Anthology episodes
Over the long run of the Simpsons there have been many episodes which feature 3 mini-stories that are held togeather by a backbone story plot. The reason for 3 mini-stories is due to the commercial break structure of the show.
Halloween Specials
The Halloween episodes are the most well known but there have been many others. After season five the backbone story was removed from the halloween episodes but the 3 mini-stories still remain.
Non-Traditional episodes
Several episodes do not fall into the normal pattern of 3 mini-stories.
Vignettes
In 22 Short Films About Springfield Bart and Milhouse wonder about the various stories happening around Springfield. The episode inspired Simpsons creator Matt Groening to come up with a concept of a possible spin-off series called Tales from Springfield, about the recurring characters of Springfield, but the series was never picked up.
In Springfield Up flash backs of several charactors are used featuring them at different points of their lives.
The episodes Another Simpsons Clip Show and All Singing, All Dancing are more properly categorized as clip shows but also fit the pattern of a vignette anthology type story. The seperate items are taken from previous episodes but the backbone story invloved with these two playes into the overall clip content. In Another Simpsons Clip Show the backbone is love stories, All Singing, All Dancing has a musical theme.
The other clip show episodes could be considered anthology stories, however with So It's Come to This: A Simpsons Clip Show, The Simpsons 138th Episode Spectacular and Gump Roast the central backbone story is not connected to the clip content which is much more random and general. Considering the Simpsons is more than 20 years old and still going strong with over 430 episode the fact that there are only five clip shows is outstanding.
Over-lapping POV
In this format the same story line is told from several differnt prespectives. This story telling techneque has been used by several other FOX shows including Malcolm in the Middle and Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles.
In Trilogy of Error the story is told from Homer's POV then Lisa's, then finally Bart's.
The Seemingly Never-Ending Story is another POV story, with several different threads telling the same narative from different prespectives.
List of Episodes
What follows is a list of these episodes.
Season 1
Season 2
Season 3
Season 4
Season 5
Season 6
Season 7
Season 8
Season 9
Season 10
Season 11
Season 12
Season 13
Season 14
Season 15
Season 16
Season 17
- Treehouse of Horror XVI
- Simpson Christmas Stories
- The Seemingly Never-Ending Story
- The Wettest Stories Ever Told
