Talking Simpsons - Treehouse of Horror (Revisited) With Ian Jones-Quartey

If I may create my own creepypasta meme theory: The "Hungry are the Damned" segment is a metaphor for the afterlife because Homer blew up the family when he lit the gas grill. Of course, the Simpsons family did not get into Heaven.

Wes is great, of course.

Thad Komorowski

Thad, I thought I'd ask, do you like the episodes Wes Archer directed for The Simpsons apart from "Homer's Odyssey"? I understand why you think it's bad visually, but I believe Wes improved very heavily by the time "Moaning Lisa" came out.

I'm glad we can all appreciate the artistic achievements of this episode now—these segments have always stuck with me for their uniquely moody atmosphere, even if they aren't as outright hilarious as later Halloween stuff. Listening to Marge's introduction again reminded me that the current leader of my (Canadian) province once made very similar statements about “not understanding” Halloween, which makes it doubly amusing to me.

Christmas Ape

This is why the Simpsons audio commentaries need to stop being taken as gospel, and you guys reminded me why I never liked them. A bunch of assholes who can't draw shitting on those who can but still demand deference (i.e. Jay Kogen). And people wonder why there's an anti-writer facet in animation. This episode is still high quality 30 years later. Put up whatever toilet creations they're doing on the show now against this and then get back to us about what looks like a sterile washing machine.

Thad Komorowski

James Earl Jones’ film/play The Great White Hope is a fictionalization of Jack Johnson’s life story, the first Black heavyweight champion. Ken Burns’ documentary about Johnson’s life is called Unforgivable Blackness and it’s well worth watching. (Sorry, Jack Johnson’s just cool.)

CMatt

Dont forget Jones performance as Thulsa Doom in Conan the Barbarian. A fantastic performance.

Jonathan

Season 31's Thanksgiving of Horror did a parody of the Black Mirror episode White Christmas, namely involving Homer getting an AI with Marge's personality/memories to help the real Marge out with all the holiday preparations. It's actually kinda ok for modern Simpsons, but it's still...you know, modern Simpsons.

Dayken

Is it that recent? Thought they started naming it Treehouse by season 8 or so

Frank Grimes

So my fiancé and I are mega twilight zone fans and I can actually explain why that episode feels a little different and why it’s not Rod Serling talking to you at the end of the episode. It’s because this is one of the of the episodes of the twilight zone that was just adapted from something else. It’s based on a 1950 short story that’s more or less 1 to 1 from what I remember with what happens in the episode including the narrator or the guy who gets on the spaceship talking directly to the audience, at least that’s my recollection from the last time I dug into why that episode is filmed so differently from the other. It certainly wasn’t the first and it certainly wasn’t the last to break the “traditional“ format of the twilight zone but it’s probably one of the most famous ones to do so. Personally I think it’s way better than say the adaptation of “an occurrence at owl Creek Ridge” which Rod Serling personally introduces because he thinks it’s so important and well-made and that may all be true but it is just such a boring episode that I almost always skip it these days. All of the above said the worst episode of the twilight zone is i sing the body electric and I will die on that hill. If you think to serve man doesn’t feel like a twilight zone episode then I sing the body electric might as well be an episode of saved by the bell.

Andrew Giachetti

Oh sick, I completely forgot about this coming up soon. Really nice to hear Ian too, he's always such a great guest

crystalhearts

When I was a young lad, I was very confused about the severed finger gag. I had never seen anything like that in real life so I was unaware that it was barts finger, thus I was a bit befuddled by his disgust at the baby spit. Instead of asking someone about this I wallowed in my own ignorance until I saw the gag box at a Spencers store

mavrick

To answer Bob's question, yes, the Halloween Specials are now named Treehouse of Horror since 13 or 14.

Mrsenoreddie

The Bad Dream House music is great and definitely unnerved me as a 10 year old. It has a cool 70s/80s Italian horror feel!

I have watched this episode specifically the raven part 1 million trillion times on my DVDs and I swear to God I never heard the music and sound effects that were happening in the background while the raven story was taken place (Seriously I’m watching it right now and I hear the music so strongly but I never in my memory had music I just had James Earl Jones talking to me it’s very disconcerting that my memory dropped the recognization of the music and the sound effects it just hypnotized me and made me shiver like Homer and laugh like Bart this is worthy of an Oscar and an Emmy and every other award you can think of I was allowed to show it in class in high school in a literary class to why and how literature can be used in film to express illustration in a captivating way to children

Tyler the Destroyer