Hey! This year's TOH was not lackluster! I really enjoyed the somewhat stylized feel of "Dial M for Murder..." and the whole Bart/Lisa dynamic. "Cow" I could take or leave, but it was well done. "Moe Business" - well, I may be in the minority, but I like musicals - actually I was just thinking about how spontaneous singing on the show had fallen by the wayside the other day (not that this is spontaneous, but still). I also rather enjoyed the "stage show" feel and in particular the split-level elevating stage. I'd watch a whole episode of that. So, recalling what I said last week about recent episodes having a more old-timey feel, apply that to this episode too. (See also below for some insertions of older things.)
DYN: ...a break after the opening? (a first since KABF22 but the best candidate for a break from the 4-act format) ...J. Loren Pryor makes an appearance? ...the second story's title doesn't show up for a while? ..."come with me if you want to live"? ...Bart says the old-old-old-school "ow, quit it" a few times? ...Marge's imagined rainbow in the coffee seems to go red-orange- yellow-blue-green, unless I didn't see it correctly? (Compare DHS terror scale.)
Previous episode references DABF19: Marge as a cat 9F04, KABF07: Title of first story AABF07: B&W format and horror/murder theme of first story reminiscent of "The Bloodening" 9F04, 5F02, BABF01: some previous TOHs with zombies/mutants/undead theme LABF12: Apu is safe because he didn't eat a tainted burger - in this episode, he got sick along with most of Springfield from tainted veggie Krustyburgers 8F18: Moe's bad rope flying in third story a bit like Marge's in this musical episode 8F16: "Homer's" letter to Marge breaks up with her by saying "I'm gay" - an obvious fabrication
Other stuff -Bart's referring to killing Mrs. Krabappel as a "prank" reminds me of the SNL sketch "Pranksters", where Christopher Walken does basically the same thing (I jumped out and pranked him to death with a tire iron!). -After the jab at communion, Lovejoy tugs his collar; we've seen, though, that this denomination doesn't seem to do that. -I mentioned the other week that it looked like the Gracie logo was back to its normal aspect; it's not.