While The Simpsons season 34 has already taken creative risks so far, the first full-length Treehouse of Horror movie parody represents another step forward for the show’s familiar format. Rather than playing it safe, The Simpsons season 34 has made a commendable effort to make a lot of potentially risky creative decisions in its first few outings, from explaining how The Simpsons predict the future to breaking the fourth wall even more than usual. However, one of The Simpsons season 34’s biggest, and potentially most promising, risks appears in its plans for the show's iconic Treehouse of Horror.
The Simpsons’ “Not IT” (season 34, episode 5) will see the long-running series air the first of two Treehouse of Horror Halloween specials featured in season 34. However, airing two Treehouse of Horror episodes in one season is not the only risk the episode takes, as "Not IT" sees Krusty the Clown play the part of Pennywise in a parody of the classic Stephen King adaptation It. Unlike every earlier Treehouse of Horror outing, this episode will consist of one long story rather than three shorter segments. It is a big risk, but one that could benefit future Treehouse of Horror outings immensely if the outing proves a success.
Why The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror Format Works
Already, The Simpsons broke its usual anthology framework in season 34 with “Lisa the Boy Scout” (season 34, episode 3). That episode consisted of over a dozen very short skits as opposed to the usual three equal segments and a brief framing device that traditional anthology episodes of The Simpsons are broken into. This format was pioneered by the Treehouse of Horror Halloween specials, since splitting a 21-minute episode into 3 7-minute segments ensured that The Simpsons never dwelled on one story for too long and lost audience interest. Furthermore, if a viewer wasn't familiar with, for example, Split or the Kingsman movies, they could rest assured that another blockbuster spoof of Jurassic Park or the Mad Max movies was never more than mere minutes away thanks to this multiple-story approach.
The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror Format Is Limited
While the loose, unclear canon of The Simpsons means that the show can get away with a lot of experimental plot lines, there is a limit to how zany an average episode of the series can be. For example, The Simpsons rarely kills off characters only to have them return unharmed an episode later, which is one of the reasons that the pointedly non-canon Treehouse of Horror Halloween specials offer the creators more creative freedom and bandwidth than normal outings. However, this framework comes with limitations. A lot of the best Treehouse of Horror segments, such as those based on "The Shinning,” "Nightmare On Evergreen Terrace," and “Clown Without Pity," have enough material to sustain a much longer skit. The third of those, a story about a killer Krusty doll, doesn’t even find time to mention Chucky or the Child’s Play movies despite airing at the height of the slasher franchise’s popularity.
The Simpsons Have Experimented With Their Halloween Episodes
Due to the limitations of the Treehouse of Horror format, The Simpsons has tried to change and rework the show’s annual scary outings in recent seasons. For example, The Simpsons’ “Treehouse of Horror XXXII,” (season 33, episode 3) featured five shorter parodies instead of three longer ones. The problem with this approach is that this leaves even less time for stories to breathe and makes it feel like the creators of The Simpsons aren't sufficently confident in any one story, cramming in as many movie parodies as possible and prioritizing quantity over quality in the process. While a short standalone vignette (like Bill Plympton’s inspired season 34 couch gag) can be the best part of a normal episode of The Simpsons, splitting a 21-minute holiday special into 5 shorter sketches ensures that none of them can get their teeth into the media that they are ostensibly spoofing.
The scattershot approach of the Treehouse of Horror series has seen The Simpsons move from parodying classic horror movies and anthology shows to famous horror media more broadly, to everything from sci-fi movies to YA adaptations. This lack of focus has resulted in some of the show’s weakest Halloween specials, as The Simpsons attempted to spoof Avatar, Dexter, Spider-Man, and (inexplicably) The Diving Bell and The Butterfly in one 21-minute episode (and this was before the series started to split the Treehouse of Horror episodes into five segments). Much like finally addressing the mystery of Marge’s social life gave The Simpsons season 34 one of its strongest outings so far, slowing down and focusing on one parody for a sustained period of screen time could give the Treehouse of Horror series a chance to impress viewers with a genuinely inventive, inspired horror spoof.
The Simpsons Season 34’s Pennywise Parody Is Genius
A billion-dollar, two-part hit that was adapted from the iconic Stephen King bestseller, It is a perfect choice for the first Treehouse of Horror episode that will see The Simpsons devote twenty minutes to one movie parody thanks to its popularity, its genuinely scary tone, and its nostalgia factor. It is arguably the most recognizable horror property from the last decade and has the added appeal of 90s nostalgia thanks to the original 1990 miniseries, making the two-chapter movie a perfect candidate for The Simpsons season 34’s first full episode movie parody. Both South Park and The Simpsons already got classic episodes from parodying Stephen King’s work, and It is filled with plenty of iconic scenes for The Simpsons to offer a comedic riff on.
Since It is an instantly recognizable, massively successful movie, the creators of The Simpsons don’t need to worry about viewers not getting the reference. Since the novel and both its adaptations are pop culture touchstones, the episode doesn’t need to waste screen time establishing It’s premise. Finally, since The Simpsons already has Krusty the Clown as a major supporting character, the show can spoof Pennywise without establishing a new character or relying on over-used celebrity cameos. All of these factors prove that The Simpsons could not have a better testing ground for a full-episode movie parody than It. As a result, The Simpsons’ first single-story Treehouse of Horror episode has the potential to reinvent the longstanding show tradition.
New episodes of The Simpsons air on Fox on Sundays.