There are two kinds of The Simpsons fans: ones who believe the show hasn’t been good since the turn of the century, and ones who just keep watching it anyway—whether or not they actually think it’s any good.
Whichever camp you belong to, there is usually at least one episode worth tuning into every season. Loyal viewers and old-school fans alike are on the same page about this year’s edition of “Treehouse of Horror,” the show’s annual Halloween special. “Treehouse of Horror XXXIII,” which premiered Sunday night, is one of the best ones ever—if not the most fun episode in years.
A big part of that fun? The serious level of Simpsons fan service in the episode’s third-and-final segment. Kicking off with an iconic moment from one of the show’s most beloved episodes, Season 4’s “Marge vs. the Monorail” (Homer: “I call the big one Bitey”), the outing, at first, seemed to indulge our irrepressible nostalgia for the good ol’ days. But this wasn’t the start of some greatest hits segment; “Treehouse of Horror” always gets into something much stranger. And this episode is all the better for it.
The show abruptly breaks from its original, hand-drawn animation and transitions into a modern-day digital style. Things quickly get meta, as it turns out that we’re watching one of the experiences at Simpsons World, a theme park where fans can walk through all their favorite Simpsons scenes. That isn’t really Homer pointing at a possum hanging from the inside of the monorail’s engine; it’s a robot programmed to look, sound, and act like Homer.
But when two visitors to the park force the robotic Homer to binge-drink some beer, he short-circuits; park workers quickly drag him to the back room for repairs. As we watch a truck escort Homer-bot—and a bunch of other Simpsons character androids, from two different Nelsons to the very minor character Disco Stu—through the park, we also get to go on an Easter egg hunt.
Some of the other robots and setpieces we quickly see at Simpsons World include:
- Grandpa Simpson yelling at a cloud (aka the “Old Man Yells at Cloud” meme)
- The “Hi I’m Big Butt Skinner” weather balloon
- A sign for Kamp Krusty, along with accompanying totem pole
- Lisa riding her pony
- Bart riding his elephant
- Homer driving “The Homer,” a.k.a. “the car built for Homer”
- Homer driving his Mr. Plow snowplow truck
- Homer prancing after sentient chocolate bunnies
- General Bart and friends pulling a tied-up Nelson in their wagon
- Hank Scorpio using his flamethrower
This 10-second drive through Simpsons World features all of these old-school gags and then some. And that’s just one little scene; once the truck gets to its secret control room, the newly self-aware Homer bot runs into a slew of other sight gags. (Scariest of all are the five-fingered, non-yellow workers meant to fix the robots.)
Once Homer-bot finds out that he’s about to get his head cut open, he demands answers. “I know you feel like a man, but you’re actually something much, much more expensive,” he’s told. “Intellectual property!” They’re not wrong, especially since there is actually a Simpsons attraction at Universal Studios in real life.
Homer stumbles upon entire cages of different versions of Lisa, Marge, Bart, and Maggie, all broken-down. Fans will want to pause each of these frames to start listing off all the episodes referenced here, especially since so many of them are from those aforementioned good ol’ days. (I’m one of those people who swears off any Simpsons episode post-Season 8, by the way.) There’s Frank Grimes! There’s Lisa with gum, mayo, and peanut butter in her hair!
When he awakens and rescues his family, Homer-bot and co. make their way out from the underground; they emerge through a trap door under a statue of Jebediah Springfield (“A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man”) and quickly head out on the run.
Greedy superfans try to stop Homer-bot from leaving by sending him backward into the bushes, recognizable from yet another modern-day meme. Once Homer pushes them into the bushes instead, they die instantly (?!) and the fam continues their escape. Along the way we see Homer skateboarding over a gorge, Marge running her Pretzel Wagon stand, and Ralph Wiggum, purveyor of adorably annoying catchphrases. Sadly, as Lisa says, “If we want to escape with our delusions of being alive, we have to fight,” which means battling through the countless Ralph-bots.
Murdering innocent, pea-brained Ralph is both sad and hilarious—a nod to how much airtime he got in the show’s teen years. Every sitcom goes through its over-the-top catchphrase period, and Ralph’s evolution into dimwit-dom was a crucial part of The Simpsons’ own awkward phase. There’s a reason that Bloodhound Gang was able to write an entire song solely using Ralph Wiggum quotes; he has a lot of them.
Also, when Homer uses a T-shirt cannon to kill off a bunch of Ralph-bots, he accidentally shoots a Maude Flanders-bot too. Guess she didn’t learn her lesson from the first time she got killed by an errant flying T-shirt.
When the family gets the hell outta Simpsons World, they drive away as far as their car will take them. They end up at a bespoke diner somewhere, tasting what they believe is freedom. It is freedom, in a way—albeit just for the Simpsons. They’ve actually stumbled into the neighboring Bob’s Burgers Land, which we find out when Linda Belcher shows up to their table singing about tonight’s specials.
What long-running cartoon isn’t IP these days, after all? I, for one, would certainly take a trip to Bob’s Burgers Land, or any of the other theme parks that the show zooms out to show us in its final moments. South Park Park? Futurama-rama? Rick and Morty Mountain? SpongeBob Sea? Sign me up—or, as fans of one of those shows in particular might quote, “Shut up and take my money!”
Perhaps not every episode of The Simpsons is this much fun these days; this is Season 34, after all. But the show is still able to win us over easily, just by dispensing references to old-school episodes. It’s a cheap gimmick if deployed poorly, but in the case of this Westworld-parodying sketch, it works. Homer and co. aren’t just spewing familiar phrases in the hopes of making fans like me, who no longer tune in regularly, laugh out loud. They’re woven into a witty story about how popular animated shows like these have evolved into brands and commodities as much as creative entertainment.
If there’s money to be made off a cartoon, companies like Disney and Paramount will find every way possible to make that money. At least they can still make us chuckle while doing it.
