The Simpsons: 10 Best Treehouse Of Horror Episodes

The first Halloween special post-season 8 opens up with perhaps the best cold opening to any of the Treehouse anthologies.

The Fox censor crossing out jokes from a script (even the ones he finds funny), before being stabbed to death by the TV ratings symbol, is very funny. Knowing that Fox actually censored this sequence - requesting a change from a dagger to a sword - makes it even funnier.

Our first story proper, The Homega Man, is the best of the trio, and sees Homer as the sole survivor of a nuclear blast on Springfield. We get a lot of Homer kicking or punching into smithereens the skulls of the skeletal dead, and the tale ends with the Simpson family blasting the flesh-hungry mutants (sorry, freaks, or monsters), but the best line goes to Comic Book Guy as he sees the nuclear bomb drop whilst reading Aquaman - “Oh, I’ve wasted my life”.

Fly vs Fly is next, serving up a slice of Cronenberg in a fine tale of body horror, with the gag of the dual-butted pet that emerges from the teleporter being a highlight. And the final tale, Easy Bake Coven, takes us back to a pioneer-era Salem-esque village where Marge, Patty and Selma turn out to be witches, all culminating in the origin of the trick-or-treat tradition.

A solid episode, even if the first half is noticeably stronger.