Trollheart

Challenge not accepted. What do you think I am? A vampire? Gasp! Who told you? How did you find out... ah, well, perhaps you and I should just go and, discuss this somewhere more fatal I mean private. No no don't worry about those three strange looking women: they're always hanging around the castle. Mind your step now. Wouldn't want you to fall and bruise that juicy neck...

Ahem! Anyway...



Treehouse of Horror episode: 1
Year: 1990
Season: 2
Segment: 2 of 3
Segment title: “Hungry are the Damned”
Writer(s): Jayce Kogen and Wallace Wolodarsky
Characters: Bart, Homer, Marge, Lisa, Maggie, Kang, Kodos
Homage to? The Twilight Zone episode “To Serve Man”
Basic premise: The Simpsons are abducted by aliens.
Note: this is the first appearance of the aliens Kang and Kodos, who will pop up in many another Treehouse of Horror. It’s also the first usage of what will become their theme tune, a sort of play on the Twilight Zone/Outer Limits music.
Best quotes:

Lisa: “There’s something not quite right about this.”
Homer: “Girl’s right. Let’s get some applesauce in here for these pork chops! What you looking at buddy?”
Kodos: “Your wife is quite a dish.”

Kang: “It is our great pleasure to provide you with unlimited entertainment on your intergalactic journey. This cable system receives over one million channels from the furthest reaches of the galaxy.”
Bart: “Can you get HBO?”
Kang: “No. That would cost extra.”

Kang: “Over here is our crowning achievement in amusement technology. A digital version of the game you call table tennis. Your primitive paddles have been replaced with electronic -”
Bart: “Hey man, that’s just Pong! Get with the times!”
Homer: “Yeah. Marge and I played that old game before we were married!”
Kang: “Well, we did build this spacecraft.”
Kodos: “Anyone from a species who has mastered intergalactic travel raise your hand!”

Kang: “Well, if you wanted to make Ceroc the Preparer cry, mission accomplished!”

Kang: “We offered you Paradise. You would have experienced emotions a hundred times greater than what you call love, and a thousand times greater than what you call fun. You would have been treated like gods, and lived forever in beauty. But now, because of your distrustful nature, that can never be.”
Marge: “For a superior race they really rub it in.”

Lisa: “There were monsters on that ship, and truly, we were them.”
Marge: “Lisa, see what we mean when we say you’re too smart for your own good?”

Type of ending: Downbeat

Synopsis: The Simpsons are abducted by aliens. Hilarious scene when the others are taken up into the spaceship by a tractor beam, but Homer is too heavy and needs an extra beam to lift him. Even then, the saucer struggles. Through a series of misunderstandings and flawed reasoning, Lisa comes to believe the aliens intend to eat them, but they reveal good intentions at the end. However, because of the Simpsons’ distrustful ways and suspicions, the aliens conclude these are not the type of people they want to take to their planet, and drop them back on Earth. The different ways things can be interpreted, or misinterpreted, are handled very well here, with one thing turning out to mean another, and just when you think you have it figured out, it changes again. Very clever. And funny.

Also clever is the way in which at one point the covers are taken off some of the meals and the angle makes it look like Marge and Homer’s heads are on the plates. More misunderstandings when a book is found in the possession of the chef, titled How to Cook Humans. Lisa confronts the aliens with it, but Kang and Kodos point out that there are words covered by dust, so it should read How to Cook For Humans. Lisa blows at it and reveals the true title to be How to Cook Forty Humans, but again the aliens blow yet more dust off it and the final title is shown as How to Cook for Forty Humans. Well, that’s all right then. Although Ceroc the Preparer is not happy. Seeing that the Simpsons are not yet ready for their brand of Paradise, the aliens return them to where they found them.

Rating: A++






Oh yes I do love pulling things apart and analysing them to death don’t I? If there’s fun to be squeezed out of something, rely on me to do that! And here will be no different. Although I fully accept this is a cartoon/animated show and you can’t take much of it too seriously, if you think that’s going to stop me applying logic and real-world reason and criticism to it, well then hello: you must not know me.

In this segment, I find it unfair that the family, through mostly Lisa, get the wrong idea. Yes she may be jumping to conclusions, but are those suspicions unfounded? Let’s look at the evidence, M’Lord.

Firstly, look at the aliens. Through probably no fault of their own, they have huge fangs and seem to be constantly salivating. This makes them look like they’re hungry. One of the first things Kang says to them is “Eat! Grow large with food!” whereafter rather quickly Kodos remarks about Marge that she is “quite a dish”. All right, these are comments that could be taken as innocent enough, but as the segment goes on, the innuendos and inferences become more and more suspicious. When Lisa queries why the aliens aren’t eating, they start talking about a great feast, and make references to the Simpsons being the guests of honour, laughing evilly and noting there will be plenty of time to “chew the fat.”

Then they take the time to weigh each of the family. Why? If they’re not fattening them up, why do they care what they weigh? Kang also seems to be concerned when they stop eating, urging them to continue. So again, why? How would anyone in this situation not put two and two together? Sure, it’s a comment on human suspicion, but it’s hardly fair on Lisa.

Score
Story: 8 (Again, it’s based on someone else’s writing, otherwise it would be getting top marks)
Laughs: 8
Originality: 5
Ending: 8
Longevity: 8
Total: 37

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