Treehouse of Horror VI
"Treehouse of Horror VI" (titled onscreen as "The Simpsons Halloween Special VI") is the sixth episode of the seventh season of the American animated television series The Simpsons, and the sixth episode in the Treehouse of Horror series.
The episode was written by John Swartzwelder, Steve Tompkins, and David X. Cohen and was directed by Bob Anderson.
"Homer3", pitched by executive producer Bill Oakley, features three dimensional computer animation provided by Pacific Data Images (PDI).
Krusty, as the Headless Horseman from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, holds his laughing head and hurls it at the camera, causing the title, "The Simpsons Halloween Special VI", to appear on-screen in blood.
In the midst of a freak storm, Lard Lad and the other giant advertising statues come to life to terrorize Springfield.
Lisa and Paul Anka later perform a catchy song and the citizens of Springfield stop looking at the monsters, who lose their powers and become lifeless (although Homer has to be dragged away from the Lard Lad statue, holding a sign reading "Now With Sprinkles").
Homer is distracted and Lard Lad drops the doughnut, which rolls past Kang and Kodos, who are trying to hitchhike to Earth's capital.
After Bart and Lisa tell Marge about the incident, she explains Willie burned to death after the thermostat was turned too high, his suffering drawn out by the spendthrift disrepair of the school and the parents of the students looking on and doing nothing; Willie swore that he would take his revenge out on their children in their dreams where their parents could not protect them.
Willie recovers and turns into a giant bagpipe spider and is about to kill Bart as well as Lisa, who has entered the dream after also falling asleep.
The Simpsons children awaken and despite being pleased to be alive, Lisa fears that Willie might still be around "out there, and could back, any time, in any form."
Patty and Selma visit the Simpsons, driving Bart, Lisa, and even the pets to evade them and consequently leave almost no place for Homer to hide.
Bart is pulled back into the house and Marge is sad that her husband is gone; Reverend Lovejoy attempts to console her by saying he has gone to "a better place".
[4] "Nightmare on Evergreen Terrace" was written by Steve Tompkins and has been described by David X. Cohen as "one of the scariest [segments]".
The original idea was that Homer would visit several dimensions where he change through different animation art styles, including one where everything was made out of paper cut-outs, but they decided that it would be too complicated.
It was filmed on Ventura Boulevard in Studio City[5] and directed by David Mirkin, who later said that Fox "couldn't have been less supportive" because they thought it would be too expensive.
Mirkin was also disappointed in the quality of the camera pan, again blaming the lack of support from Fox and the inability to halt the traffic.
[11] In The Simpsons and Their Mathematical Secrets, Simon Singh notes "we glimpse a cosmological equation (ρm0 > 3H02 /8πG) that describes the density of Homer's universe.
Provided by one of Cohen's oldest friends, the astronomer David Schiminovich, the equation implies a high density, which means that the resulting gravitational attraction will ultimately force Homer's universe to collapse.
"[11] Cohen would later include references to Fermat's Last Theorem in "The Wizard of Evergreen Terrace", where solutions to it appear on a chalkboard.
[22] The authors of the book I Can't Believe It's a Bigger and Better Updated Unofficial Simpsons Guide, Warren Martyn and Adrian Wood, described it as "Complex, very assured and very clever, [...] The computer graphics are outstanding, and the final scene – as Homer enters our dimension – is one of the highlights of the entire series.
"[23] Ryan Budke of TV Squad listed "Homer3" as the fourth best Treehouse of Horror segment and gave honorable mention to "Nightmare on Evergreen Terrace".
Club, Erik Adams praises the episode's visual inventiveness: "On a deeper level, 'Treehouse of Horror' endures because it's the one time a year the Simpsons staff can fully embrace the fact they make a cartoon.
Various fantasy episodes and trips down the non-canonical timeline also afford this chance, but 'Treehouse of Horror' is a dependable, perennial opportunity to go whole hog with the animated wackiness.
"[27] In the July 26, 2007 issue of Nature, the scientific journal's editorial staff listed the "Homer3" segment among "The Top Ten science moments in The Simpsons", highlighting Cohen's "178212 + 184112=192212" equation.
