I can only make love in the back of a hearse, and I gotta dress up as a Civil War nurse

[vovat]

Well, at least they showed the Simpsons Halloween episode before Halloween this year. And the first segment, at least, was a pretty decent comic horror story. It did end rather abruptly, though. I kind of think they should have cut some time from the second part, which was easily the weakest. How many times are we going to see the show parody survival horror? We've already had zombies, mutants, and cowboy zombies in previous Halloween shows, and there really wasn't much new in this one. Yeah, I get that they're trying to take on modern zombie movies this time, but there are only so many jokes we can get out of the people of Springfield turning into zombies or zombie-like creatures. The final segment gets some credit for originality, especially with the low-budget play background. I've never seen Sweeney Todd, though, so I don't know if I missed any specific parodies of that.

Speaking of The Simpsons, how did Disney get to use Mr. Burns to promote their new Jim Carrey movie? Sure, there wasn't any new animation, but Harry Shearer DID provide a voice-over. I'm guessing it had to do with large amounts of money changing hands. But really, I'm no Carrey fan anyway, but even if I were, why do we need the eighty billionth remake of A Christmas Carol? Contrary to what Bill O'Reilly says, it isn't the secular-progressives who are making war on Christmas. It's the makers of Jim Carrey films.

As for the other shows, the Cleveland Show was slightly better than the previous episodes, Family Guy was a rerun, and American Dad was all right. I think they didn't really use the Roger's mind plot gimmick to its full advantage, but I did find his memories amusing. And really, that's about it.

Comments

[revme.livejournal.com]

I loved the first one -- but yeah, it could have been longer. I thought it was funny that, of all the Hitchcock parodies in that segment, "Dial M For Murder" wasn't in there. (It's mostly Strangers on a Train, storywise, with lots of shots/references to other films.)

Yeah -- the 28 days later one just seemed kinda lame. I might have liked it more if I'd seen _28 Days Later_, but.... Maybe I'm just zombied out or something.

I liked the third segment, but as the AV Club pointed out, it didn't really commit to being a Sweeney Todd parody; that's what I thought it was gonna be, but... not really. But the whole Crappy Play aspect was hilarious. I DID really like that one. And how "Homer's" letter to Marge started out "Hey, Midge". It was a good callback to earlier in the series.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I saw 28 Days Later, and I don't recall much in the episode that specifically referenced the movie, aside from the caption at the beginning.

[revme.livejournal.com]

Maybe that was the theme of the episode! Like, the last one, you go all "Oh, this is gonna be Sweeney Todd" and they're all like "PSYCH!", and that one was "Oh, this'll be 28 Days Later!" and again, "PSYCH!"

Even the first one was kinda like that, since you'd probably expect it to be Dial M For Murder, and it had nothing to do with DMFM, but the pile of Hitchcock references was a nice surprise.

[(Anonymous)]

The Play didn't resemble Sweeney Todd very much in story or music. I wondered if it was supposed to be more like the Phantom of the Opera (which I haven't seen).

The Zombie one I was pretty sure supposed to be 28 Days/weeks later but it wasn't very good. (Didn't imitate the movie's "look" which was the most memorable aspect of the movies). References were: zombies as a result of perverse experiment, hectic escapes, entire country turned to zombies in a quick "28 days later" cut. The 28 weeks later movie was about a woman with immunity to the zombie virus as a possible "cure" and getting her son (also immune) to a "safe area". (The car scene with Apu was from the movie, sorta). The final joke of Bart bathing in the food was ... just not that funny.

[(Anonymous)]

Oh, and homer as a captive zombie chained by the neck was straight out of the first movie. It just wasn't a very good satire is all...

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I wondered if it was supposed to be more like the Phantom of the Opera (which I haven't seen).

Well, Barney was dressed as the Phantom, but that's about it, as far as I could tell.

[jadavisofmo.blogspot.com (from livejournal.com)]

I watched it with my sister and her husband (Audrey and Shaun), who I'd invited over for pizza.

Simpsons was... a little dry. So many years as a kid, I hated and loved the Treehouse of Horror episodes because they were so humorous but still disturbing. (Oddly, the more I feared I'd have a nightmare about something, I wouldn't. I could read about giant spiders in "The Hobbit" before bed, but it was the giants and lions in "Pilgrim's Progress" that gave me the nightmares.)

In memory, let's remember a good episode of "TOH":

"The doll is cursed."
"That's bad."
"But it comes with a free frogurt!"
"That's good!"
"The frogurt is also cursed."
"That's bad."
"But it comes with your choice of toppings."
"That's good!"
"The toppings are made with sodium benzoate."
"..."
"That's bad."
"Can I go now?"

The Cleveland Show, I think, finally hit a good mark this week, with Cleveland getting a job, and a good subplot for the kids. And the best part was Cleveland's Flea Market song. (Audrey started jamming out to it, so later I managed to send her a mp3 of it.)

Family Guy, despite being a rerun, was a good choice. Audrey and Shaun didn't believe me that it was a repeat until they checked the channel listings. "If you've come this far, maybe you'll be willing to go a little further. Remember the name of that town in Mexico?" "... CRAP!"

"American Dad" I've never been a fan of. Maybe it's better when you're watching with someone.