The Simpsons first Treehouse of Horror episode aired way back in 1990 during the show’s second season, and every Halloween since Fox has scared up a new one. This year will be number XXXV. (Hey Bart, that’s 35.) And I’ve seen all of them. Every second, every intro, every vignette, every Kang and Kodos appearance, every murder, parody, and gag, I’ve watched all of it, more than 12 hours worth of spooky silliness. So how do they all stack up? I’m so glad you definitely asked. Here’s every The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror ranked from worst to best.
34. Treehouse of Horror XXII (Season 23)
Original Air Date: October 30, 2011
Vignettes: “The Diving Bell and Butterball,” “Dial D for Diddly,” “In the Na’Vi”
There are few, if any, laughs in all of “XXII.” This is easily the worst Treehouse in The Simpsons‘ history. It’s also the only one that actually mad me angry, thanks to an intro and opening segment that are both done in poor taste. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is the memoir (later adapted into a movie) of Julian Schnabel, who developed locked-in syndrome after a stroke. So why did anyone think this was good fodder for a parody? It makes the opening intro here, a brief 127 Hours gag, seem like it might be a touching tribute to that poor guy, but it’s not.
The episode also contains a moderately entertaining Dexter spoof where Homer convinces Ned to kill for him, as well as an Avatar parody that is even less funny James Cameron’s movie. (Instead of unobtainium, humans are seeking the less ridiculous “hilarium.”) I wish I could could un-watch this one.
33. Treehouse of Horror XVIII (Season 19)
Original Air Date: November 4, 2007
Vignettes: “E.T., Go Home,” “Mr. & Mrs. Simpson,” “Heck House”
An intro featuring Marge killing pop-up ads for other shows is the only amusing part of a boring and confusing episode. It starts off with an E.T. spoof that doesn’t have much going on. The second segment, a Mr. & Mrs. Smith parody (the Brad Pitt/Angelina Jolie one, not the Alfred Hitchcock one), is one of the most inexplicable pop culture reference in any Treehouse. What is this doing here? Was this a horror parody for an audience of one? Did they make this just for Jennifer Aniston? It’s a little less weird now, since they’ve done so many non-horror parodied in the last decade, but it’s still strange!
Admittedly, the last segment does start off well, with Bart, Lisa, Milhouse, and Nelson running amok through Springfield “tricking” people with awful, mean “pranks.” But it falls apart when it becomes a lame kinda-sorta Se7en parody. Like a lot of this episode, it makes no sense and is mostly the bad kind of stupid.
32. Treehouse of Horror XXIV (Season 25)
Original Air Date: October 6, 2013
Vignettes: “Oh, the Places You’ll D’oh,” “Dead and Shoulders,” “Freaks No Geeks”
The Dr. Seuss parody has some clever writing. It doesn’t really work, though, because—again—this is supposed to be a Halloween episode, and this particular vignette is too weird to be enjoyable. A mediocre middle story, based on The Thing with Two Heads, is a lazy, unoriginal retread of a much earlier (and better) segment in which Mr. Burns’ head is attached to Homer’s body. Finally there’s a lackluster parody of HBO’s Freaks, a show no one watched in the first place.
The standout moment comes during an amazing opening intro. This horror movie montage swoops through the entire city with numerous callbacks to past Treehouse installments. Unfortunately it didn’t last the whole episode.
31. Treehouse of Horror XXXIV (Season 35)
Original Air Date: November 5, 2023
Vignettes: “Wild Barts Can’t Be Token,” “EI8HT,” “Lout Break”
¡Ay, caramba! The less said about this episode the better. It opens with the meandering “Wild Barts Can’t Be Token,” a Snowpiercer-inspired short about NFTs that was already dated before the episode aired. The second installment “EI8HT” is fine in a vacuum, but disappointing because the show should have pulled off something much better with a Mindhunter/Silence of the Lambs/Seven mashup. And there’s simply nothing to episode’s Outbreak parody where everyone in Springfield turns into Homer.
Not every good Treehouse features an intro and outro, but the lack of both here feels like the writers knew they had a dud and figured why bother.
30. Treehouse of Horror XII (Season 13)
Original Air Date: November 6, 2001
Vignettes: “Hex and the City,” “House of Whacks,” “Wiz Kids”
With parodies of Thinner, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Harry Potter, “XII” should have been a great installment. Instead it’s a mostly forgettable entry, where nothing interesting is done with the source material. How do you do a Thinner parody that doesn’t center on Homer and eating? (Instead, everyone close to Homer becomes cursed.)
Even the Harry Potter parody feels like it was written by people who had never read the books and instead had been told about them “purple monkey dishwasher”-style. And I forgot what happened in “Hex and the City” the second it ended, which is typically not a great sign for a short’s value.
29. Treehouse of Horror XIII (Season 14)
Original Air Date: November 3, 2002
Vignettes: “Send in the Clones,” “The Fight to Crap and Scare Harms,” “The Island of Dr. Hibbert”
The highlight of “XIII” is Homer milking half-cow/half-man Ned Flanders during an admittedly all-around-decent Island of Dr. Moreau parody, but I can’t think of even one other thing from this episode I really enjoyed. An opening seance with Ned, a spoof of Multiplicity, and a half-Terminator parody/half-gun control commentary round out the rest of this easily forgettable episode.
28. Treehouse of Horror XXIII (Season 24)
Original Air Date: October 7, 2012
Vignettes: “The Greatest Story Ever Holed,” “UNnormal Activity,” “Bart and Homer’s Excellent Adventure”
There were only a couple of segments I had seen and forgotten about entirely when I began working on this ranking, and the black hole-centirc “The Greatest Story Ever Holed” is one of them. I have since forgotten about it entirely again.
The Paranormal Activity parody to follow is a bit better, with a great dark ending that forces Homer to go to bed with two demons in order to save Maggie. Unfortunately, the episode’s Back to the Future spoof falls flat, a real missed opportunity. Even though it’s not a horror movie it’s still an iconic film.
27. Treehouse of Horror IX (Season 10)
Original Air Date: October 25, 1998
Vignettes: “Hell Toupée,” “The Terror of Tiny Toon,” Starship Poopers”
It’s not a great look when your parody of a movie isn’t as funny as the movie itself. Case in point: This episode’s Shocker spoof, in which a hair transplant from Snake Jailbird turns Homer into a killer. The second segment, where Bart and Lisa get sucked into the television like in the criminally underrated Stay Tuned feels like the staff forgot to write three minutes of the segment. The highlight is the finale, where it turns out Maggie’s real father is the alien Kang and the Simpsons end up on the Jerry Springer Show. It’s a good deal funnier than it sounds, and the best part of “IX.”
26. Treehouse of Horror XXXI (Season 32)
Original Air Date: November 1, 2020
Vignettes: “Toy Gory,” “Into the Homer-Verse,” “Be Nine, Rewind”
The episode opens with a tedious Trump reelection dystopian nightmare that will never be funny. That’s followed by one of the best visual Treehouse shorts ever, “Toy Gory.” This 3D-animated entry doesn’t make sense for a Halloween-themed show the way so many modern Treehouse parody’s don’t. But it’s surprisingly dark and twisted in a good way. The real problem is that it’s not well-executed. The whole thing seems to be missing two or three minutes of story.
That makes it infinitely better than the episode’s dreadful, uninspired second bit, “Into the Homer-Verse.” Things at least pickup at the end with the show’s Russian Doll spoof “Be Nine, Rewind,” which sees Lisa and Nelson dying again and again. Few Treehouse of Horror episode are as up and down as this one, but ultimately the lows are lower than the highs are high.
25. Treehouse of Horror XVI (Season 17)
Original Air Date: November 6, 2005
Vignettes: “B.I. Bartificial Intelligence,” “Survival of the Fattest,” “I’ve Grown a Costume to Your Face”
The episode starts off slow, with a so-so Kang and Kodos/World Series game intro and a mediocre A.I. parody. However, the second story is a decent (if not up to its own potential) spoof of the classic short story “The Most Dangerous Game.” But the final vignette, a Halloweentown II parody where a witch transforms everyone in Springfield into their Halloween costumes. is truly great. It’s “Apu-D2” gag is also one of the funniest Treehouse jokes ever. “I’ve Grown a Costume to Your Face” really saved this installment from a bottom tier ranking.
24. Treehouse of Horror XIX (Season 20)
Original Air Date: November 2, 2008
Vignettes: “Untitled Robot Parody,” How to Get Ahead in Dead-Vertising,” “It’s the Grand Pumpkin, Milhouse”
A lame intro, a bad and inexplicable Transformers parody (another absurd non-horror, non-Halloween spoof), and a boring Mad Men-meets-Dexter story where Homer kills celebrities all hold this episode back. But it also has one of the absolute single best segments in Treehouse of Horror history. “It’s the Grand Pumpkin, Milhouse” is a spot-on, touching, and hilarious tribute to the Peanuts holiday classic. The artwork is gorgeous, and it’s The Simpsons at its best, where it pulls off a perfect tribute while also being true to itself (i.e. lots of violence, cynicism, jokes, and more violence). You have to sit through a lot of crap to get to it, but it’s worth it just for this one segment.
23. Treehouse of Horror X (Season 11)
Original Air Date: October 31, 1999
Vignettes: “I Know What You Diddily-Iddly-Did,” “Desperately Xeeking Xena,” “Life’s a Glitch, Then You Die”
The standout of “X” is its final segment, a Y2K story that is funny from start to finish. (You younglings will never understand how big a deal Y2k was! Never!) However, the episode is also addled with a hit-or-miss I Know What You Did Last Summer parody and a catchall superhero/Marvel spoof that isn’t anywhere as funny as a normal Comic Book Guy segment during a non-Treehouse episode.
22. Treehouse of Horror XIV (Season 15)
Original Air Date: November 2, 2003
Vignettes: “Reaper Madness,” “Frinkenstein,” “Stop the World, I Want to Goof Off”
Following a really violent intro in which the family murders each other over candy, “Reaper Madness” is a Simpsons parody of a Family Guy episode. That’s cartoon inception, and it works despite its self-indulgent nature. (Rule of thumb: Homer being awful and killing lots of people in these episodes is always a good move.) The episode’s Frankenstein segment feels like it lasts 40 minutes, which is not good. But what is good is the final story, a parody of the classic Twilight Zone episode “A Kind of Stopwatch” in which Bart and Milhouse accidentally freeze the world for decades.
21. Treehouse of Horror XXVI (Season 27)
Original Air Date: October 25, 2015
Vignettes: “Wanted: Dead, Then Alive,” “Homerzilla,” “Telepaths of Glory”
Drawn by Ren & Stimpy creator John Kricfalusi, “XXVI” has one of the best openings in Treehouse history. Sadly a lot of the episode doesn’t live up to its stellar start. That includes a strangely boring Re-Animator parody where Sideshow Bob (who inexplicably wasn’t used in a Treehouse episode for the first 25 years) keeps bringing back Bart to kill him again and again. The self-explanatory “Homerzilla” isn’t bad (and ends up being clever commentary on Hollywood), but feels trite since they did a King Kong parody in the great third Treehouse. The best story is the final one, in which Lisa and a crazed Milhouse get superpowers a la Chronicle.
20. Treehouse of Horror XVII (Season 18)
Original Air Date: November 5, 2006
Vignettes: “Married to the Blob,” “You Gotta Know When to Golem,” “The Day the Earth Looked Stupid”
Yup, another one where Homer is a giant monster, only this one is a lot more twisted. It ends with Homer helping out Springfield by eating the homeless, a joke that can be taken in very different ways. The episode’s The Golem riff is fun (Richard Lewis makes everything better), but its spoof of the chaos Orson Welles’ infamous radio performance of War of the Worlds caused isn’t as much fun in practice as it is in theory.
What is most annoying is the episode’s refusal to employ the Tales From the Crypt-style Mr. Burns we meet in the intro. For some reason they don’t use him to keep introducing all the segments. That should have been a no-brainer!
19. Treehouse of Horror XXXII (Season 33)
Original Air Date: October 10, 2021
Vignettes: Bong Joon Ho’s ‘This Side of Parasite,” “Nightmare on Elm Tree,” “Dead Ringer”
This might be the most “totally fine” Treehouse of Horror ever. It begins with a perfectly cromulent Bambi parody opening. That’s followed by totally decent “Bong Joon Ho’s ‘This Side of Parasite,” which slips in a bonus Snowpiercer gag via Itchy and Scratchy. The weird “Nightmare on Elm Tree” that follows is not a spoof of anything. It’s wholly original, which is a plus, as doing something unique is a great idea three decades in. What’s not great is doing an unfocused, pointless short that is merely an excuse to make mediocre tree puns.
The episode’s high point is another creative idea, a Vincent Price narrated rhyming couplet interlude told via Edward Gorey-style artwork. It’s quick, funny, and delightful. The episode then ends with “Dead Ringer,” a decent The Ring parody that connects with the intro thanks to a fun Disney-style song featuring Kang and Kodos. It’s a nice ending to this very average installment.
18. Treehouse of Horror XXV (Season 26)
Original Air Date: October 19, 2014
Vignettes: “School is Hell,” “A Clockwork Yellow,” “The Others”
The Kodos and Kang Johnny Carson-inspired opening segment has lots of great gags, including a tremendous joke about the New York Yankees. Not so great is “XXV”‘s Moe-led A Clockwork Orange parody. It’s more clever than funny the way many forgettable Treehouse segments are. Bart attending school in Hell in the second vignette is much better. The letdown comes in the final short, where the family is haunted by the ghosts of the Tracy Ullman Show-era Simpsons. It’s a fun idea, fun enough that it just barely make up for the short not being, you know, actually funny.
17. Treehouse of Horror XXIX (Season 30)
Original Air Date: October 21, 2018
Vignettes: “Intrusion of the Pod-y Switchers,” “Multiplisa-ty,” “Geriatric Park”
The series’ 30th installment opens with a really fun Cthulhu as New England deit opening where Homer’s iconic seafood eating exploits save the day. That’s followed by a funny Invasion of the Body Snatchers spoof that is well-paced but fizzles out at in the end. The episode’s second bit, “Multiplisa-ty,” offers up a rare violent version of Lisa, which is always fun. Sadly it never quite lives up to its premise. Things end on a higher note with a clever (old girl) take on Jurassic Park. It’s good not great, but gets bonus points for not being just a straight parody. It also incorporates elements of Dr. Moreau to offer something different on the dinosaur franchise. The result of this up and down episode is a middle-of-the-pack Treehouse.
16. Treehouse of Horror XV (Season 16)
Original Air Date: November 7, 2004
Vignettes: “The Ned Zone,” “Four Beheadings and a Funeral,” “In the Belly of the Boss”
The Dead Zone is a perfect Treehouse parody idea, but there are some weird pacing issues with “XV”‘s “The Ned Zone.” That rushed feeling also plagues the other two segments, a Jack the Ripper/From Hell parody and Fantastic Voyage send-up. The writers couldn’t seem to figure out how to make the most of these concepts, but they were good enough ideas that it’s still a decent episode. That said, Homer sharing a body with Mr. Burns at the end is yet another example of the show feeling like it was copying better, older Treehouse segments. (Huge bonus points at least for the Kang and Kodos/Perfect Strangers intro though.)
15. Treehouse of Horror XXX (31)
Original Air Date: October 20, 2019
Vignettes: “Danger Things,” “Heaven Swipes Right,” “When Hairy Met Slimy”
The best moment from season 31’s entry is a truly hilarious Ned Flanders moment that takes place during a mini Omen parody introduction. That’s followed by a very good, very silly Strangers Thing short that features some very funny jokes and potshots at the Netflix show. Not funny is the inexplicable and mediocre Heaven Can Wait spoof that doesn’t offer up much humor even as a dead Homer keeps choosing new bodies to live in. Fortunately “When Hairy Met Slimy,” The Simpsons take on The Shape of Water centered on a love story between Selma and Kang, is a vintage Treehouse installment. It’s excellent and helps push “XXX” it into the top half of this list.
14. Treehouse of Horror XX (Season 21)
Original Air Date: October 18, 2009
Vignettes: “Dial “M” for Murder or Press “#” to Return to Main Menu,” “Don’t Have a Cow, Mankind,” “There’s No Business Like Moe Business”
“XX” kicks off with a great intro, as classic monsters show up at the Simpsons’ Halloween party, but its opening segment, a Dial M for Murder parody, is disappointing. The episode bounces back with a fantastic 28 Days Later spoof, in which everyone turns into zombies after eating tainted Krusty Burgers. The last short—which, for some ridiculous reason, isn’t called “Sweeney Moe: The Demon Bartender of Springfield”—is presented as an actual play. This makes it less gory, since Homer isn’t really impaled and bleeding into the bar’s beer, but it still makes for a nice change of pace and a good unique segment overall.
13. Treehouse of Horror XXI (Season 22)
Original Air Date: November 7, 2010
Vignettes: “War and Pieces,” “Master and Cadaver,” “Tweenlight”
“XXI” doesn’t start off strong. It opens with a pumpkin carving-turned-The Office parody intro that makes no sense. That’s followed by a Jumanji spoof that misses the mark. But its second segment (based on the psychological thriller Dead Calm) where Homer and Marge rescue a suspicious man at sea is great. And while I’m sure the final Twilight spoof has its critics, Homer asking a million questions to an exasperated vampire is one of the funniest Treehouse moments.
12. Treehouse of Horror XXVII (Season 28)
Original Air Date: October 16, 2016
Vignettes: “Dry Hard,” “BFF R.I.P.,” “Moefinger”
Another great Treehouse intro sees Sideshow Bob, the angry leprechaun, Kang, and the ghost of Frank Grimes attacking the Simpsons while they buy a Christmas tree on Halloween. That’s followed by an excellent Hunger Games-turned-Fury Road parody, a decent story in which Lisa’s imaginary friend starts killing all of her other friends, and a Kingsman/James Bond parody that doesn’t make any sense for a Halloween show but is pretty good otherwise.
11. Treehouse of Horror I (Season 2)
Original Air Date: October 25, 1990
Vignettes: “Bad Dream House,” “Hungry are the Damned,” “The Raven”
As the first ever Treehouse of Horror this is a really important entry that holds a special place in the hearts of fans. But when compared to the rest of the Treehouse episodes, it’s merely good, not great. That’s the only way to describe the opening Amityville Horror parody and the second short, a take on the Twilight Zone‘s iconic “To Serve Man.” That said, “The Raven” easily stands out as the best of the bunch, and will always be one of the best individual segments. (Also, I will always love Marge’s start-of-show warnings. They are still perfect intros and long overdue for a comeback.)
10. Treehouse of Horror III (Season 4)
Original Air Date: October 29, 1992
Vignettes: “Clown Without Pity,” “King Homer,” “Dial ‘Z’ for Zombies”
Homer takes over Marge’s opening warning/introduction in the third ever Treehouse and delivers a pretty great joke at the expense of a certain, often humorless group. This leads into a memorable parody of the Twilight Zone‘s “Living Doll,” the original oversized Homer story based on King Kong, and one of the single best segments ever, a Night of the Living Dead spoof. That vignette alone has more laughs than many entire Treehouse episodes, but this episode is really good from the start.
9. Treehouse of Horror XXVIII (Season 29)
Original Air Date: October 22, 2017
Vignettes: “The Exor-Sis,” “Coralisa,” “Mmm…Homer”
It’s hard to believe it took this long to get an Exorcist parody, but it was worth the wait. This send-up kicks off a fantastic Treehouse entry. “Coralisa,” a spoof of Coraline is fun and features some of the best visuals in Treehouse history as it incorporates 3D-animation. The final segment, where Homer starts eating himself, is without question the darkest, most disturbing Treehouse story ever. It’s genuinely uncomfortable to watch, which is what makes it amazing.
8. Treehouse of Horror VIII (Season 9)
Original Air Date: October 26, 1997
Vignettes: “The HΩmega Man,” “Fly vs. Fly,” “Easy-Bake Coven”
“The HΩmega Man,” a Last Man on Earth parody, is a top 10 Treehouse segment. It’s perfectly paced and still just as funny as it was when it first aired. The other two segments, takes on Jeff Goldblum’s The Fly and Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, also stand as very good installments. There’s really nothing to complain about with “VIII.” It’s spot at eight is merely a testament to the rest of the list.
7. Treehouse of Horror XI (Season 12)
Original Air Date: November 1, 2000
Vignettes: “G-G-Ghost D-D-Dad,”Scary Tales Can Come True,” “Night of the Dolphin”
“XI”‘s placement is probably the biggest surprise on this list because on paper this doesn’t sound like a great set of stories to spoof. But after a superb Munsters-style intro, all three segments, including parodies of a Brothers Grimm fairy tale, Ghost Dad, and The Birds. There’s simply not a dud in the bunch, and if this had aired during the show’s first eight years people would remember it as a classic.
6. Treehouse of Horror VII (Season 8)
Original Air Date: October 27, 1996
Vignettes: “The Thing and I,” “The Genesis Tub,” “Citizen Kang”
“VII” contains two iconic, all-time segments. This installment has the show’s Twilight Zone parody of “The Genesis Tub,” where Lisa accidentally creates a mini-society. It also ends with “Citizen Kang,” which features arguably the most quoted, smartest line in Treehouse history. (“Don’t blame me, I voted for Kodos.”) But this just misses out on the top tier for two reasons. For one there’s no intro. The second is that the short about Bart’s “evil” twin isn’t anything special.
5. Treehouse of Horror II (Season 3)
Original Air Date: October 31, 1991
Vignettes: “The Monkey’s Paw,” “The Bart Zone,” “The Thing With Two Heads”
Treehouse originally kicked off with through-lines to connect the episode’s separate stories, and this absolute classic was presented as a series of nightmares the family had after eating too much candy (following an even better Marge intro). They’re all fantastic. The first, based on the short story “The Monkey’s Paw,” has some great meta-comedy and features Homer at his best. The parody of the Twilight Zone‘s “It’s a Good Life” is phenomenal, and the show’s OG Frankenstein/The Thing with Two Heads segment, a finale that ends with a big twist, makes for a flawless episode. There’s a reason the first eight seasons of The Simpsons are the best television show ever.
4. Treehouse of Horror XXXIII (Season 34)
Original Air Date: October 30, 2022
Vignettes: “The Pookadook,” “Death Tome,” “Simpsons World”
Easily one of the best Treehouse of Horrors ever. It has everything you’d want from the show’s annual Halloween special. It begins with a classic Simpsons-style parody of The Babadook called “The Pookadook” that features Marge and Maggie. It’s fantastic from start to finish and loaded with jokes and sight gags. Next comes one of the most aesthetically impressive shorts in Treehouse history, the anime-style “Death Tome.” This Lisa-centric take on Death Note is an absolute banger in every way, not just its stellar visuals. And this perfect episode is capped off by a truly stellar, really smart Westworld spoof called “Simpsons World” that closes with one of the best final moments of any Treehouse.
Putting up one of the best installments 33 years in doesn’t get this episode bonus points (it doesn’t need any), but that is truly impressive.
3. Treehouse of Horror VI (Season 7)
Original Air Date: October 29, 1995
Vignettes: “Attack of the 50-Foot Eyesores,” “Nightmare on Evergreen Terace,” “Homer3”
The only problem with this otherwise impeccable entry is that it lacks an intro. All three segments are genuinely incredible and hilarious, starting with “Attack of the 50-Foot Eyesores,” which sees Springfield’s giant advertisements coming to life and attacking the town. (A problem that is ultimately solved by a jingle that’s been stuck in my head literally for decades). That’s followed by A Nightmare on Elm Street parody that gave us “stupid Smarch weather,” and it ends with Homer stuck in a terrifying three-dimensional plane that sends him to our planet. There’s really no over-hyping this one.
2. Treehouse of Horror IV (Season 5)
Original Air Date: October 28, 1993
Vignettes: “The Devil and Homer Simpson,” “Terror at 5½ Feet,” “Bart Simpson’s Dracula”
If you think this should be number one I won’t argue with you. “IV” isn’t just one of the best Treehouse of Horrors in show history, it’s one of its best episodes of the show ever. “The Devil and Homer Simpson” is so good I’d have to invent a new word to accurately describe it. The parody of Twilight Zone‘s “Nightmare at 20,000 feet” couldn’t be any more perfect. And there are more laughs in the Dracula spoof than some shows have in an entire season. Put “Mmm… forbidden donut” on my tombstone.
It’s hard to believe anyone ever wrote anything so good. The onlyt hing that’s more impressive is that there’s an even better Treehouse than this one.
1. Treehouse of Horror V (Season 6)
Original Air Date: October 30, 1994
Vignettes: “The Shinning,” “Time and Punishment,” “Nightmare Cafeteria”
The Treehouse Goat.
“Nightmare Cafeteria” and its false ending-turned-musical number would be the best short in most Treehouse of Horrors, and yet it’s only third in this episode because the first two are among the best things The Simpsons has ever done, period. “Time and Punishment,” a take on Ray Bradbury’s time-travel-destroying “A Sound of Thunder,” is one of the funniest segments in TV history. Yet somehow(!) even that is outdone by the best Treehouse parody ever: the hilarious, spot-on “The Shinning.” The through-line of Willy getting an axe in the back in all three is also peak Treehouse of Horror.
If I could only watch one Treehouse of Horror ever again this would be it so obviously it’s number one. Sorry, Willy.
This post originally published October 25, 2017.
Mikey Walsh is a staff writer at Nerdist who quotes The Simpsons every day of his life. You can follow him on Twitter and Bluesky at @burgermike. And also anywhere someone is ranking the Targaryen kings.
