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.

Treehouse of Horror episodes

The Treehouse of Horror episodes are the most well known but there have been many others. They began in season 2 and each season since has had one Treehouse of Horror episode. After season 5, the backbone story was removed from the Halloween episodes but the 3 mini-stories still remain.

Episodes

Treehouse of Horror from season 2
Treehouse of Horror II from season 3
Treehouse of Horror III from season 4
Treehouse of Horror IV from season 5
Treehouse of Horror V from season 6
Treehouse of Horror VI from season 7
Treehouse of Horror VII from season 8
Treehouse of Horror VIII from season 9
Treehouse of Horror IX from season 10
Treehouse of Horror X from season 11
Treehouse of Horror XI from season 12
Treehouse of Horror XII from season 13
Treehouse of Horror XIII from season 14
Treehouse of Horror XIV from season 15
Treehouse of Horror XV from season 16
Treehouse of Horror XVI from season 17
Treehouse of Horror XVII from season 18
Treehouse of Horror XVIII from season 19
Treehouse of Horror XIX from season 20
Treehouse of Horror XX from season 21
Treehouse of Horror XXI from season 22

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 characters 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 separate 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, Behind the Laughter 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 six clip shows is outstanding.

Over-lapping POV

In this format the same story line is told from several different perspectives. 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 perspectives.

List of Episodes

What follows is a list of these episodes.

Season 1

Season 6

Season 7

Season 8

Season 9

Season 10

Season 11

Treehouse of Horror X

Season 12

Season 13

Season 14

Treehouse of Horror XIII

Season 15

Season 16

Treehouse of Horror XV

Season 17

Season 18

Season 19

Season 20

Trivia

The up til season 20, each anthology episode consisted of 3 short stories. The episode Four Great Women and a Manicure however had 4 short stories.
- Between the third story and forth story, Marge comments "well, 3 stories, the way we always have it".

Season 21

Treehouse of Horror XX

Season 22