Capsule Submission: Treehouse of Horror XIV (EABF21)

S P O I L E R

S P A C E

.

.

.

.

.

Preview from snpp.com:

8:00 . SEASON PREMIERE . Treehouse of Horror XIV (EABF21) Homer turns into the Grim Reaper; Jerry Lewis guest voices as Professor Frink's soon-to-be-brought-back-alive father; Bart and Milhouse in a spoof of Clockstoppers

Preview From tvguide.com: Treehouse of Horror XIV 30 mins. The annual Halloween trilogy opens Season 15---making this the longest running comedy in TV history---with guest voices by Jerry Lewis, Jennifer Garner and Oscar De La Hoya. In the imaginative free-for-all, Homer assumes the duties of the Grim Reaper after knocking off Death with a bowling ball. Then Lewis goes on a rampage as the father of Professor Frink (Hank Azaria), who's presented a Nobel Prize by Garner. Finally, De La Hoya takes a beating and Principal Skinner loses his pants when Bart and Milhouse stop time with a 49-cent "miracle watch."

KOTH Minute: Where is Bill's new Laotian woman? The show was good but there needs to be a little continuity to it. Also, did anyone else notice that the size perspective seemed really off on the episode's characters? Really strange.

Simpsons Minute: Well, it is amazing that it has been almost 14 years since the show first aired. Also, was this the first episode that was done digitally? Can someone explain what the differences in the production process are now.

Reaper Madness References: Benny Hill. The show had that same chase music. Also, can someone tell me what that other chase music was that appeared at the end of the segment and was used often in Season 9?

Frinkenstein References and Notes: The Nobel Prize used to originally be given to the person who had advanced the science of note the furthest in the previous year. This was told to me by a guy who switched his career from Physics and Electrical Engineering to Economics in hoping that he will have his legacy. Anyone who studies a particular tupe of "filter" will know who I am talking about. So maybe Frink's combo tool is worthy of the Nobel although it now is usually given to a person for their lifetime of work.

Reanimator-Possibly the coolest splatter movie ever. Mortal Kombat-The spine removal seemed similar to Johnny Cage's fatality.

Stop the World I want to Goof Off Notes: Rhoda. Did anyone else think that she was hotter than Mary Tyler Moore? I certainly did. Also, "Adult Bart" seemed a little more similar to his Season 12 grownup version than his season 6 grownup version.

Review:

Reaper Madness: Wasn't something like this done on Family Guy? Actually, this was frighteningly similar to the episode (Death is a Bitch) where Peter Griffin had to become death after causing Death to sprain its ankle. It was funny but I give it a C for being so derivitive.

Frinkenstein: It was pretty funny and had its moments. I thought that because Jerry Lewis was in this segment there would be more Nutty Professor moments (not like the Simpsons has had enough references to that movie with Frink)and less killing people in original way moments, but it still was funny (not ha ha but heh funny). B-

Stop the World I want to Goof Off: There were some cute comedic moments in the episode. B

Overall. It was good and I got some snickers out of it. Not much else. Grade: B

"Yakety Sax" by Boots Randolph.

-Dave

"Stephen" wrote in message news:[email]...

LOL, it took a decent premise that Family Guy botched and made it work. Aside from Homer becoming Death it had nothing in common with one of the worst Family Guy episodes ever. Best Treehouse story since The Shinning.

Dude, if you like the segment so much, why don't you marry it.

I will go now.

"Zorakbahr" wrote in message news:dCjpb.70178$[email]...

I would but I'm already married to fruit salad.

???

It was almost EXACTLY the same. It even had the "the rules of death no longer apply" sequence. For shame, Simpsons. This is an alltime low.

I knew I'd seen it before, but I couldn't find it in my memory when thinking about the Simpsons. It was only when people mentioned Family Guy here that I realized that's where I'd seen the story before. I don't even remember that episode of Family Guy beyond the fact that one of the characters becomes Death.

Michael

On 03 Nov 2003 08:54:08 GMT, [email] (Gyumaoh) wrote:

FG didn't exactly originate this idea

No, but the Simpsons did NOTHING original with the idea. The "freezing time" idea is not new, but at least they did some new stuff with the concept.

On 03 Nov 2003 17:08:02 GMT, [email] (Gyumaoh) wrote:

It's a 6 minute short filled with lots of jokes, not exactly the breeding ground for original concepts

Stephen wrote:

I think the first one of the new digitally-colored era was EABF01 (The Great Louse Detective) last year; however, that wasn't really the first. CABF08 (Tennis the Menace) was an experiment in digital coloring, 2F17 (Radioactive Man) had some sort of computer component to its production (from what I hear), and last year's TOH (DABF19) had some computer-generated help for all the Homers. There may be more... It's still drawn by hand, though, as far as I know, and I suspect it will stay that way until season 50.

On Sun, 02 Nov 2003 18:05:08 -0800, Stephen wrote:

Actually, I believe you are thinking of Sub-Zero's fatality (which I still remember as being Toward, Down, Toward, A on the Sega Genesis!), where he rips off the opponent's head, with the spine still attached. I had forgotten what Johnny Cage's fatality was but according to some FAQs on gamefaqs.com, he simply punches the opponent's head off (no spine, the head just falls to the ground), and that seems to fit in with my memories.

Anyway, Sub Zero's fatality removes the head, and Skinner still has his head when his mother nags him for having no spine, so I don't think this was a MK reference.

(I'm referring to the first Mortal Kombat game. Cage may have a similar fatality in a later game, but I don't remember it, and I put a lot of quarters into those MK and MK II arcades as a kid. Beginning with MK3 the games started sucking, so I have no idea about those.)

Now, Frink the elder taking Ned Flanders' still-beating heart could be a reference to Kano's fatality in MK, but more likely it's a generic horror movie reference.

Agreed. We didn't even get a "Hey LADY!!" line out of Jerry Lewis. :-)

On the whole, not a bad episode, but not a particularly good one -- C+ (as if anybody cares about my rating!). The re-run of "Barting Over" that followed was better. Still, the Kang and Kodos bit in the intro was a nice touch, and thanks to FOX for not showing ALL of that in the teaser commercials like they practically did with the Reaper Madness segment.

Stephen:

Well, if he had been studying for 15 years, it would have put him somewhere in between his ages in "Lisa's Wedding" and "Bart to the Future," right?