Simpsons Did It!: “Treehouse Of Horror XXI”

Aw man, not another Halloween episode.  I never know how to write up anthology episodes.  Sure, Professor Frink fast forwards himself to death after accidentally “spoiling” the episode while fast forwarding through Bart running Homer over with a lawnmower, and the Frankenstein monster really likes The Office and…

Where was I going with this?

So, let’s track where the parodies are coming from.  First up:  Jumanji.

Is that scary?  No.

But Bart and Milhouse try playing “Satan’s Path” and that just brings a bunch of board games to life.  The boys have to play through to change everything back, though Selma looks like she scored a date with Kang and/or Kodos playing something that looks like “Mystery Date”.  Yes, Bart prevails, but then they both die playing a very real game of Hangman when Milhouse uses their last turn to guess the letter “3”.

That is wrong on so many levels.

Next up:  Dead Calm.

Is that scary?  I dunno.  I’ve never seen that one.  That’s the one that made Nicole Kidman famous, right?

Well, Homer and Marge are on a second honeymoon on a private (rented) sailboat cut off from everyone except for Lenny who calls for lottery numbers and a mysterious man named Roger (guest star Hugh Laurie).  Roger says he was the chef onboard a private boat when he was asked to murder the guests or something, and he ran away when it looked like everyone was dead.  Homer thinks Roger did it and tries to kill him, and Marge assists when they see a dead shark that may have swallowed poisoned pie.  But then they find the boat and discover Roger’s story checks out.  Then Roger shows up.  He wasn’t dead.  The shark died from the fuel leak from Homer’s boat.  Homer kills Roger to prevent him from talking.  Then the dead guests start to wake up because they prepped themselves with an antidote, so Homer kills them too.  I’m not sure why he killed the pelican.  Marge can’t live with the guilt and eats the poison pie and dies.

Then we learn the whole thing was a daydream held by Maggie in the bathtub.  She also thinks she’s the guy from A Clockwork Orange.

That got dark.

Final segment:  Twilight.

Is that scary?  Are you kidding?  Twilight sucks.

So, Lisa goes to school and sees the new kid, Edmund (guest star Daniel Radcliffe…that’s actually clever casting).  Edmund saves Lisa’s life many times over from out-of-control vehicles but she only figures out he’s a vampire when she sees the fangs.  The Simpsons invite Edmund over for dinner, and he brings his dad Dracula.  What do the Simpsons serve?  Um…Ned Flanders.

Eep.

Homer took a drumstick.

Double eep.

However, Dracula is just as embarrassing to 400 year old Edmund as Homer is to 8 year old Lisa, so the two run away.  Dracula and Homer follow to the vampire part of Springfield, and that’s where they get directions from what looks like Count Von Count who’s feasting on what looks like Big Bird.

Triple eep.

As it is, Lisa asks to become a vampire until she realizes she’d be forever eight, but by then Edmund’s bloodlust is up, so Homer offers his own blood to Edmund and Dracula.  The two vampires die of sudden heart attacks from all the (bad) cholesterol and Homer’s a vampire.  Can he fly?  No.  He falls and probably dies.

He is dragged away by Milhouse the were-poodle.

Too many eeps.

And that’s another anthology done.