Treehouse of Horror/References
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Trivia
- This is the only Treehouse of Horror episode to have the Treehouse motif.
- The tombstones at the beginning read from first to last, and left to right, in all caps: Ezekiel Simpson; Ishmael Simpson; Cornelius V. Simpson; Garfield; The Grateful Dead; Casper, the friendly boy; Elvis; Your name here; Paul McCartney; disco; and Violence on TV.
- Paul McCartney gravestone is a referenece to the "Paul is dead" hoax of the 1960s.
- "Bad Dream House" parodies a number of haunted house films. The opening image of the house shows that one side resembles the house from "The Amityville Horror" house. Much of the plot follows the events of the film "Poltergeist," such as a scary tree outside Lisa's bedroom, and the implosion of the house at the end a la The Fall of the House of Usher.
- Bart, as the raven, knocks several Edgar Allan Poe stories off the bookshelf, including "The Pit and the Pendulum", "The Tell-Tale Heart", and "The Purloined Letter".
- The book "To Serve Forty Humans" is a reference to a Twilight Zone episode where aliens greet humans with a book which translated means "To Serve Man", and solve all the problems of Earth. Curious Earthlings accept invitations of the aliens to see their homeworld and travel on their spaceships. One woman accepts such an invitiation, but is stopped by her brother, who has properly translated the book and is shouting "It is a cookbook! It is a cookbook!"
- Edgar Allan Poe is credited as a writer for this episode.
- This is the only Halloween episode with the normal Gracie Films logo sequence; from Treehouse of Horror II it features a pipe organ playing its jingle, and Treehouse of Horror IV onwards, a scream replaces "shh".
- This is the only Treehouse of Horror in which Kang and Kodos do not attempt to conquer Earth.
- This is the first Treehouse of Horror not to have the casts names changed due to Halloween e.g Bat Groening
Cultural References
- Frankenstein: Marge warns the audience that the show is very scary
- Psycho: The house's shape.
- Life in Hell: Binky appears as Bart's toy
- The Amityville Horror: Blood streams from the walls
- The Exorcist: Maggie turns her head 360 degrees.
- Poltergeist: the house is built on an ancient Indian burial ground
- The Fall of the House of Usher: the house implodes
- The Fly: a fly cries out "Ow!" as it hits a bug zapper
- Twilight Zone: the dust-blowing sequence
- The Raven: Lisa reads this story
- The Cask of Amontillado: Homer's cup has Amontillado written on it
- Lenore: the character Lenore also appears in The Raven
- The Pit and the Pendulum: Raven Bart drops this on Homer's head
- The Telltale Heart: Raven Bart drops this on Homer's head
- The Purloined Letter: Raven Bart drops this on Homer's head
- Friday the 13th Part I: Bart compares how The Raven used to be scary to this.
