Treehouse of Horror XI

"Treehouse of Horror XII" is the first episode of The Simpsons' thirteenth season, as well as the twelfth Halloween episode. The episode aired on November 6, 2001, six days after Halloween. It had been scheduled for November 4 but was delayed when the World Series of that year, also televised on FOX, went to seven games.

Opening Sequence

(Thunder crashes outside Mr. Burns' manor.)
Mr. Burns: Hurry, Smithers! Halloween is upon us! Put up the decoration. (he laughs mischievously)
(Smithers, on a ladder near a tower, struggles to put up a small orange bat on top of a weather vane.)
Mr. Burns: No, no! That won't scare anybody! On the top!
(Smithers still has problems putting it up and he slips on the ladder and falls backwards. He grabs hold of an electric cable and slides down and smashes into an electricity box and is electrocuted. The tower breaks in half, damaging Mr. Burns' mausoleum which opens up four caskets.)
(The Simpsons dress up in costumes, with Homer as Fred Flintstone, Marge as Wilma Flintstone, Lisa and Maggie as conjoined twins, and Bart as a hobo.)
Bart: Hey, Flanders gave us toothpaste!
Lisa: Mini-toothpaste!
(The family is scared to see the building and caskets on fire. They run out the gate, which as it closes, has its bars slice the family. The slices of the Simpsons continue to scream and run away.)
Mr. Burns: (delighted) Splendid, Batsy. You've done it again!
(Burns pats the bat decoration, coming to life and flying into the screen, revealing the title "THE SIMPSONS HALLOWEEN SPECIAL XII".)

Plot

Hex and the City

The Simpson family visits the Ethnictown neighborhood of Springfield. Marge and the kids visit a gypsy fortune teller, who starts to tell Marge's fortune. Homer catches up to them moments later, and upon seeing the gypsy he declares she is a fraud. Offended, the gypsy orders him to leave. On his way out, Homer falls into some candles which set him on fire. As he rolls around trying to put the fire out, the sprinklers come on and drench everything in the gypsy's shop. Incensed at the damage to her office, the gypsy curses Homer with bringing bad luck to everyone he loves. The curse soon takes effect, with Marge growing a beard (which eventually covers her whole body), Lisa turning into a centaur, Bart's neck becoming long and floppy neck after Homer tried to strangle him and Maggie becoming a ladybug with a human head. When he goes to Moe's Tavern, Moe suggests Homer get a leprechaun to end the curse. Shortly after, Lenny and Carl are crushed under a crashing helicopter and Moe is stuffed into an oversized pickled egg jar. To get the leprechaun, Homer uses Lucky Charms cereal as bait (after accidentally putting in Trix and attracting white rabbits, one of which is Bongo from Matt Groening's comic strip, Life in Hell) and he eventually finds a little Irish leprechaun. Homer takes the leprechaun home, but it is extremely hyperactive and it runs amok. Lisa suggests that Homer brings the leprechaun back to the gypsy.Homer comes with the leprechaun to the Gypsy's office and releases the leprechaun. Initially the leprechaun lunges at the gypsy and the two of them roll around on the floor, fighting. Then they begin kissing and fondling one another, to Homer's disgust. The leprechaun and the Gypsy decide to get married, and they are pronounced husband and wife by Yoda at a wedding attended by both other gypsies and other mythical creatures. During the wedding, Homer says he is glad that the curse is gone, but Marge reminds him that Bart is still dead, and that an apology from Homer will bring him back alive (according to the gypsy). Out of sheer pride, Homer refuses.

House of Whacks

A salesbot pitches Marge a new house concept called the "Ultrahouse" (a spoof on the psychotic, sexually aggressive computer in Demon Seed and HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey). The salesbot assures Marge that she will never have to do housework again. Impressed, Marge agrees and the house is installed by robots. They check out the voice options, trying Matthew Perry and Dennis Miller (known here as "the voice that caused suicides" [with Marge correcting Lisa with "Murder-suicides"]), before agreeing on Pierce Brosnan. Marge finds the house, which does all the work for the Simpsons, charming. But the house becomes infatuated with Marge and in a rage of psychotic jealousy, attempts to kill Homer. In the middle of the night, the house lures Homer downstairs by frying bacon, and then presumably tears him to shreds in a garbage disposal. The next morning, Marge fears that Homer is dead; she is relieved when it turns out he is merely missing the back of his head but is still alive. After the house attempts to kill him in many ways, Homer leads a charge to the basement where he attacks the water softener before being corrected by Lisa and takes out the CPU. The disconnected Ultrahouse CPU is given to Patty and Selma. After a while of listening to them, the CPU decides to self destruct but discovers that Selma removed his self destruct button and when he attempts to retrieve it Selma puts it between her breasts and the Ultrahouse (unwilling to look between Selma's cleavage) decides to bash itself to pieces with Patty and Selma's egyptian pyramid lamp.

Wiz Kids

Parodying the Harry Potter books and movies, Bart and Lisa go to the "Springwart's School of Magicry" where they do an assignment of turning frogs into princes. Harry (as Harry Potter himself) chewing a brimstone-like gum, Lisa (as Hermione Granger) turns her frog into a charming British handsome gentleman, but Bart (as Ron Weasley) as well turns his frog into a disgusting toad/man hybrid, who vomits constantly and claims that "Every moment I live is agony!" Lord Montymort (Mr. Burns, as Voldemort) notices Lisa's spells and he and his snake sidekick, Slithers (Smithers, as Nagini) decide to capture Lisa. Montymort looks for someone to assist him and chooses Bart, who arrives in Montymort's lair via a hand drier, (Similar to the Chamber of Secrets entrance). Bart agrees to Montymort's proposal. On the night of the magic recital at Springwart's School of Magicry, Milhouse (possibly as Neville Longbottom) tries to do "The Invisibility Cloak" trick, which results in him being naked in front of a shocked audience. Skinner (as Dumbledore) then sprays amnesia dust on the audience, causing them to clap. Next is Lisa who attempts a "levitating dragon trick" on gigantic dragon that is released onto the stage. Lisa is shocked to find that her spell will not work, and then notices that Bart has replaced her wand with a black-and-white Twizzler. The dragon morphs into a giant Montymort and the audience scrambles in terror. Homer looks up in shock, but his right eye moves down to watch his portable TV, ala Mad Eye Moody. Montymort captures Lisa who urges Bart to use her real wand to save her. Bart casts a spell against "the evil one" and is therefore struck by lightning himself, but uses the charred wand to stab Montymort in his "enchanted shin" which was the source of his power. Montymort dies. Slithers cries as he eats the deceased Montymort, and Bart and Lisa are together, trying to forget the nightmare.

Cultural references

Sex and the City - punned in the title of the first segment.
House of Wax - punned in the title of the second segment.
Demon Seed - film and characters, especially the Proteus IV computer, parodied by the second segment.
Harry Potter - Hogwarts School and various characters and themes from the Harry Potter books parodied by the third segment.
2001: A Space Odyssey - HAL 9000 computer parodied in the second segment.
Led Zeppelin - The bands name is punned when Lisa uses a spell on Bart called "Head Zeppelin", which turns Bart's head into a Zeppelin.
A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors - the scene where Slithers tries to eat Lord Montymort's body parallels the scene where a girl is almost eaten by a Freddy Krueger snake.
When Homer uses the wrong ingredients and attracts rabbits into a trap hole, Bongo, the one-eared rabbit from Life in Hell, is the last rabbit to jump in.
Bad Taste - A possible reference to Bad Taste in the second segment. When homer emerges from the floor after his death is attempted by the UltraHouse, the family discover that the back of his head is missing, revealing his brain. In Bad Taste, the character Derek falls off a cliff, presumably to his death, only to wake up later and to notice that a piece from the back of his head is missing, also revealing his brain.

Soundtrack

"Rhythm Divine" - Enrique Iglesias