Rate and Review: "Treehouse of Horror XXII" (NABF19)

[Xt'Tapalatakettle]

Intro: Thought it was not funny or good and went on too long.

First segment: Started out with an interesting premise (Homer is paralyzed by a spider), but descended into farting. I'm not objecting to fart jokes (they have their place), but it was a bit too much for me. Spiderman came out of nowhere, but I liked the last joke of the segment.

Second segment: Like the first, started off somewhat compelling, but didn't really know where to go. The ending was super rushed.

Third segment: I suppose this one was the most cohesive, but not all that funny or spooky. I did like Chalmers jumping into a larger version of himself, only to have the animal do the same.

Overall: Probably worse than last year's, which was pretty lousy in itself. Arguably the worst THoH we've got. It's a shame because two seasons ago, we had THoH XX, which was my favorite Halloween episode in the Jean era. D or 1.5/5

[The Governor]

I just got home from work and saw this mess. Honestly this felt like 15 minutes of episode and 15 minutes of commercials. Like many have said the best part was the first part, the rest was just shitty. The "Dexter" parody reminded me more of a bad parody of Bart's joke from Radio Bart.

Oh, well...2/5.

[Diversity Pumpkin]

Oh my god, you're right.

"Ned, this is God. Walk through the wall, I will remove it for you. ...Later."

[Dark Homer]

simonsam@twitTERROR

could this be sam simon's first contribution to the show since his self-portrait in 138th episode spectacular???

Co-Executive Producer MICHAEL: PRICE OF DARKNESS

nice

Co-Executive Producer Robsmary's LaBabynik

clever

Starring THE CABINET OF DAN CALIGARI-NETA

A+

HANK "OUT OF CLEVER NAMES" AZARIA

and PHONE-HACKEY SHEARER

first reference to the news corp phone hacking scandal in the show?

Associate Producers FRIGHTLEESHA NALIBOOOOSKY-CAPGOBLIN / GHOSTY SAYS #blackactionsuit / 40 MILES

first hashtag joke?

Theme by half-Elf half-Man

nice one

Master of Musical Manipulation @mxedtr

man don't just promote your twitter

Produced by RICHARD SAKAI
Special Guest Voice JACKIE MASON
Post Production Co-Producer DOMINIQUE BRAUD
Animation Co-Producer RICHARD K. CHUNG

these people should be ashamed of themselves

[Gatorgod]

It was a magical good time. Halloween is now offically complete when the Simpson's say it is.
I liked the Avatar parody.. I wanna see fan art of the whole family as Rigelians.. could somebody get on that?

[Real Melvin]

Bart had sex with an alien and impregnated it while in the distant vacuum of outer space. fucking metal.

[The Governor]

Wow, this is the lowest rated THoH and it has the fewest number of votes this long after it aired.

[Matty]

Well, another lame dissapointment of a Halloween Special. Worst part for me was the Road Runner sequence, such a lazy and overdone parody which brought nothing new to the table and had no fitting dark atmosphere whatsoever. Same goes for the fart jokes, at least try to do something new with it if you're going to that dried up comedy well.

[Blobulle]

Introduction : Pretty good intro, I like the design of the family (especially Lisa, in a saxophone), and a good end (remind me Happy Tree Friends...)

First story :

Awful. 0/5 (...)
Worst moment of the Simpsons ever.

Second story : Boring ! No laughs (except maybe the roadrunner part), short, the story was unfunny, banal. I don't have the feeling I was watching a Treehouse of Horror.
The end is the only thing surrealist... 1/5

Third story : Good, I like the story of this segment, and the battle at the end. 3/5


Overall : 1.5/5 rounded down to 1/5 in the poll. Worst Treehouse of Horror ever.

[EthanRunt]

The Avatar and Dexter ones had some funny beats but not all that engaging, but the Diving Bell gave me a fair few laughs and the opening segment I really enjoyed, I thought it was a pretty entertaining half hour.
4/5

[Rax]

- I have to give Alf Clausen credit for coming up with yet another fun spooky score for the THOHs. The end credits music was by far the most atmospheric thing in this.
- Pretty painful otherwise. These segments never go anywhere these days, it's just a bunch of jokes with very abrupt endings. The first one in particular felt like two long Family Guy cutaways stuck together.
- And what's up with these openings being their own semi-stories nowadays? They're not even building up to a big punchline, just the title drop somewhere.
- Haha, Flanders does horrible-looking things that turn out to be mundane! What a delightful subversion of the Dexter open... wait.
- Maude's appearence was funny, and I thought casting Chalmers as the bad guy in the Avatar parody was inspired.

[Cartoonnetwork]

It wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be by reading the reviews and watching the Homer farting sequence, just very average and mediocre, but I think there have been at least two or three worse Halloween episodes, if not more.

The main problem was the wasted potential

Intro...The chewing arms gag wasn't new but other than that I quite liked the revenge of the kids. It was cute. 3,5/5

First segment...Ok, the farting thing wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. The segment is extremely short, almost as if they thought the farts weren't such a good idea to spend a lot of time on them. However, I felt it was sad that they wasted such a good premise in such a rushed way. I'm not talking about the farts, but the idea of having Homer paralyzed while we heard his thoughts. I don't know if that's how The Butterfly and The Diving Bell is told, cause I haven't watched it, but man, this was great stuff for a Halloween segment. Rather sad and spooky and different from other segments. The subjective scene at the beginning was really interesting. Then they add farts and a Spiderman parody that came out of nowhere, and they had already made Spiderman gags in Simple Simpson and the movie... 2,5-3/5

Second segment...this was just ok. Again a little rushed by the end and again the spooky aspect wasn't totally exploted, but at least it was a little gruesome and the gags weren't fantastic but they were serviceable at least. I liked the three eyed Burns the most. Roadrunner gag wasn't bad, could have served better animation. 3/5

Third segment...probably the best if only because the story had an adequate length and the animation was a little more creative. A litte too close to the movie for my taste, but some of the designs were fun, like the characters as Rigellians or the wacky animals, though that gag dragged a little. Again not very spooky but at least more of a 'fantasy' feeling than the other two, which is something that also kinda works for Halloween episodes I guess. 3,5/5

The ending...Lisa's and Grandpa's bits were cute. They didn't need more lines from the other characters and they could have used only the family members instead of randomly including some secondary characters there.

Overall I was more or less entertained but I felt they wasted some good ideas on average developments. 3/5

And come on, people, worst Halloween ever? Horribly animated, terribly dull THOH XVIII was quite worse than this and last years was also worse or at least tied with this.

[lovebug]

I did laugh at a couple of moments. (My favorite part was at the end with Grandpa in the Black Swan costume.) Too bad a good chunk of it was kinda shitty. Especially the first segment, which is probably the worst TOH segment I've seen. The two were okay I guess. They were pretty bland though: 1.5/5

[Captain Squid]

Intro/Outro: I liked these, reminded me of the ol' wraparound days. 4/5

First Segment: I'll admit, I found the communicating via farting funny. Any other episode besides a halloween one, I'd say "1/5", but since it's THOH I give them more leeway for juvenile humor. Had the segment had a better ending I'd say 3/5, but the whole Spider-Man thing was just weird and not in a good way. 2/5

Second Segment: I'm a Dexter fan and a Ned fan. Segment wasn't perfect, but I found it funny. Again, the wacky twist ending wasn't needed but this time it worked for me. 4/5

Third Segment: I hated Avatar, so to see the Simpsons rip into it was hilarious. Also, best Kang and Kodos starring segment in a long time. Very clever designs for the animals. 4/5

Overall, 4/5 from me. When I rewatch it, I'll probably skip the first segment, but I enjoyed the last two.

[The Wiggs]

Really quite lame I thought. Homer farting was just stupid and not even remotely funny. The Ned murder thing was uneventful and boring and the Avatar part was just meh. 1/5

[Mr. Krikt]

Wow this episode was just poor. Homer wiping his brow with a chocolate bar is the sort of idea I'd imagine would be used as a last resort rather than one of the starting jokes. Homer eating his arm was disgusting and the sort of thing Family Guy has done for entertainment. The opening segment just felt phoned in.

Homer communicates through farts. How funny! Watching Lisa transcribe his thoughts wasn't amusing for me and then for the next part, he's farting webs. Really.

I love Dexter so the parody had to be good. I was annoyed that the intro parody had Flanders do violent looking things that turned out to be harmless but easily misconstrued given the framing - that's just recreating the actual intro. However, that led to a twist at the end so I suppose you can forgive it somewhat. Of course it drops the parody at that point because Flanders is murdering because "God" told him to, not because of some inner motivation. That's quite disappointing. Not much else to say about this segment as it falls apart quite quickly.

Seeing a number of Kang and Kodos style aliens is interesting. Uh... that's about it. I'm just very slightly weirded out by Bart talking about having sex considering they confirm later that he's just a schoolkid.

If my comments feel disjointed and pretty pointless, well that's a perfect representation of the episode.

[D DEBBS]

I liked everything except In The Na' Vi...plotline dragged a bit.

Also: in the intro where there's headstones out front of the Simpsons' yard, the only one I caught was Bleeding Gums Murphy...what were the others?

[The Governor]

I liked everything except In The Na' Vi...plotline dragged a bit.

Also: in the intro where there's headstones out front of the Simpsons' yard, the only one I caught was Bleeding Gums Murphy...what were the others?

Frank Grimes and Maude Flanders.

[warm slurm]

One of the worst episodes ever, imo, and definitely the worst THOH episode. The first segment seems like something The Simpsons would make fun of (I think they did a South Park parody or something, once) instead of actually use for serious humour. UGH.

[Yeshomer]

Thought the episode was solid, if not classic. I found this compilation of clips from every Treehouse episode from "The Morning After" on Hulu: http://www.hulu.com/watch/295079/the...ouse-of-horror

[The Governor]

Thanks to those cheeky reporters, I think I threw up in my mouth.

[Financial Panther]

I'm typing this before I vote, so I have no idea how people found the episode:

The Diving Bell and the Butterball: I thought this one was going to be awful, but it wasn't as bad as it sounded like it would be. The writers obviously got the idea from Le Petomane, but in a way, it seemed like a fresh idea. The ending as a spoof on Spider-Man was also fairly cute. Low 3/5.

Dial D for Diddily: I found this one the strongest of the three. Call me stupid, but I was genuinely surprised when it was revealed Homer was "God." I felt that the plot of the story brought back some memories of the classic era. (although it was by no means that brilliant) Low 4/5.

In the Na'Vi: Okay...this confused me. I've never seen Avatar, so that probably had a lot to do with it, but I couldn't even follow the story. It jumped around everywhere, and I never understood what was going on. I also think that they could have at least gotten some more humor out of Bart becoming an alien than what was provided. 1/5.

[uruguayo]

The introduction was funny, the part of vegetables is funny
The first segment was good, I liked Homer's letter. 5 / 5
The second segment I liked the last part, which appears god and the devil, and the chapter is well developed
4 / 5
The third Was good, but the worst of the three. I liked War
4 / 5
In general I like a lot, I thought it would be worse.

[Bleedin' Gums Murphy]

The introduction was funny, gave me the grace of vegetables
The first segment was good, I liked Homer's letter. 5 / 5
The second segment I liked the last part, which appears god and the devil, and the chapter is well developed
4 / 5
The third Was good, but the worst of the three. I liked War
4 / 5
In general I like a lot, I thought it would be worse.

You would seriously rate that episode as 8 or 9/10 ?!?!?

[Toomanygrandmas]

-'XXII Shit Films About Springfield'-

Happy Halloween everyone! Well, after a bit of a break, Season 23 returns. I felt excited watching this episode. No, not because I thought it would be good, but because to my memory it is the first Treehouse of Horror episode that I have seen on Halloween itself. One small problem though.... What the flying fuck does this episode have to do with Halloween? Seriously. I haven't seen all of the more recent THOHs, but this was barely Halloween-related at all. I don't expect to be cowering in the corner with fear, but could they at least have tried to make this episode scary - or even anything to do with Halloween at all? Well, I am rambling and I want to get down to the main body of the review, so here I go.

The opening bit was quite strange. There wasn't any content of it that I really objected to - the whole thing was sort of harmless. As I have said, I haven't seen all the recent THOHs, but I felt like the opening was way too long. Maybe something to do with the show having to do four acts. Still, as a result of the overly-long opening, the next two segments would unfortunately suffer.

~The Diving Bell and the Butterball~
I was really, really not looking forwards to this one - no prizes for guessing why. To be fair on it, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Yet it was still bad, for other reasons. I sort of liked the segment opening straight in the action - but that was all I really liked. First of all, this segment felt hardly halloween-ish at all. There was nothing remotely fear-inducing. Homer gets bitten by a spider, is paralysed and communicates with farts, then becomes Spiderman. Yeah. It sounds so silly typing it up, and it was so silly. The reason this episode was not as bad as I thought it was in one way, was that the farting jokes weren't as poor and obnoxious as I expected them to be. Yet, this segment still stank (badum-tish). The idea was bizzare, and still kind of childish. Also, there was no proper ending - it felt very rushed. Homer being romantic towards Marge could have been sweet, but it was hard to take seriously in a plot about farting. Overall, this segment was bad. Not as childish as it could have been, but very bizzare and very un-scary (which wasn't helped by the fact that the thing they were parodying wasn't even horror - hell, it wasn't even science fiction).

1/5

~Dial D for Diddly~
Another pun on 'Dial M for Murder', eh? Not a big problem, but they should give it a rest. Anyway, to the actual segment. This one just felt off, and very rushed. The idea wasn't as bad as the first segment, to be fair. Ned as a murderer sounded somewhat interesting. Unfortunately, there was no tension and the whole thing was quite dull. They should have had some tension, as Ned went in for the kill, yet there was none. I haven't seen Dexter before, but that didn't really bother me. What did bother me, was how the segment was handled. Ned kills a bunch of people, with no tension involved. Then there's some rushed ending where Ned gets angry and Homer, not for moral reasons but because he's more worried about going to hell. Then God, Satan and Maude pop in, and that's about it. Yeah, overall, there wasn't much going for this one, and it was a shame it wasn't better.

2/5

~In the Na'vi~
Like the previous two segments, this wasn't really horror related. I mean, let's be serious here, 'Avatar' was obviously not a horror. Still, at least it was science fiction (take note, first segment), so some more sympathy for that. I didn't like the film 'Avatar'. Did I like this segment? Not a lot, but it was the clear best of the three. The fist two segments were rushed, but this had more time, so naturally benefitted from it. No, this one wasn't scary. Yet it didn't feel rushed, and there was actually some story to it. The ending did feel a bit abrupt, but there was actually plot development of some sort. This segment was the given Kang and Kodos plot, but it didn't feel too forced. I'll admit, the parody was kind of late and maybe it wasn't necessary to parody Avatar just because it could be parodied. This segment wasn't that bad, though. To be honest, the only thing I disliked about the segment was the battle at the end, which just felt like a whole bunch of random stuff happening and aliens flying anywhere. Still, 'In the Na'vi' was the best segment of the episode.

3/5

In conclusion, 'Treehouse of Horror XXII' was not a good episode. The first segment was bad, the second was very mediocre, and the third was okay. To be honest though, I wasn't expecting much from this episode. I've never loved THOHs, and I didn't expect to like this. The first main problem with the episode was pacing. The first two segments happened too fast and didn't have a proper ending. The second main problem was that this was barely horror related or scary in the slightest. Maybe the next time they do a Treehouse of Horror, they should just scrap the name and call it 'The Simpsons: Reality Bending Ruckus XXIII'.

2/5 or 4.5/10

[Friz]

The introduction was funny, gave me the grace of vegetables.

New sig, thanks x

[suttsteve]

I was a bit disappointed. There was nothing Halloweenish about this episode. I remember when they, at least, TRIED to be scary. Those were the days.

[lionelhutz123]

but Jailhead, Sideshow Bob? What do they have against him, that would be Bart's department.

Maybe because sideshow bob has tried to kill bart and bart is homer's son? If that doesn't count sideshow bob also attempted to kill the entire family in "the italian bob" and "funeral for a fiend"...

[Zombies Rise from the Sea]

Maybe because sideshow bob has tried to kill bart and bart is homer's son? If that doesn't count sideshow bob also attempted to kill the entire family in "the italian bob" and "funeral for a fiend"...

Still... If he was doing stuff for others instead of himself then maybe he'd tell Flanders to kill the bullies who keep threatening them or Skinner or maybe even someone who made Lisa sad, the people who Ned kills are specifically mentioned and portrayed as Homer's enemies, also the relationship between Homer and Bart isn't really tight enough for Homer to request Sideshow Bob dead because he tried to kill Bart and the family... Again, what has Sideshow Bob done to Homer specifically...

Also the killing the whole family thing was only in the beginning, then it instantly took a U-Turn to killing Bart, not the family anymore, just Bart. You were right about them killing the whole family but that was only after they ruined his life unintentionally.

[lionelhutz123]

Still... If he was doing stuff for others instead of himself then maybe he'd tell Flanders to kill the bullies who keep threatening them or Skinner or maybe even someone who made Lisa sad

He didn't tell flanders to kill the bullies or skinner because they aren't trying to MURDER his son. I really don't see how this is a stretch.

the relationship between Homer and Bart isn't really tight enough for Homer to request Sideshow Bob dead because he tried to kill Bart and the family...

Says who? The show has always been about family despite any tension the characters have with one another. Are you using that scene where Bart ignores his dying father to send a text as a basis for your argument or something? Also, this is a treehouse of horror segment, so actions are going to be pushed to the extreme.

Again, what has Sideshow Bob done to Homer specifically...

Well if the whole idea of the family's lives being threatened doesn't count, his own life was threatened with tnt and a laptop battery as well as the whole fiasco in Italy.

Also the killing the whole family thing was only in the beginning, then it instantly took a U-Turn to killing Bart, not the family anymore, just Bart. You were right about them killing the whole family but that was only after they ruined his life unintentionally.

Who cares if his intentions have changed? You threaten someone's life, and you can't undo that. There's been 11 sideshow bob episodes. He's proven to be quite unpredictable.