Treehouse of Horror III/References

Cultural references

 * The first two segments end with heart-shaped and musical stings, similar to the 1970s anthology show .

Opening sequence

 * Homer walking into Alfred Hitchcock's silhouette is a parody of .
 * In the Halloween party, Bart is costumed as Alex DeLarge from A Clockwork Orange.

Clown Without Pity

 * The title is a wordplay on the 1961 drama film .
 * The segment is a spoof of the Twilight Zone episode "".
 * Homer sings the jingle "My Bologna Has a First Name", spelling his name ("H-O-M-E-R") in place of O-S-C-A-R and M-A-Y-E-R.
 * When Marge calls the doll manufacturer for help, the on-hold music is "".

King Homer

 * King Kong: Spoofed and parodied throughout the segment.
 * The advert above the one that Marge answers consists of lyrics from "".
 * When the gas grenade explodes in front of Mr. Burns, he sings "I was strolling through the gas one day", parodying the song "". (The song's first line is "While strolling in the park one day".)
 * Shirley Temple is seen dancing and singing her signature song "" before King Homer eats her.

Dial "Z" for Zombies

 * The segment's title is a reference to the Alfred Hitchcock film .
 * When Bart raises the dead, he's wearing a Michael Jackson record on his head (aptly, it's Thriller).
 * Bart's dead-raising incantation consists of the names of game show hosts and department stores:
 * "Cullen" -
 * "Rayburn" -
 * "Narz" -
 * "Trebek" - Alex Trebek
 * "Zabar" -
 * "Kresge" - The S.S. Kresge Corporation, which became
 * "" and ""
 * Homer kills the following famous zombies: George Washington, Albert Einstein, and William Shakespeare.
 * Three of the tombstones in the Pet Cemetery read "", "", and "", the titles of three short-lived animated television programs that aired in the early 1990s.
 * When Bart attempts to return the zombies to their graves and accidentally turns Lisa into a snail, the incantation consists of the names of 1970s TV detective shows and their characters: ', ', ', and Danno (').
 * The incantation that successfully returns the zombies to their graves consists of condom brand names:, , , and.

Trivia

 * In the couch gag, skeleton Marge's hair looks the same as it does in the opening scene of "Treehouse of Horror II".
 * It is the first episode in the Treehouse of Horror series to have a zombie-related segment. The second is "Treehouse of Horror XIII", with the segment "The Fright to Creep and Scare Harms".
 * It is also the first Halloween episode to have a couch gag.
 * This is one of several Simpsons episodes which are considered anthology episodes that feature mini-stories.
 * Costumes at the Halloween party:
 * 1) Homer - Julius Caesar
 * 2) Bart - Alex DeLarge
 * 3) Lisa - Statue of Liberty
 * 4) Marge - Cleopatra
 * 5) Milhouse - Radioactive Man
 * 6) Nelson - Pirate
 * 7) Martin -
 * 8) Janey - Princess
 * 9) Lewis - Frankenstein's Monster
 * 10) Richard - Scratchy

Goofs

 * In the opening sequence, Janey is shown with yellow skin.
 * In "Clown Without Pity", when the Krusty doll accidentally knocks the head off of Lisa's Malibu Stacy doll, Krusty puts it back on but no crack is shown where the head came off.
 * In "Dial Z for Zombies", Homer is shooting zombies with the shotgun at the school. When he shoots the first two he just shoots them twice, taking the shots in quick succession, one immediately after the other. After that, every time he shoots a zombie he has to slide the gun.
 * When Homer is escorting the family out of the house to escape the zombies, he leaves the door wide open, but in the very next shot it is shut.
 * When Lisa is turned into a snail in Bart's zombie story, she says "awww", but her mouth doesn't open.
 * Not necessarily a goof: In the scene where Bart attempts to resurrect Snowball I, human zombies are seen rising from the graves in the Springfield Pet Cemetery. (The grounds could have been used for human burials before being designated as a pet cemetery, or there might have been people identifying their deceased loved ones as pets in order to avoid burial costs.)