Trollheart

I think we all knew it was inevitable I would end up doing some sort of journal on my favourite cartoon family, but given how long it's been going for now, and how many episodes, the idea of tackling the entire series - the sheer weight of such an enterprise - has always turned me off the idea, while I continually search for a way to do something on them.

Then someone gave me this idea.

The Simpsons has been running what were originally - and I think still are - termed Halloween Specials, but which have become tagged with the title of Treehouse of Horror for about thirty years now. Some are good, and some, well, not so good. Some are brilliant. Some are enough to make you think they really should rest this poor flogged horse and let it die. But over the years they have come up with some pretty amazing stories, funny pastiches and homages, and some great laughs.

This journal then will trace the evolution of what we now know and recognise as the Treehouse of Horror series, a series basically within a series as it were, and how it’s either improved, or disimproved, over the course of three decades. For those who for some reason don’t know, the Treehouse of Horror usually contains three or four separate stories, very short, seldom if ever linked, and usually connected, if sometimes very tenuously indeed, to the idea of Halloween, or at least horror. Like my Twilight Tales journal, I’ll be rating and ranking each episode, indeed each segment, to see which scores highest and then placing them on a leaderboard chart.

After the basic rating, which will just be, as with Twilight Tales, an indication of how much I enjoyed the segment, or not, will be the score, which will determine its ranking on the chart and will be, as before, broken into separate categories, explained below.

Story: Simple enough: was the story a good one, well told, well written, without any major plot holes (given this is after all essentially a cartoon), and did I enjoy it?
Laughs: Not all episodes ended up being funny. Did this one make me laugh?
Originality: Was it an original idea or did the writer(s) base their idea around a movie, book or other story already written (e.g. "Bart Simpson’s Dracula," "The Homega Man" etc)
Ending: And not all of them ended well. Did this one?
Longevity: Is it a memorable one? Do people quote it, remember it, or has it just been filed away with a shrug?

All categories are scored out of a maximum of ten, therefore the top possible score is 50. In general I will be trying to limit comments in the score section, but if I have something to say I will do so. Mostly it will just be numbers though.

I considered whether I should take random episodes, but decided in the end the best way to do this was in order, so we begin, then, with the very first ever so-called Halloween Special, season two, way back in 1990.

Treehouse of Horror episode: 1
Year: 1990
Season: 2
Segment: 1 of 3
Segment title: “Bad Dream House”
Writer(s): John Swartzwelder
Characters: Marge, Homer, Lisa, Maggie, Bart
Homage to? The movies Poltergeist, The Amityville Horror and The Shining
Basic premise: Homer and family move into a house and find out it’s haunted.

Best quotes: Disgruntled removals guy: “A buck? I’m glad there’s a curse on this place!”

Note from the vortex in the kitchen, after Homer throws in an orange: “Quit throwing your garbage into our dimension!”

Marge: “This family has had its differences, and we’ve had squabbles, but we’ve never had knife fights before!”

Homer (on phone): “When you sold me this house you forgot to mention one little thing: you didn’t tell me it was built on an Indian burial ground! No, you did not! Well, that’s not my recollection. Well, okay. Goodbye.” (turns to family) “Says he mentioned it five or six times.”

Bart: “Do it again!”
House: “What?”
Bart: “Make the walls bleed!”
House: “No.”
Bart: “Hey, we own you, man! Let’s see some blood!”
House: “I don’t have to entertain you!”
Bart: “Come on man! Do it! Do the blood thing! Come on! Do it! Do it!”
Lisa: “Why are you trying to scare us? Are you trying to keep us from getting close to you, maybe even loving you?”
House: “Leave me alone!”

House: “Hmm. Life with the Simpsons? What choice do I have?” (Vanishes)
Lisa: “It destroyed itself rather than live with us. You can’t help but feel a little rejected.”

Type of ending: Slightly downbeat but quite funny

Synopsis: In an opening scene which gives the series its unofficial title, Homer is sneaking back to the house dressed as a rather unconvincing ghost (sheet over the head, sort of thing) when he stops beneath Bart’s treehouse and decides to listen in to the kids’ ghost stories. He’s just in time to hear Lisa finish her urban legend, at which Bart scoffs, saying he has a much scarier tale. And so begins the story.

Unable to believe how they got such a lovely house in a prime location so cheaply, Marge worries there’s a catch, and fails to see objects floating, a voice growling GET OUT! (“Just the house settling,” explains an oblivious Homer) and blood running down the walls of the kitchen (“this place certainly could use a woman’s touch!”) - even a weird vortex in the kitchen, apparently leading to another dimension, does not faze the family. But when Marge finds the others all up and about that night, encouraged by the spirit of the house to kill each other, she has a stern talk with the house, telling it that they aren’t going anywhere, and it may as well just get used to the idea. In desperation, the house, having asked for a moment to think it over, pops out of existence.


Rating: A



Score
Story: 8 (as it’s not technically original I can’t give it top marks, though it parodies the haunted house idea well)
Laughs: 5
Originality: 2
Ending: 8
Longevity: 5
Total: 28

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018