![]() Smith and Kingsman.Īlthough the classic 'Treehouse of Horrors' drew inspiration from parodying The Twilight Zone, in its early Halloween specials The Simpsons was also adept at coming up with original horror shorts. Not only that, but attempting to remain relevant by cramming in parodies of films which are far from horror ( Kingsman, Into The Spiderverse, and even The Diving Bell and the Butterfly in one particularly onerous installment) results in a disastrously inconsistent tone for the series, particularly when The Simpsons often ends up spoofing works which are already comedic in themselves such as Heaven Can Wait, Russian Doll, and the aforementioned Mr & Mrs. Meanwhile, when the writers are familiar with the source material, the slow production process of The Simpsons means it took 3 years from the debut of Stranger Things for the 'Treehouse of Horror' series to parody the show. ![]() When the series tries too hard to be timely, the declining later-season Simpsons is rightly criticized for spoofing stuff that the writers are evidently unfamiliar with (as happened in the infamous Harry Potter ”spoof” 'Wiz Kids'). ![]() In contrast, the show’s recent approach of parodying up-to-date pop culture can result in two outcomes, both of which are undesirable for the show’s creators. Related: Every Time The Simpsons Brought Characters Back From the Dead Compare this 'Treehouse of Horror XVIII', which parodied the largely forgotten action-rom-com Mr & Mrs. Similarly, the attention to detail which' Treehouse of Horror VI'’s 'Nightmare on Evergreen Terrace' devotes to recreating Wes Craven’s classic slasher Nightmare on Elm Street can go toe-to-toe with fan favorite 'Cape Feare'’s recreation of Martin Scorsese’s upmarket slasher Cape Fear, with the skit again staying focused squarely on recreating the tone, story, and specific shots/scenes of an instantly recognizable horror classic. 'Treehouse of Horror V'’s critically adored 'The Shinning' is, right down to its title, shot-for-shot comedic recreation of Kubrick’s classic Stephen King adaptation which doesn’t waste its very limited time trying to parody anything else. The important element here, however, is a single-minded focus on horror. When the source material runs for a mere half-hour, The Simpsons can cut it down to 7 minutes with ease, but some 'Treehouse of Horror' skits did manage to parody entire feature films successfully and produce some of the series’ best-loved segments in the process. In comparison, one recent 'Treehouse of Horror' segment tried to parody the entire Hunger Games trilogy AND Mad Max: Fury Road in one 7 minute segment while also trying to incorporate as many Simpsons characters as possible, and ended up overstuffed. This simple system gave The Simpsons some of its best 'Treehouse of Horror' installments, from 'Treehouse of Horror I'’s 'Hungry Are the Damned' (an ingenious spoof of 'To Serve Man') to IV’s ‘Terror at 5 1/2 Feet’ (a bizarrely bloody and surprisingly creepy riff on 'Nightmare at 20,000 Feet'). The Twilight Zone was an ideal source of inspiration for 'Treehouse of Horror' shorts because the series had only half an hour to establish a world and tell a story, meaning The Simpsons could compress their spoof into 7 short minutes.
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