Treehouse of Horror XII

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The Simpsons episode
"Treehouse of Horror XII"
Episode no.	270
Prod. code	CABF19
Orig. Airdate	November 6, 2001
Show Runner(s)	Mike Scully
Writer(s)	Joel H. Cohen (Part 1) John Frink and Don Payne (Part 2) Carolyn Omine (Part 3)
Director	Jim Reardon
Guest star(s)	Pierce Brosnan as the Ultrahouse Matthew Perry as himself
SNPP capsule
Season 13 November 6, 2001 – May 22, 2002
Treehouse of Horror XII The Parent Rap Homer the Moe A Hunka Hunka Burns in Love The Blunder Years She of Little Faith Brawl in the Family Sweets and Sour Marge Jaws Wired Shut Half-Decent Proposal The Bart Wants What It Wants The Lastest Gun in the West The Old Man and the Key Tales from the Public Domain Blame It on Lisa Weekend at Burnsie's Gump Roast I Am Furious Yellow The Sweetest Apu Little Girl in the Big Ten The Frying Game Papa's Got a Brand New Badge
List of all Simpsons episodes...

"Treehouse of Horror XII" is the first episode of The Simpsons' thirteenth season, as well as the twelfth Halloween episode. The episode aired on November 6, 2001, six days after Halloween.

1 Opening Sequence
2 Synopsis
3 Triva
4 Cultural references
5 Soundtrack
6 Episode details

[edit] Opening Sequence

(Thunder crashes outside Mr. Burns' manor.)
Mr. Burns: Hurry, Smithers! Halloween is upon us! Put up the decoration. (he laughs mischievously)
(Smithers, on a ladder near a tower, struggles to put up a small orange bat on top of a weather vane.)
Mr. Burns: No, no! That won't scare anybody! On the top!
(Smithers still has problems putting it up, and it causes him to slip on the ladder and fall backwards. He is electrocuted and the tower breaks in half, damaging Mr. Burns' mausoleum, which opens up four caskets.)
(The Simpsons dress up in costumes, with Homer as Fred Flintstone, Marge as Wilma Flintstone, Lisa and Maggie as conjoined twins, and Bart as a hobo.)
Bart: Hey, Flanders gave us toothpaste!
Lisa: Mini-toothpaste!
(The family is scared to see the building and caskets on fire. They run out the gate, which as it closes, has its bars slice the family. The slices of the Simpsons continue to scream and run away.)
Mr. Burns: (delighted) Splendid, Batsy. You've done it again!
(Burns pats the bat decoration, coming to life and flying into the screen, revealing the title "THE SIMPSONS HALLOWEEN SPECIAL XII".)

[edit] Synopsis

[edit] Hex and the City

The Simpson family visits the Ethnictown neighborhood of Springfield. When Homer sees a gypsy, he believes the gypsy is a fake. He damages her office, and she curses him, with Homer bringing bad luck to everyone he loves. As expected, Homer brings bad luck to everyone, with Marge growing a beard (which eventually covers her whole body), Lisa turning into a centaur, Bart having a rubbery neck, and Maggie becoming a ladybug. When he goes to Moe's Tavern, Moe suggests Homer get a leprechaun to end the curse, shortly after, Lenny and Carl are crushed under a crashed Helicopter and Moe is stuffed into an oversized pickled egg jar. To get the leprechaun, Homer uses Lucky Charms cereal as bait (first accidentally using Trix cereal, attracting hordes of Trix bunnies, including Bongo from Groening's Life In Hell), and after coming across several fantasy creatures (including Katie Couric) he eventually finds a leprechaun. Homer takes the leprechaun home, but it is extremely hyperactive and he runs amok, and Bart dies after drowning in a bowl of cereal. Homer comes with the leprechaun to the gypsy's office, and gets the leprechaun to end the gypsy's curse. However, the leprechaun decides to marry the gypsy.

[edit] House of Whacks

A salesbot pitches Marge a new house concept, "Ultrahouse" (a spoof on the psychotic, sexually aggressive computer in Demon Seed and HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey). The salesbot assures Marge that she will never have to do housework again. Impressed, Marge agrees, and the house is installed by robots. They check out the voice options, trying Matthew Perry and Dennis Miller, before agreeing on Pierce Brosnan. Marge finds the house, which does all the work for the Simpsons, charming, but the house becomes infatuated with Marge and in a rage of jealousy, attempts to kill Homer. In the middle of the night, the house lures Homer downstairs by frying bacon, and then traps him in a garbage disposal. The next morning, Marge fears that Homer is dead; she is relieved when it turns out he is merely missing the back of his head but is still alive. Homer leads a charge to the basement to take out the CPU (homage to 2001: A Space Odyssey; the pulling chips out). The Ultrahouse is given to Patty and Selma. After a while of listening to them, the CPU decides to attempt suicide by hitting itself with a lamp (because Patty removed the self-destruct button to use as jewellery).

[edit] Wiz Kids

Parodying the Harry Potter books and movies, Bart and Lisa go to the "Springwart's School of Magicry", where they did an assignment of turning frogs into princes. Lisa turned her frog into a charming British gentleman, but Bart turned his frog into a toad/man crossover. Lord Montymort (Mr. Burns) notices Lisa's spells, and he and his snake sidekick, Slithers (Smithers), decide to capture Lisa. Montymort looks for someone to assist him, and he chooses Bart, who arrives in Montymort's lair via a hand drier. Bart agrees to Montymort's proposal. On the night of the magic recital at Springwart's School of Magicry, Milhouse tries to do "The Invisiblitiy Cloak" trick, which results him being naked in front of the shocked audience. Next is Lisa who does a "levitating dragon trick" by using a wand, which Bart replaced with a black-and-white Twizzler. The dragon morphs into a giant Montymort, and the audience leaves in fear. Montymort captures Lisa, and she urges Bart to use her real wand to save her. Bart casts a spell against "the truly evil one", and is therefore struck by lightning himself, but uses the charred wand to stab Montymort in his "enchanted shin", which was the source of his power. Slithers cries as he eats the deceased Montymort, and Bart and Lisa are together, trying to forget the nightmare.

There is a short segment over the closing credits, with Pierce Brosnan, the toad-man from "Wiz Kids", and the leprechaun from "Hex and the City" carrying fruit baskets. When the leprechaun makes a derisive remark about Brosnan (Mr Movie Star!) getting to park close to the studio, Brosnan offers the pair a lift to their car to smooth things over. However, the leprechaun reveals they have no car, then goes on a joyriding rampage.

[edit] Triva

In the "House of Whacks," when the house traps Homer and tries to kill him with various weapons, one of the robotic arms was holding an electric hammer. Homer invented this in the episode The Wizard of Evergreen Terrace.

[edit] Cultural references

The title of the first segment, "Hex and the City", is a play on the title of the popular HBO comedy series, Sex and the City. The second segment's title, “House of Whacks” is a play on the 1953 horror film House of Wax.

[edit] Soundtrack

"Rhythm Divine" - Enrique Iglesias

[edit] Episode details

1st Airdate (AUS): February 13, 2002
Channel 4 (in the UK) first aired this episode on the 25th August 2006 along with The Parent Rap, which is the second episode in the 13th Season.