Treehouse of Horror XI

General

References/Trivia

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Quotes

	Season 12 Episode
← 248 "Behind the Laughter"	249 "Treehouse of Horror XI"	"A Tale of Two Springfields" 250 →

← X "Treehouse of Horror X"	XI "Treehouse of Horror XI"	"Treehouse of Horror XII" XII →
	Treehouse of Horror Episode

This THOH is considered non-canon and the events featured do not relate to the series and therefore may not have actually happened/existed there. The reason behind this decision is: The episode is part of the Treehouse of Horror series. If you dispute this, please bring it up on the episode's talk page.

"Treehouse of Horror XI" The Simpsons, a la The Munsters

Episode Information Episode number: 249 Season number: S12 E1 Production code: BABF21 Original airdate: November 1, 2000 Showrunners: Mike Scully George Meyer Al Jean Written by: Rob LaZebnik (part 1) John Frink & Don Payne (Part 2) Carolyn Omine (Part 3) Directed by: Matthew Nastuk DVD features

"Treehouse of Horror XI" is the first episode of broadcast season 12 of The Simpsons and the two hundred forty-ninth episode overall. It is also the eleventh installment in the Treehouse of Horror series and consists of three parts. It originally aired on November 1, 2000. The episode was written by Rob LaZebnik, John Frink, Don Payne and Carolyn Omine and directed by Matthew Nastuk.

Synopsis

In "G-G-Ghost D-D-Dad", Homer chokes to death on a piece of broccoli and his ghost must perform a good deed in order to enter Heaven. In "Scary Tales Can Come True", the Simpsons live in a Pumpkin House in the enchanted forest, and in "Night of the Dolphin", the world is overtaken by dolphins after Lisa frees their leader from captivity.

Plot

Opening sequence

In a parody of The Munsters, Homer is Herman Munster, Marge is Lily Munster, Lisa is Marilyn Munster (holding a book on copyright law), Bart is Eddie Munster, and Grampa is Grandpa Munster. In front of their mansion, an angry mob of townspeople confront the Simpsons. They stab Marge and Grampa, set Homer on fire, and set a leghold trap on Bart. They run off, leaving an unharmed Lisa to sidle away.

G-G-Ghost D-D-Dad

At breakfast, Homer reads his horoscope in the newspaper, which tells him that he will die that day. Marge reads her horoscope, which says that her husband will die. While Marge is scared about this, Homer doesn't care as he's not superstitious. As he mocks the newspaper, he gets a paper cut. Homer then gets in the car to drive to work, and the tree next to their drive almost falls on the car. As Homer drives to work, the Planet Hollywood globe falls after being knocked off with a wrecking ball, crushing half the car but leaving Homer unharmed. Undeterred by this, Homer continues driving, with a pickaxe flying out of the truck in front and hitting him in the head. However, since he's still alive, he keeps going, still thinking there was nothing to the horoscope. Homer finally turns up to work, albeit with a rattlesnake attached to his arm. Homer makes it through his work day and gets home, where he has his evening meal with the family. Homer tries to leave his broccoli, but Marge makes him eat it. As he does, he chokes on the broccoli and dies.

Homer's ghost gets to Heaven but St. Peter refuses him entry because he hasn't done a single good deed in his life. He gives Homer twenty-four hours to perform a good deed to get into Heaven and sends him back to Earth as a ghost. Homer goes to see Marge and tells her about needing to perform a good deed. Marge tries to give him a list of chores, but he chooses not to do them. He then flies around town and sees Agnes Skinner trying to cross the road. Before some Boy Scouts can help her across, Homer picks her up and tries to fly her across the road. However, she struggles against him and Homer drops her, killing her. Looking around for a different good deed, Homer sees Nelson bullying Bart and tries to stop him, but Nelson starts bullying Homer instead.

With only an hour left before his deadline, Homer feels dejected about not being able to perform a good deed. As he sits on the steps of the Springfield County Court House, a baby stroller rolls down the steps. The baby's crying annoys Homer, so he picks up the baby to try and quiet it, saving the baby from rolling into the road where a car hits the now empty stroller. Homer gives the baby back to the mother before he floats up to Heaven again, happy that he performed his good deed. However, St. Peter tells Homer that he wasn't watching, so sends him to Hell anyway. When Homer gets there, the Devil starts bullying Homer. When Homer starts screaming and crying, the Devil tells him to be quiet else he'll wake up John Wayne. John Wayne comes out and says that he was already up.

Scary Tales Can Come True

In a fairytale land, the Simpsons are peasants living in a Pumpkin House. Homer comes home and tells his family that he lost his job as an oaf. Marge asks how they will feed the children, and Homer says that no child will starve in his house. Homer then throws Bart and Lisa out into the Deep Dark Woods and tells them to say hi to their other brother and sister, with them seeing skeletons that resemble themselves. As Bart and Lisa walk through the woods, Lisa pulls out her copy of Grimms' Fairy Tales as everything in the forest is from a fairytale. She stops Bart from crossing a bridge because there's a Troll beneath it. The Troll jumps out and scares Bart and Lisa, but then reveals that he's just lonely. Bart and Lisa then come to a house and knock, but don't get an answer. They let themselves in, where Bart finds three bowls of porridge. After eating the first two by mixing them together, Lisa realizes that it's the Three Bears' House. At that moment, Papa Bear, Mama Bear, and Baby Bear come home, so Bart and Lisa hide behind the door before running out the house, putting a chair under the door handle to stop the bears from following them. Lisa then wonders where Goldilocks was. Goldilocks wakes up from a nap in the house and sees the bears, but she can't escape because the chair was put in the way, so the bears kill her.

Homer returns home and Marge is angry to find that Homer threw the kids into the woods, so she tells him to go and get them back. Homer wanders into the woods and finds Rapunzel's tower, but accidentally pulls her hair and scalp off by trying to climb her hair. Meanwhile, Bart and Lisa find their way to the Gingerbread House. Suzanne the witch invites them in for candy, which both kids agree to. Suzanne then chains Bart and Lisa up and feeds Bart desserts to fatten him up as Lisa cleans the house. When Bart and Lisa question why she needs to clean the house, she claims to have a boyfriend named George. She looks around and sees her cauldron, then tells them his surname is Cauldron. Bart and Lisa laugh, thinking she made up her boyfriend. Suzanne tries to put Lisa into the oven in retaliation, but Homer eats through the wall at that moment. Suzanne and Homer fight, with Suzanne casting magic to turn his hands into brooms, head into a fish with donkey ears, and his lower body into that of a chicken. After a struggle, the doorbell rings, distracting Suzanne. Homer then throws her into the oven and locks it shut. When she dies, most of his cursed body parts change back to normal. At that moment, George Cauldron walks into the house and asks if Suzanne is ready for their date. Homer tells him she'll be twenty minutes and turns the oven up.

Homer, Bart, and Lisa return home, where they have a meal together. While they are still poor, Homer kept his chicken lower half, so he can lay eggs which the family eat. Bart asks for seconds, so Homer gets up to lay another egg.

Night of the Dolphin

At Marine World, Snorky is performing in a show. When his trainer asks for a volunteer to frolic with Snorky, the audience charges his tank to get in and swim with the dolphin. Lisa sees Snorky in distress and feels sorry for him. After everybody leaves the tank to go see the lobsters before they are cooked, Snorky points Lisa toward the gate to the sea. Lisa opens the gate and frees Snorky, with Snorky hitting her in the face as he jumps over the rocks. In the sea, Snorky meets up with fellow dolphins, who reveal that Snorky is their king, and they plan their revenge attack on humans for keeping him in captivity.

That night, Lenny is swimming in the sea when he is surrounded by dolphins and killed. His body washes up on Springfield Beach, where Chief Wiggum attributes his death to teens. Captain McCallister watches this before he is killed by the dolphins too. That night, the dolphins march into Springfield to attack humanity. When Homer goes to Krusty Burger, he finds the Squeaky-Voiced Teen at the window, but he's being held up by a dolphin and his head falls off into Homer's lap. Soon, Channel 6 News is reporting on the dolphins until the dolphins attack. Kent Brockman then changes his broadcast to blame the attacks on Italians instead, but he whispers to the audience that the dolphins are behind it. Brockman is then killed by the dolphins.

A town meeting is called to discuss the dolphin problem. During the meeting, Snorky enters the Town Hall and takes to the podium. After speaking in short sentences, he clears his throat and starts talking properly. He tells the people that eons ago, dolphins used to live on land until humanity forced them into the sea. There, they suffered for millions of years. He then tells the Springfielders that humanity will be banished to the sea and dolphins will retake the land. As the Springfielders leave the Town Hall, they see the dolphins watching them. They decide to fight back but are easily defeated by the dolphins and thrown into the sea to live the rest of their lives.

In space, Kang and Kodos watch the events unfold and complain about not being invited to take part in the Halloween special. Their phone rings and they answer it to find that it's an advertiser asking them if they want to record a commercial for Old Navy, which they agree to.

Production

The first segment, "G-G-Ghost D-D-Dad", was written by Rob LaZebnik as his first Simpsons script. Mike Scully gave LaZebnik the segment and told him it would be a parody of Ghost Dad. The idea of Homer dying and having to do good deeds to get into Heaven was there from the beginning. In the original script of the episode, when Homer drops Agnes Skinner, she hit the Boy Scouts' flagpole and got impaled by it. The producers decided it was too gruesome, so they changed it.

"Scary Tales Can Come True" was written by John Frink and Don Payne. This was the first script that they wrote to air, while the first script they wrote was "Insane Clown Poppy", which got held back for various reasons. The idea for the segment came from either Ron Hauge or Larry Doyle, who passed it along to them. Payne thought that the scene where Goldilocks is killed behind the door was "too sick" to make it to the final episode, but Mike Scully pitched having blood come out from under the door. Carolyn Omine pitched the joke of George Cauldron turning out to be real.

"Night of the Dolphin" was written by Carolyn Omine, who also pitched the segment. The segment is partly a tribute to the Alfred Hitchcock film The Birds and wanted some kind of animal attack, so they chose one of the friendliest animals for the segment. Frank Welker performed the dolphin speaking; however, the dolphin noises while marching were performed at the final mix a few days before the episode aired by Mike Scully, R. Russell Smith, William Freesh, and Larina Jean Adamson. The segment was so popular among the producers that they made a level of The Simpsons Game, "The Day of the Dolphin", based on it. A scene where Hibbert was injecting dolphins with hypodermic syringes was cut from the final episode.

Reception

In a review of The Complete Twelfth Season, Matt Haigh of Den of Geek called the episode "what is probably one of the funniest Halloween episodes of the show’s history."

In The Simpsons Beyond Forever!, Matt Groening called "Night of the Dolphin" one of his personal favorite scenes from all the series.

As of September 2026, "Treehouse of Horror XI" has a 7.6 rating on IMDb.

In other languages

Language Name Translation Deutsch "D-D-Der G-G-Geister D-D-Dad" G-G-Ghost D-D-Dad Español "La casa-árbol del terror XI" Treehouse of Terror XI Español "La casita del horror XI" The little house of horror XI Français "Simpson Horror Show XI" Simpson Horror Show XI Français "Spécial d'Halloween XI" Halloween Special XI Italiano "La paura fa novanta XI" Fear is ninety XI 日本語 "ハロウィーン・スペシャルXI〜本当は恐い話〜" Halloween Special XI ~Really Scary Stories~

Gallery

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  Promotional image

References

Wikisimpsons has 22 images related to "Treehouse of Horror XI".

Treehouse of Horror series
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Unnumbered
Not It • Simpsons Wicked This Way Comes • The Revengening

← Season 11 Season 12 Episodes Season 13 →

Treehouse of Horror XI • A Tale of Two Springfields • Insane Clown Poppy • Lisa the Tree Hugger • Homer vs. Dignity • The Computer Wore Menace Shoes • The Great Money Caper • Skinner's Sense of Snow • HOMЯ • Pokey Mom • Worst Episode Ever • Tennis the Menace • Day of the Jackanapes • New Kids on the Blecch • Hungry, Hungry Homer • Bye, Bye, Nerdie • Simpson Safari • Trilogy of Error • I'm Goin' to Praiseland • Children of a Lesser Clod • Simpsons Tall Tales

← Season AABF Production season BABF Episodes Season CABF →

Treehouse of Horror X • Hello Gutter, Hello Fadder • Eight Misbehavin' • Little Big Mom • Take My Wife, Sleaze • Faith Off • Grift of the Magi • The Mansion Family • Saddlesore Galactica • Alone Again, Natura-Diddily • Missionary: Impossible • Pygmoelian • Bart to the Future • Days of Wine and D'oh'ses • Last Tap Dance in Springfield • Kill the Alligator and Run • Insane Clown Poppy • It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Marge • Behind the Laughter • A Tale of Two Springfields • Treehouse of Horror XI • HOMЯ