What? Yes, mister! Woohoo!
Da da da da da da da da da da!
What. Is. Up. Everybody.
Thanks for listening. Welcome back to the Mmm Donuts podcast.
This is the third installment of the Three House of Horror that I promised I would drop all on the same day.
First three. You're welcome. This has been a fun day for me.
I have watched a lot of The Simpsons today and I regret nothing.
So let's get right into it.
Thanks again for being here. I really appreciate you listening to my podcast wherever it is that you're listening.
It shows most of my listeners are on Samsung podcasts.
Like 50 percent, 49 or 50 percent. So super cool. Thank you very much.
The next biggest is Apple podcasts, but Samsung, you're beating Apple by like double. So well done.
So like I said, this is The Simpsons Three House of Horror 3.
This is season four, episode five, and it aired October 29th, 1992.
There are no guest stars and I have something new in best jokes.
Now, I knew this would happen. I'd seen it ahead of time because I started when I when I started creating this podcast,
I I started watching The Simpsons from the very beginning.
And I'm in season nine right now. OK, I watch, you know, several a day.
And then, of course, I watch the episode that I'm doing the podcast for, like right before I finished the outline.
OK, so but anyway, as I got into season four, like I've told you many times,
I feel about how like season three is really where they hit their stride.
But in season four through six, they get there are so many jokes that I seriously,
I seriously I cannot decide which one is my favorite, which one is the best.
So I will devote a little extra time to just pointing out all the best jokes.
In fact, Bart versus Australia, which is in season six, that may be a three hour episode.
That is by far my favorite episode of all time.
And it is going to be a lot of fun to dive into that one.
It is it is it is fun. So best jokes. OK.
First, the the one the very beginning credits, they're doing the gravestones like they do
in in the first several seasons of this episode, the treehouse of horror, that is.
And the last tombstone, it says American workmanship.
You get it because, you know, tombstone means that that thing died.
So American workmanship died.
And then it crumbles into pieces and the little tiny bits that that was funny.
Even as a little almost teenager, I thought that was hilarious.
And today, I still think that joke holds. It was really done. OK.
The next joke is a bit they've done before in different ways.
But this was so funny. Homer is a gorilla.
He's King Homer and he's climbing up a tall building.
And it shows that he's really tired and he's out of breath and he's dying and he needs to take a break.
So he falls backward off off the building.
And that's when the camera, so to speak, it's animation pans out.
And you can see he was only about three feet off the ground.
So even if you knew it was coming, that's funny.
OK, we are. That's freaking funny. OK.
The next one was as Bart starts his story is in this one.
The three bits are separated the segments by people telling scary stories.
As Bart starts his story, he says, I've got a story so scary you'll wet your pants.
And then immediately Grandpa Simpson says, too late.
OK. Finally, in this segment that Bart is doing, the zombies are hunting for brains.
This is one of the best jokes, the longest living, best jokes of of the entire season.
They're hunting for brains and they get to Homer and they grab his noggin and they're like swoosh it around and they tap on it.
They're like and they push him away. Brains.
So stupid.
Welcome back to another chillingly hilarious episode of my podcast.
This week, I delve into the spooky delights of Treehouse of Horror 3.
This is a good episode. Fun facts about this episode in it.
Parodies like the last one that we talked about had a lot of parodies of of older horror movies and, you know, in a very satirical way.
Same thing with this one. They they again parody a bit of the Twilight Zone.
They parody Child's Play, if you don't know what that is.
Chuck E. The Doll, those scary movies from the 80s and 90s.
King Kong, like the original black and white one.
In fact, the animation in the second segment is black and white.
I thought it was a nice touch. All right.
And like the the first two before it, this episode starts with with a little.
The beginning is like there's a red curtain and a character comes on to warn people about the episode.
The first two years it was Marge's time.
It's Homer and Homer paying homage to Alfred Hitchcock.
His silhouette appears in next to Alfred Hitchcock's iconic silhouette from this way back before all your times.
The you know, black and white movies like one of the most renowned horror movies, directors of all time, Alfred Hitchcock.
So if you haven't seen any of his work, go see Birds.
Go see Birds like find it somewhere.
Even today, it's it's pretty darn creepy.
So. All right.
So so there we go. We have got a lot of great stuff here.
This is an excellent episode.
I keep saying that, but you're you're hopefully going to agree with me.
Let's do the trivia and then we'll get started with the first segment.
So in the first segment, what language is the inscription on the Krusty Doll's box in?
What language is the inspect the inscription on Krusty Doll box? OK.
All right. Now in the second segment, King Homer, who does Homer eat?
Who does King Homer eat?
I'll give you a clue. There are four possible points because he does.
He kills five people, but he eats four of them.
Third, dial Z for zombies is the name of the third segment.
What is the name of the book that Bart uses to raise the dead?
All right, let's get into it.
So the first segment, Clown Without Pity.
This is this part's great.
Homer buys a cursed Krusty the Clown doll for Bart because it's his birthday
and he doesn't give him a gift. So he runs out to get it last minute.
And so he goes to the shop called the House of Evil.
And I've told you before, you need to look at signs.
There's a funny gag in this sign, the House of Evil, your one stop shop.
You're going to have to watch it to see the rest of that joke.
But always look at signs and marquees and stuff like that in the show.
The shopkeeper at the House of Evil, in my opinion,
looks eerily similar to David Lopin from Big Trouble, Little China.
Think about it. All right.
Now, if you're a 90s kid, an 80s kid, you know what movie that is.
It was a massive movie. I loved that movie.
I wanted my name to be Jack throughout the entire 80s and 90s,
and I wanted to drive a truck.
And it was mostly because of that movie.
One of my favorite movies of all time growing up.
I freaking loved Big Trouble in Little China. Loved it.
Kurt Russell was like my hero in that movie.
Anyway, I think he looks just like him.
You tell me what you think. All right.
OK, toys coming to life.
Kind of a common theme in horror at this time, you know, in the 80s or 90s,
I guess this is when that came out, 92.
So I think there's a parody of it.
There's satire of it, you know, making fun of Chucky.
And rightly so.
I don't think Chucky has held up through the years.
But to be fair, I was never really into it.
So some of you who really loved Chucky growing up, you may totally disagree.
And that's totally fine.
My advice to you is to start a podcast and tell people about it.
Because I don't care.
But that's just me.
But the fear of toys coming to life is really what is moving this in keeping it in motion
and moving it forward, because it's almost like a just like a built in fear that we would have.
And we didn't know that until the Chucky movie started coming out.
And then, you know, it makes sense.
And then, of course, much later on, we get movies like Annabelle.
It's same thing, but much better graphics, a lot more technology has passed in the 20, 30 year time gap.
And, geez, the stories got dark.
But anyway, the satire that I think is the funniest is our consumerism.
I believe that the writers were intentionally satirizing the consumerism of our day and the dangers of cheap products.
I really do. And it makes sense.
It was funny.
And it I mean, that was the best time as far as toys were concerned,
because they really had started to jump in these big toy companies and started to jump on the bandwagon of making really crappy toys, mass producing them and selling them cheap.
And so we got the really good toys right before that.
Like I had I had GI Joe's that you couldn't destroy if you tried.
Like they were they were indestructible.
But the problem with that is that they wouldn't they wouldn't be destroyed, thus causing the parents to need to go and buy new ones.
So that didn't sit well with with big toy companies.
But it was great for us.
It was an awesome toy.
Another fun joke that I think some people miss.
I missed it as a kid.
I just chalked it up to Homer being dumb.
But the humor that's derived from Homer's obliviousness to the dolls evil intentions.
I mean, it's only for like a minute, but it's funny.
You know, he's he doesn't get it, even though the dolls calling him by name and he's obviously talking to him.
I thought that was a pretty clever little gag.
The the dark side of this kind of horror genre, it connected clowns with the killer toys, which I thought was great.
And it really feeds on kind of two genres of fears.
It was which was, I think, intentional and funny and not maybe not making fun of people that have those fears,
but maybe making fun of the movies that were created to play off of those fears, you know, like the crazy clowns from outer space.
I cannot remember the actual name of that movie.
I'm in a group of old guys like myself where once a month we all get together and watch old crappy movies and just make fun of them.
And that was that was the last film that I went to.
I missed a few months, but that one was awful.
That movie sucked.
There's a reason that the Simpsons are making fun of old movies like that.
OK, let's talk about King Homer.
So in this segment, it's it's black and white, which is really to play off of.
I mean, it's it's pretty specific. The old King Kong movie where, you know, this rich dude who wants to find a new way to entertain the world comes to this island in search of the ape.
And he brings a pretty woman as bait like that was intentional all the time.
And there's some really funny jokes about that.
You know, the local people saying we let's sacrifice the blue haired lady and Burns has an excellent line for that.
But, you know, I'm not going to just tell the whole episode. You've got to watch it, too.
Hopefully you've done your homework. You've had plenty of warning at least two hours.
These episodes came out at nine, 10 and 11 a.m. So like, come on, mountain time.
So if you're in a different time zone, then I don't want to tell you. Sorry.
All right. Here's what's funny about Homer being portrayed as a primitive, love stuck creature.
OK. How far off is it really from who he is?
I mean, he's a big dumb ape and he's really slow of speech.
He's he's overweight and, you know, it's hard for him to move around.
Like this was perfect.
He did an excellent job with his portrayal.
What do you think about that? How do you feel about the portrayal?
Do you think do you think it did a good job?
Do you think it makes fun of the King Kong movie from the 30s, 40s?
I don't remember when it came out. I don't know when it came out. I wasn't around.
Do you think it's making fun of it or do you think it's paying homage to it?
You know, the whole beauty and the beast vibe that it had.
So I'd love to know your opinion.
Now, here's the last bit of satire for this segment that I loved is the the the portrayal of
exotic entertainment and exotic locations was, you know,
Hollywood's portrayal of these things is just it's so over the top.
And the Simpsons are making the show writers are making fun of it because of how over the top it was.
Yeah, it may have been, you know, 20, 30 years later after the fact that they did it.
And they, you know, the technology wasn't quite there.
But still, you'd think somebody in the room when when these old crappy movies were being made,
would have said, this isn't a good idea, guys.
But either there wasn't anybody in the room to say that or they just didn't listen.
So, OK, the next segment is great.
It's this is where, you know, the in between they're showing they're having a Halloween party at the Simpsons house.
And, you know, each person's taking turns telling a story.
This is when Bart says that really funny line about I've got a story so scary you'll wet your pants.
So he starts his story, dials the for zombies.
So Bart is in a library.
Yes, I said library.
And if you like the Simpsons, then you know why I said library.
He's in the school library and there's there's a restricted area restricted area or like an evil area.
You're going to have to look at it and see what it's actually called.
I saw it 20 minutes ago and I already forgot.
So the point is that it's restricted and evil and also funny.
So he finds this book.
I'm not going to tell you the name of the book because that's a trivia question.
So I'll tell you in a minute.
And in an effort to resurrect the family cat Snowball one, he uses that spell book that he found at the school library.
But he accidentally brings back a horde of zombies instead.
So it's super awkward.
And this is when we could sit and analyze the classic zombie trope.
I use that word during the last Three House of Horror episode I did.
But this the trope, the overuse of, you know, like beating a dead horse and the whole gag.
The humor that's derived from that, just a classic zombie thing is I mean, what do you think their intentions were?
I think it landed beautifully.
I thought this was a hilarious episode.
This segment was one of my favorites growing up.
I still think it's funny today because, you know, like I said, you know how I feel about this.
We're in season four.
So for the most part, these characters that we know now are who we've known since around this time, you know, season three, season four.
So I mean, like the animation still pretty well the same, you know, I think it holds up beautifully now.
It's they don't really age.
That's one of the beauties of the show.
So I don't know what we're going to do if a prominent character dies, you know, voice actor.
Not that like Marshall Wallace wasn't prominent RIP.
But I mean, you know, you know, I'm not even going to say it.
I don't want to jinx him.
I just don't know what we're going to do.
It's going to be a hard day.
That's for sure.
What about the the cliches, the horror movie cliches that they that they get into with their their satirical segments that they do and the characters reactions to the apocalypse?
And just like you ever watch these like this episode in particular and think, why is that their concern?
Right. And that's the joke.
That's the gag instead of, you know, the bigger picture.
And that's it's to be funny on purpose.
But it's also poking fun at the movies that Hollywood makes where they they do the same thing, but they do it for, you know, they make them focus on something dumb just to tell a story.
And it's just it's silly.
So lots of satire.
Love it.
Lots of visual gags.
Lots of dark humor.
And yet they still are able to create a very comedic atmosphere, but also chilling at the same time.
I thought it was good.
There's underlying themes of life and death and the consequences of tampering with the supernatural.
You know, like Bart with the casting the spell and then they've got to go back and cast a different one to fix it.
And lastly, the there's a scene with King and Kodos because what would Treehouse of Horror be without our two favorite aliens showing up?
And it's brief.
But I haven't mentioned this before.
Hopefully you recognize it and you know it, but there's this gag a bit where they just laugh for too long.
It's like the normal timing for laughter.
It's like natural.
We know that's funny.
And then we stop when it's when we've laughed enough.
Right.
So they laugh just a little bit longer than that.
It's intentional.
It's been since their first appearance in the Treehouse of Horror and it happens every time they're in the show.
In case you didn't know that, you are welcome.
All right.
Let's get into those trivia questions.
Shall we?
Do you remember the trivia questions?
Question number one in Clown Without Penny, what language is the inscription on the Krusty Doll's box?
All right.
Okay, don't be mad.
Here's the thing.
I had just watched about a week ago the first the first collection of old Simpsons clips.
It's coming up soon.
So I'll be reviewing it in the next month or two.
But more than once they go to commercial and Troy McClure asks a question and then comes back.
And it was like like they ask what to Simpsons character or what what prominent what popular Simpsons characters died in the last season.
And it shows a silhouette of Dr. Marvin Monroe and bleeding guns Murphy.
So it comes back from commercial.
Try to put yourself back in 1990 at the time.
You know, we were all pretty excited.
It was 91, I think, actually.
We come back from commercial and it shows if you said Dr. Marvin Monroe and bleeding guns Murphy, you were wrong.
They were never popular.
And so that's a funny gag.
The funny bit is it's a it's like a red herring.
Well, okay.
I kind of did the same thing.
There's no box.
There's not a there's not a box.
The doll sitting on a shelf and the old guy that looks like low pan just picks it up and hands it to Homer.
That was mean.
But don't worry, because I actually did it twice because when he gets home, it's in a box.
I'm sorry.
I can't help myself.
So the box that when he gives it the bird, it's in a box.
And it just says talking crusty doll and it's in English.
So that was like two or three red herrings.
I was I don't know.
Maybe I had started drinking too much coffee or I I don't know what I was thinking.
I thought it was really funny when I was writing all that.
I'm a dork.
Let's move on. All right.
In King Homer, who does King Homer eat?
There are four possible points for this question.
So in order, Homer eats first, Lenny, then Smithers, then Shirley Temple.
I mean, they don't actually say this is Shirley Temple, but she's she was an iconic little kid back in that time.
She was singing a very popular song of that time as well.
So, yeah, it's Shirley Temple.
And then the last person he eats and that's about the time that he kills another person.
He steps on a photographer, but he just kills him that way.
And then the last person he eats is Marge's father.
And everyone's just like, oh, oh, Homer.
I remember thinking as a kid like that's morbid.
He just killed someone.
Yeah, it was funny.
You know what?
That was another good joke, too, that almost made the best jokes list right around that time.
Like Homer's on that platform and he breaks out and goes to run amok before he leaves that building that he was in.
And before he kills the Shirley Temple, he Barney comes up and he says, hey, hey, monkey, you want a peanut?
And Homer grabs the whole bag and eats it.
And he said, I said one.
And he starts kicking them.
Hey, funny, not quite best joke.
There were so many contenders, though.
OK.
And the last question, how you doing so far?
Do you have five points?
You don't, because that first question was mean and you could not have gotten it right.
I guess philosophically, if you think maybe you did.
I don't know.
In Dial Z for Zombies, what book does Bart use to raise the dead?
It is the Book of Magic and Spells from Time Life.
Magic is spelled with a CK and spells is spelled S-P-E-L-L-E-S.
Look into that.
Look into the meaning of those spellings.
I dare you.
And if you find them, then tweet me because I couldn't I couldn't find them.
I think it was like just one of those like ye olde English type deals, but I don't know.
Like some references are just a little too obscure.
I still they keep me up at night like I want to know why.
But I couldn't find anything.
If you find it, let me know.
Like I've said before, you can email me at shartanpants at gmail.com.
Or you can get me on Twitter at mdoughnuts742.
3 M's D-O-N-U-T-S 742.
How do you think this episode did?
How would you rate its effectiveness as a Halloween special?
How did it hold up?
Compare it and contrast it to the previous Treehouse of Horror episodes.
I, in my opinion, I think that it didn't show as much of a change in evolution of characters and storylines.
Because the first Treehouse of Horror, in my opinion, was ahead of its time.
And I feel like we got a glimpse of what they could do as a show.
And then they kind of really pushed those limits more in season 3 and season 4.
So back in season 2 when we got the first Treehouse of Horror, I think they were all pretty well the same in terms of how good they were.
But then an argument can be made as far as the jokes, the writing.
This one was far better.
The jokes in this one, as you heard, I can't even pick one of my favorite jokes.
There's so many good jokes.
Writing really has hit their stride.
But how do you feel?
So like I've asked before, which segment did you find the most creative, the most memorable, your favorite, the funniest?
What was your favorite joke, your favorite line?
What is your all-time favorite Treehouse of Horror?
What's your favorite horror movie that has been parodied in The Simpsons?
That's not a question I've asked before.
Your favorite horror movie that has been parodied by The Simpsons?
That's a fun question.
And I'll answer it for myself when we get to it.
I haven't done it yet.
But I mean, I haven't done The Simpsons have done it.
My favorite horror movie, but I haven't done that episode yet.
Does that make sense?
It made sense in my head before I said it.
And then I said it and everything got ruined.
But listen, time has come for me to tell you once again how much I love you.
Thanks so much for tuning in.
Thanks for spending a half an hour with me.
I am just super grateful that you are downloading these and listening to them and enjoying The Simpsons with me.
And let's all continue this tradition.
This was The Treehouse of Horror.
It's Halloween time.
So let's all enjoy it.
Have a good, safe Halloween.
Next week we're back to regular episodes in season one.
And let me know what you think about these three episodes coming all at once.
Did you like it?
I spent like a half a day almost.
Like just getting all this together and recording it.
So I mean it's worth it to me.
But if nobody else out there cares, then I don't know.
Maybe I won't spend all that time doing it.
So for real, let me know.
Let me know what you think.
Do you have an episode that you don't want to have to wait 10 years for?
Because if enough people ask, I'll just do those episodes.
I've already told you I'm going to do Bart vs. Australia.
And I just decided about a half an hour ago I texted my sister because she's going to be hosting a couple of these with me.
We're going to do New York City vs. Homer Simpson out of order too because it's not until season nine.
And I'm not going to wait that long.
We're going to do that soon.
Maybe before the end of this year because we don't want to wait.
And that was a very memorable and pivotal episode for she and I growing up with the Hauklash and the Mountain Dew.
So thank you again so much.
And I'll see you next time.