[7.6/10 on a post-classic Simpsons scale] It’s funny how Homer draws attention to the “two good stories, and one lame one in the middle” conceit for The Simpsons’ anthology episodes, because this was basically the opposite. The first story here was okay. The last one was fine. But it’s the middle tale, plus the intro and interstitial segments, that really boosted this one.
The opening homage to Bambi is pretty mild and toothless as spoofs of the new parent company go. But it is visually neat to see Springfielders turned into woodland critters and there’s a few good bits of wordplay. (“Stag party” got a chuckle out of me, for one.)
The first story is an homage to Parasite, but doesn’t go much beyond the original movie. Again, it’s a little novel just to fill in familiar Simpsons characters in big time movies, something the show’s coasted on for years, but there’s not much more in the way of laughs here than that. They at least get a little pointed with the political commentary toward the end, but otherwise this is an amusing enough, but unambitious copy and paste job.
It’s the middle story that really shines, possibly because it’s the most original. A tree uprising is just unique enough to pique my interest, and I love the art direction and animation of the trees. The show has fun paying homage to famous trees in pop culture, from the ents in Lord of the Rings to the Stanford Cardinal to the Giving Tree. And this one has a lot of classic bonks and kills from the arboreal aggressors throwing their woody weight around. It had some good wordplay to boot! This was the one that felt most like a classic Treehouse segment.
Then there came a brief interstitial, featuring a VIncent Price-type figure reading Maggie a poem about Bart’s misdeeds. I loved the verses the writers came up with, and the “Dark Stanley”-style art direction was another winner. It’s hard to give too much credit since this was just a minute’s worth of material, but the specificity and character of the whole short was delightful.
I can’t say the same for the final segment, an homage to The Ring. I like the angle they choose to go with here -- namely, Lisa feeling left out at school and soothing a ghost whose haunting was similarly motivated. But the gags are really weak, and the fact that the ghost would rather stay stuck in a well than be Lisa’s friend is a pretty sour note to go out on. Definitely the weakest story of the bunch.
Overall though, a reasonably good post-classic Treehouse of Horror episode, bolstered by a fantastic middle segment that upped the rating all around.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2021-11-10T22:43:03Z
[7.6/10 on a post-classic Simpsons scale] It’s funny how Homer draws attention to the “two good stories, and one lame one in the middle” conceit for The Simpsons’ anthology episodes, because this was basically the opposite. The first story here was okay. The last one was fine. But it’s the middle tale, plus the intro and interstitial segments, that really boosted this one.
The opening homage to Bambi is pretty mild and toothless as spoofs of the new parent company go. But it is visually neat to see Springfielders turned into woodland critters and there’s a few good bits of wordplay. (“Stag party” got a chuckle out of me, for one.)
The first story is an homage to Parasite, but doesn’t go much beyond the original movie. Again, it’s a little novel just to fill in familiar Simpsons characters in big time movies, something the show’s coasted on for years, but there’s not much more in the way of laughs here than that. They at least get a little pointed with the political commentary toward the end, but otherwise this is an amusing enough, but unambitious copy and paste job.
It’s the middle story that really shines, possibly because it’s the most original. A tree uprising is just unique enough to pique my interest, and I love the art direction and animation of the trees. The show has fun paying homage to famous trees in pop culture, from the ents in Lord of the Rings to the Stanford Cardinal to the Giving Tree. And this one has a lot of classic bonks and kills from the arboreal aggressors throwing their woody weight around. It had some good wordplay to boot! This was the one that felt most like a classic Treehouse segment.
Then there came a brief interstitial, featuring a VIncent Price-type figure reading Maggie a poem about Bart’s misdeeds. I loved the verses the writers came up with, and the “Dark Stanley”-style art direction was another winner. It’s hard to give too much credit since this was just a minute’s worth of material, but the specificity and character of the whole short was delightful.
I can’t say the same for the final segment, an homage to The Ring. I like the angle they choose to go with here -- namely, Lisa feeling left out at school and soothing a ghost whose haunting was similarly motivated. But the gags are really weak, and the fact that the ghost would rather stay stuck in a well than be Lisa’s friend is a pretty sour note to go out on. Definitely the weakest story of the bunch.
Overall though, a reasonably good post-classic Treehouse of Horror episode, bolstered by a fantastic middle segment that upped the rating all around.