OTH: The Simpsons- "Bart the Murderer" / "Treehouse of Horror IX'
The most exciting thing since Halley's Comet collided with the moon.
Season 10, Episode 3
Aired September 27, 1998
Directed by Steven Dean Moore
Written by David X. Cohen
Synopsis: The family goes out to Fun Central, a local amusement park, which is how Marge sees Nelson’s unrepentant behavior for the first time, and is horrified at how aggressive he is to Milhouse and other kids at the go-kart rally. Bart, on the other hand, thinks Nelson is cool, doubly so when he wins a BB gun at the arcade. Nelson gives Bart the okay to come over and use the gun, but Marge is horrified to hear this and forbids her son from seeing this hoodlum. While he’s usually pretty good at obeying his mother (especially compared to his old man), Bart decides to not respect her wishes and sneaks out to Nelson’s. There, he watches Nelson shoot various things around his house, but an inpatient Bart grows weary of waiting for his turn. Nelson gives him the opportunity to prove his worth with the gun by shooting a red robin sitting on a nearby tree. Bart freezes, not wanting to end the life of a harmless bird, but can’t take any more of Nelson’s taunting and aims the gun to the right of the bird. Unfortunately, Bart’s aim sucks and he shoots it down. He’s heartbroken to have killed a bird, and tries to hide it from an angry Marge, who finds out that Bart lied to him. When she discovers the dead bird, Marge decides that punishing Bart won’t do any good, and instead of dragging him home, leaves her son at Nelson’s. Bart goes to check the nest of the bird he shot and discovers a pair of eggs, which makes him feel even worse- he killed a mother in cold blood, and now he has to make sure that they don’t die without a mother to watch them. Bart rents a video and book on how to hatch birds eggs and follows it by finding the right kind of lightbulb to give them light in his treehouse. His parents notice how much time Bart is spending in his treehouse, and a still furious Marge barges in to check on her son. Her anger turns to warmth when she discovers what Bart is doing and when they notice that the eggs are starting to hatch, they bring them inside, where out come a pair of lizards. Confused, they take the lizards to Springfield’s birdwatching society, hosted by Principal Skinner, who reveals that these are Bolivian tree lizards, a dangerous breed that eats whatever birds they find in their environment, which is why Skinner and the club decide that they need to be killed. Bart refuses to let them do it, raising the birds himself and insisting that they mean good, but Skinner won’t hear it. Marge takes Bart outside of the club’s room to talk to him, but really tells him to run away. He makes it to the top of the building, where Skinner and the club come over, attempting to take the lizards away. Bart can either give him the lizards or jump down, but instead he drops the box containing the lizards, and they fall… until they sprout wings and fly into Springfield. It turns out that the lizards grow an appetite for pigeons and wipe the town clean of them, so it turns out that Bart did good this time.
Personally, if it took an epidemic of pigeon-eating lizards to get those hell birds to stop shitting on my car, I’ll take it.
The idea of a Simpson watching over unhatched bird eggs was being toyed around for a while, initially as a b-plot with Homer, but it wasn’t deemed suitable for a side story and was switched into a main episode. While I think switching from Homer to Bart makes sense, I’m surprised by how light Homer’s appearance is in the episode, but then again, his more outlandish subplots tend to be saved for Lisa episodes, as Bart tends to be a more reliable character for casual fans.
It’s a good one, funny and a little sweet while avoiding going full saccharine thanks to the show’s legendary bite still being in tact, and still being a good time. There’s some especially noteworthy usages of irony in the episode, like Marge deciding that the best thing to do with a recognized outcast like Nelson is to shun him from society. Harsh, but funny.
“Bart the Mother” is the last full Simpsons episode from David X. Cohen for more than twenty years (he’ll contribute to the following episode and return to script a one-off in season 32), as he’ll be busy developing Futurama with Matt Groening. This is also the last episode to feature the voice work of Phil Hartman before his untimely murder, and the last appearance of Troy McClure. Phil remains loved and missed to this day from his loved ones and fans of his incomparable resume.
Season 10, Episode 4
Aired October 25, 1998
Directed by Steven Dean Moore
Written by Donick Cary, Larry Doyle, David X. Cohen
Synopsis: Another year, another trio of ultra violent cartoon shorts. First, in “Hell Toupee”, Snake is arrested for robbing the Kwik-E-Mart, where Chief Wiggum reminds the felon that this is his third felony, which means that he has a one way ticket to the electric chair. Snake tries to feign innocent, but Wiggum points out the witnesses to the crime- Apu, who runs the store, Moe, who was in line before Snake ran in, and Bart, who tried and failed to hide by the arcade cabinet he was playing. Snake promises revenge on all three of them, but the wait time for his execution is brief, as it takes no time for his death to be broadcast on live TV, hosted by Ed McMahon. Right after Snake is zapped to death, Homer gets a call offering his long-awaited hair transplant. He now has Snake’s hair, which still has fragments of his brain, causing Homer to think like Snake. First, he goes to the Kwik-E-Mart and between fulfilling his usual appetite, finds time to attacked Apu and leave him for dead in the slushee machine. Luckily, there are no witnesses and no one is able to pin Homer (or Snake on the murder). He’s similarly lucky when he finds Moe at his bar during a quieter time of day and rips out his heart. Bart notices the pattern and is worried that Snake is killing from beyond the grave, so Homer offers to protect Bart… only for him to revert back to Snake and locking the two of them in his room. Snake, in Homer’s body, tries to get at Bart, who fends for his life. Marge and Lisa can hear Bart’s scream and bursts the door open to save him. Lisa points out what we all know, just in time for Wiggum and the police to come by to arrest Homer, only to avert their attention to the escaping wig, which is shot to death. And the episode ends with a bad pun.
Next, in “The Terror of Tiny Toon” (no relation), Bart and Lisa are excited for an extra-violent Itchy & Scratchy cartoon, but Marge isn’t comfortable with them watching such a program and turns off the TV and removes the remote’s batteries before she and Maggie leave to go trick-or-treating. They can’t find any more batteries, but Bart finds plutonium in Homer’s toolbox and somehow, it works to turn the TV on. Actually, it works so well that Bart and Lisa, who bicker over the remote, are zapped into the television and right into Itchy and Scratchy’s world. They have a problem when the kids laugh a little too heavily at Itchy and Scratchy’s cartoon violence, and they’re not happy about it, deciding to lash out at them. Bart and Lisa try to run away while still in the cartoon world, and notice that Homer is back home on the couch and ask for his help. He doesn’t offer much help, instead changing the channel and putting the four of them into a live episode of Regis and Kathie Lee. Bart and Lisa ask Homer to use the remote to bring them back to reality, which works… but also brings Itchy and Scratchy in with them. Unfortunately for the cartoon characters, it turns out that they have the “real-world” proportions of a cat and mouse, which makes their attempts to fight human children fruitless.
And in “Starship Poopers”, Maggie is finally teething, but her first tooth looks… different. It’s much larger than a regular tooth, like a fang. To make things even weirder, it turns out that like teeth, she also has baby legs, which turn into familiar-looking green tentacles. No one knows what is going on, even Maggie, who sends out an intergalactic signal, which sends Kang and Kodos over to Earth. It turns out that Kang is actually Maggie’s father, as he abducted and impregnated her around two years ago. It’s her darkest secret, one she isn’t proud of, but the truth is out there and Kang wants his child back. Homer is furious at just about everyone, but doesn’t know what to do. However, Bart has an idea, and the family appear on Jerry Springer to settle the manner. This only results in Maggie discovering some of her newfound powers and attacking the audience. Kang and Kodos demand that the family gives them Maggie, or they will destroy all of their politicians in Washington, which is the easiest choice ever, right?
I believe I mention before that I prefer the Treehouse of Horror episodes as a fan of the show rather than as a critic. They’re usually a fun time, but hard to write about, intentionally messing with the show’s usual structure, but also relying too hard on its own winning formula to stand on their own.
By now, the Treehouse of Horror specials are as iconic and recognizable as most anything else from The Simpsons, like the opening chalkboard gags (when they’re used) or Homer’s love of donuts. Even many fans who drop the show, either at this point or later down the road, tend to still tune into this annual set of violent and wacky shorts. It doesn’t help that I don’t think this year’s set of shorts are the show’s finest, either.
I guess the easy thing would be to do would be to pick my favorite of the three, and that’s easily “The Terror of Tiny Toon”, which allows the show to indulge in its wackiest cartoon fantasies, bringing Itchy and Scratchy’s biggest fans into their world. We get a little bit of cartoon violence thrown at them, like Bart being eaten alive by piranhas, but it works best by keeping the madcap energy of a classic cartoon like the kind Itchy & Scratchy’s works are inspired by in a tasteful fashion. Even the weird diversion into Live with Regis & Kathie Lee keeps the pace alive.
The other two segments are fine, but I find them to have highs and lows as opposed to the more consistent middle segment referenced above. I don’t have much to say about “Hell Toupee”, which has the most real-world violence of the three (enough so that Moe’s death had to be reworked from its original take), but ultimately feels a little slight. It may be that focusing on Snake, a trivial character who rarely even contributes to a subplot, is a risky gambit that I don’t think Donick Cary pulls off, but he still gets a couple of good bits in.
Meanwhile, “Starship Poopers”, which features Cohen’s last official contribution until his aforementioned return, takes a little too long to get going, only really developing into something worthwhile when the family appears on Springer, and even that works best if you’re familiar with how the legendarily trashy daytime TV show existed. Now I am old enough to remember more than a couple of sick days at home watching Jerry, so this material works for me, doubly so to see the segment get almost as violent as a regular episode.
Reportedly, the use of multiple television personalities was a coincidence, one that I don’t think totally pays off, but it makes “Treehouse of Horror IX” the most celeb-loaded episode since “The Last Temptation of Krust”, which is also written by Donick Cary. And a perfect lead-in to the following episode, even if this isn’t the finest Treehouse of Horror.
Homer’s Bar Tab:
First things first, let’s get this out of the way- earlier this week, iconic daytime TV host Jerry Springer passed away, which makes my covering of “Treehouse of Horror IX” feel a little weird. Not based on the episode’s context, since Springer does appear to be in on the joke, but almost kind of somber that this happens to be the episode that I chose to cover. Although it’s worth noting that I know a few people who were on his legendary program- a friend whose parents hashed out their issues before she was born, and a (happily married) couple who were asked to make up a story about the husband’s brother sleeping with the wife. I never got around to seeing either segment, unfortunately.
Couch Gag Wars: Firefighters carry the couch like a safety net with most of the family jumping onto it, aside from Homer vs. Marge driving the car into Homer, disappointing Freddie Krueger and Jason Voorhees, who are waiting for them on the couch. I can’t pick the latter due to Jason talking. Also, why would he be interested in the kids? They’re virgins. Hell, Homer and Marge are married, Jason usually aims for people who engage in premarital sex. Points to Robert Englund voicing Freddie, though.
Do you think that Apu would sell Lisa the beer?
“You’ve been checking out this same bible for nine years, wouldn’t it be easier to just buy one?” “Perhaps on a librarian’s salary.”
Hey, Poochie! Remember Poochie? He’s back, in cameo form.
Okay, so Marge is an unreliable narrator, she was clearly warned about being abducted.
I too would let an alien eradicate every politician in America than give up my child. Or any child. And I’m not really one for children.
Next Week: First, Homer becomes bffs with Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger, who are using Springfield as a hiding place. Then, he becomes a hippie. Sure.