The Simpsons' Halloween specials, the 'Treehouse of Horror' series, need to return to their origins to succeed with audiences and critics again. After 30 years on the air, it’s understandable that The Simpsons struggles to win over both viewers and reviewers as it nears its 700th episode. But the once-beloved animated sitcom is working against itself by continuing with a fatally flawed approach to its annual Halloween specials, the 'Treehouse of Horror' series.
Named after the setting of the original' Treehouse of Horror', these Halloween specials of The Simpsons started by parodying established classics in the horror pantheon, such as Poltergeist and The Amityville Horror, as well as Twilight Zone episodes. In time, the episodes started spinning their own original scary stories too, and these two approaches resulted in classic scary-funny segments such as ‘Clown Without Pity’ and ‘The Genesis Tub’. But in recent years, the scattershot satire has resulted in much less consistent comedy thanks to a focus on up-to-the-minute spoofs.
It’s broadly agreed upon that the once-peerless Simpsons has fallen off over a decade ago when the anarchic cartoon sitcom began to lose favor with critics. But the show’s Golden Age was not just defined by an incredible writing team, and the changing approach to the 'Treehouse of Horror' specials illustrates a problem with the writing of post-season-9 Simpsons more broadly. By trying to stay up-to-date with cultural references and attempting to cram in countless jokes, The Simpsons strains to remain relevant and ironically ends up dating itself faster. If the creators want to win back fans, The Simpsons needs to go back to the influences that made its early 'Treehouse of Horror' specials great: classic horror films, classic Twilight Zone episodes, and original scary stories.
The Twilight Zone (& Treehouse of Horrors) Is Self-Contained
The Twilight Zone was an ideal source of inspiration for 'Treehouse of Horror' shorts because the series had only half an hour to establish a world and tell a story, meaning The Simpsons could compress their spoof into 7 short minutes. This simple system gave The Simpsons some of its best 'Treehouse of Horror' installments, from 'Treehouse of Horror I'’s 'Hungry Are the Damned' (an ingenious spoof of 'To Serve Man') to IV’s ‘Terror at 5 1/2 Feet’ (a bizarrely bloody and surprisingly creepy riff on 'Nightmare at 20,000 Feet'). In comparison, one recent 'Treehouse of Horror' segment tried to parody the entire Hunger Games trilogy AND Mad Max: Fury Road in one 7 minute segment while also trying to incorporate as many Simpsons characters as possible, and ended up overstuffed.
When the source material runs for a mere half-hour, The Simpsons can cut it down to 7 minutes with ease, but some 'Treehouse of Horror' skits did manage to parody entire feature films successfully and produce some of the series’ best-loved segments in the process. The important element here, however, is a single-minded focus on horror. 'Treehouse of Horror V'’s critically adored 'The Shinning' is, right down to its title, shot-for-shot comedic recreation of Kubrick’s classic Stephen King adaptation which doesn’t waste its very limited time trying to parody anything else. Similarly, the attention to detail which' Treehouse of Horror VI'’s 'Nightmare on Evergreen Terrace' devotes to recreating Wes Craven’s classic slasher Nightmare on Elm Street can go toe-to-toe with fan favorite 'Cape Feare'’s recreation of Martin Scorsese’s upmarket slasher Cape Fear, with the skit again staying focused squarely on recreating the tone, story, and specific shots/scenes of an instantly recognizable horror classic. Compare this 'Treehouse of Horror XVIII', which parodied the largely forgotten action-rom-com Mr & Mrs. Smith for some reason.
The (Original) Twilight Zone Isn’t Relevant
Rod Serling’s classic anthology series The Twilight Zone will never be truly irrelevant thanks to the prescient writer’s sharp satire. The Twilight Zone is particularly far from irrelevance right now thanks to the popularity of anthology horror shows and Get Out creator Jordan Peele taking over host duties for the most recent remake of Serling’s iconic series. That said, a big part of why The Simpsons’ early 'Treehouse of Horrors' felt inspired for many viewers is that The Twilight Zone episodes their segments were parodying were from the original sixties series. The Twilight Zone had already been revived on the big and small screen during the eighties, but the fact that early 'Treehouse of Horrors' derived inspiration almost exclusively from the original series meant that The Simpsons was introducing these stories to a new audience via their spoofs.
In contrast, the show’s recent approach of parodying up-to-date pop culture can result in two outcomes, both of which are undesirable for the show’s creators. When the series tries too hard to be timely, the declining later-season Simpsons is rightly criticized for spoofing stuff that the writers are evidently unfamiliar with (as happened in the infamous Harry Potter ”spoof” 'Wiz Kids'). Meanwhile, when the writers are familiar with the source material, the slow production process of The Simpsons means it took 3 years from the debut of Stranger Things for the 'Treehouse of Horror' series to parody the show. Not only that, but attempting to remain relevant by cramming in parodies of films which are far from horror (Kingsman, Into The Spiderverse, and even The Diving Bell and the Butterfly in one particularly onerous installment) results in a disastrously inconsistent tone for the series, particularly when The Simpsons often ends up spoofing works which are already comedic in themselves such as Heaven Can Wait, Russian Doll, and the aforementioned Mr & Mrs. Smith and Kingsman.
The Series Can Still Tell Original Stories
Although the classic 'Treehouse of Horrors' drew inspiration from parodying The Twilight Zone, in its early Halloween specials The Simpsons was also adept at coming up with original horror shorts. For example, ‘Dial Z For Zombies’, ‘Nightmare Cafeteria’, and ‘The Thing & I’ all remixed recognizable horror tropes without spoofing a specific film, and as a result, they were critically lauded and remain beloved by fans as classic 'Treehouse of Horror' installments ('Nightmare Cafeteria' doesn’t share anywhere near enough DNA with Soylent Green to be considered a parody of the dystopian sci-fi movie, regardless of some claims).
Meanwhile, the comparatively good reviews for late-season non-spoof segments such as ’Heck House’, ‘The Greatest Story Ever Holed’, and ‘BFF RIP’ prove that The Simpsons can still win over critics when the writers create new stories instead of relying on thin parodies of recent hits. Creating original stories, along with parodying classic horrors instead of whatever is popular and drawing inspiration from anthology series such as The Twilight Zone, allowed the early 'Treehouse of Horror' shorts to win The Simpsons both critical acclaim and fan adoration. It’s never too late for Springfield’s first family to win back the crowd, but The Simpsons needs to return to their effective origins to tell funny, compelling Halloween horror stories.