STUFF for "Treehouse of Horror XII" (CABF19) -------------------------------------------- Written by: Hex and the City: Joel H. Cohen House of Whacks: John Frink & Don Payne Wiz Kids: Carolyn Omine Directed by Jim Reardon Blackboard: none Couch: none Special Guest Voice: Pierce Brosnan, Matthew Perry, Marcia Wallace Also Starring: Pamela Hayden, Tress MacNeille, Karl Wiedergott Dennis Miller's voice impersonated by Dan Castellaneta Overseas Animation: Rough Draft; Chang, Myung Nam Rating: TV-PG-LV
REVIEW: A-minus - not quite as good as some of the others, and it was pretty much "going through the Halloween motions" until the surprise ending...and the ending after the surprise ending. The trouble is, with two segments based on two well-known stories (2001: A Space Odyssey; the Harry Potter series), there isn't much that hasn't already been referenced to death elsewhere already.
REFERENCES (besides the really obvious ones) "Thinner" ("I curse you") "Mork & Mindy" (Bart says "shazbot" when Montymort appears) 5F21 (a hammer with an "automatic head")
DYNs ...the Fortune Teller sign says "after hours use automated teller"? ...the fortune teller's neon hand sign had four fingers? ...somebody besides Homer says "(something), eh?" (in this case, Marge says "no housework, eh?" and the computer says "machine, eh?" ...Marge dialed a 7-digit number to call the police, rather than 911 (or 912)? ...the house's hammer moved its head separately from its handle, like Homer's invention in 5F21? ...the "K" in "Wiz Kids" had a Harry Potter-esque lightning bolt? ..."Dennis Miller voice impersonated by Dan Castellaneta", only the third time that somebody was listed with the voice they did (one episode in the third season listed the voices the six stars did, and Jay Mohr as Christopher Walken in BABF17)? MAGGIE ALERT White baggie: in "House of Whacks", when Marge tries to get everyone out of the house
GOOFS/FREEZE FRAME/WHATNOT You would think Pierce Brosnan would all but deny he was ever Remington Steele, as it almost cost him the chance to be James Bond; he was supposed to replace Roger Moore, but when NBC heard this, it decided to renew Remington Steele (which they had announced as being cancelled) for one more year, after which the James Bond producers decided Brosnan couldn't be both, and as the Remington Steele producers wouldn't let him out of his contract, Timothy Dalton (remember him?) was chosen as the next Bond instead.
Why didn't the computer just open its front panel up and remove its circuits, the way Homer "killed" it?