 |
| Bart: "Dad, you killed the zombie Flanders!" Homer: "He was a zombie?" |
These Halloween episodes just keep getting better and better. The first one to have an actual couch gag, it like its predecessors have a central story: the Simpsons and many of the school children are at the house partaking in Halloween activities. Marge tries to do that "pretend this food is body parts" gag, but Homer ruins it by eating the food. Thinking of activities to do instead, its suggested that stories, scary stories should be told instead. Lisa starts off, followed by Grampa's old movie parody and Bart's thriller. Homer attempts to tell one, but its not good at all.
Clown Without Pity
Forgetting to buy Bart a birthday present, Homer hurries over to an occult shop for some reason. There he finds the shopkeep (who offers him some "frogurt" which is just frozen yogurt). Inquiring about a present for Bart, Homer is given a talking Krusty doll from the shopkeep, and after eventually declining an offer for Frogurt, Homer goes home to give Bart the present. There, Grampa claims the doll to be evil, though its dismissed by everyone including Grampa himself to be rambling for attention. A short time later, though, Homer is messing around with the doll when suddenly it states it doesn't like Homer and that its going to kill Homer, brandishing a knife. Freaking out, the rest of the family doesn't see what's happened and believe Homer has lost some kind of sanity. After a few more attempts at Homer's life, he's able to stuff the doll into a bag full of Homer's worn socks (which is just cruel), and throws it into a "bottomless pit". However, the doll is able to escape quickly enough to return with Homer in hiding, then makes another attack on his life. Marge is able to see it this time, and as Homer yells out "The doll's trying to kill me and the toaster's been laughing at me!" really quickly, Marge is able to call a repairman to come in and check the doll out. Turns out, a switch on the back of the doll had been set to "Evil", and after the repairman sets it to "Good" instead, the doll quickly embraces Homer, which Homer takes advantage of by making the doll his servant. Good times.
Individual Score: +2.0
King Homer
In this King Kong parody as told by Grampa, Mr. Burns wishes to go to Ape Island to capture a prehistoric ape, with Marge volunteering to come along (though she doesn't know why). Arriving on the island, Marge is quickly captured by a tribe that worships the beast, and offer her as a sacrifice. The ape, King Homer, comes to court Marge when he finds himself under attack by Burns and gang. After fighting back, eating Lenny in the process, Smithers is able to knock him out with gas, though Homer eats him as well in his sleep.
With the ape captured, Burns puts him on Broadway for audiences to gawk at. However, Homer is able to break free. After messing around a bit, he finds and captures Marge and makes an attempt to climb the Empire State Building. However, he's only able to climb but a single story before tiring out and collapsing on the street. With King Homer's showbiz career dead, Marge decides to take care of the ape from then on. Naturally, they soon get married. Good times.
Individual Score: +1.5
Dial "Z" for Zombies
After an attempt to do a book report on a preschool book falls through, Bart tries to find a more suitable book at the library. There, he notices an odd Occult section that he had not noticed before. There, he finds a book (or more like it finds him) called "Time/Life Book of Magick and Spelles Vol II". Taking it home with him, he later leans that its the anniversary of the death of Lisa's first cat, Snowball I. Bart finds a resurrection spell in the book and takes Lisa to the pet cemetery to revive the dead. However, Bart reads the wrong spell, and ends up summoning zombies from their graves in the nearby human cemetery. While the two make a run for it, the zombies begin infecting Springfield residents such as Flanders, Skinner and Krusty the Klown. The next night, the zombies make a run for the Simpsons place, when Bart and Lisa get the idea to return to the school library to find a spell that will undo the zombie plague. The family fight their way to the car, with Homer having to shoot down the zombie Flanders (though Homer asks "He was a zombie?"). At the school, Bart finds the book and reads the spell that undoes the zombie plague. Some zombies return to their graves, others just collapse on the road, whatever. The Simpsons celebrate, but soon become zombies to TV. Good times.
Individual Score: +1.7
Quick Review
I'm only three ToH's in, but I doubt I'll come across a good a Halloween episode as this one. All three segments were classic stuff, full of memorable lines and moments and is one of the all-time classics for the show, a fine example of Season 4's brilliance.
Note: you may notice that the individual scores plus the base score of 5.0 add up to more than 10. As noted elsewhere, while my raw score my exceed 10 for some episodes, the maximum official score has to remain at 10.
Final Score: 10
No comments:
Post a Comment