humans". In the end, the aliens are devastated that the humans suspected their welcoming gestures, and throw them back onto Earth, not before condemning their mistrustful nature.
The last story portrays Homer as a character in a poem where he confronts Bart the raven. Homer finds people knocking on the door, but no one is there. When Bart the raven flies into his room, Homer finds himself constantly pestered by this raven. After multiple futile attempts at chasing the raven out, Homer finds himself trapped in the room with the raven with devilish eyes and malicious contempt.
The Treehouse Of Horrors are truly interesting genre of the Simpsons. While they may not conform to your typical style of Simpsons episodes, each and every segment of the Halloween special has a very distinct Simpsons feel to it. Even though most of the stories are overused scary stories (haunted houses, alien abduction...), the writers always put a Simpson spin on all of them. While the Treehouse Of Horrors don't truly offer any tremendous insight into the Simpsons, its brilliant parodies of other works entertains those who do know the source material and still have something left over for those like me who doesn't.
Because it is a Treehouse Of Horror episode, there won't be distinct categories on marking. Partly because I don't really know how to be perfectly objective in marking these episodes, and partly because plot believability is out of the window and non standard Simpsons episodes are generally not my forte. So there only will be an overall mark.
Overall: 8.5/10
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