The Simpsons’ Treehouse Of Horror Season 36 Mocks One Of Its Oldest Jokes

Warning: This article contains SPOILERS for The Simpsons Season 36, Episode 5, “Treehouse of Horror XXXV”

While The Simpsons loves silly jokes, even the series itself made fun of this style of comedy in the Season 36 Treehouse of Horror Halloween special. The Simpsons does not hesitate to mock its own formula. The show has been on the air for over three decades, and thanks to that longevity, the animated family comedy has inevitably developed some reliable jokes that The Simpsons revisit frequently. For example, many The Simpsons38 Treehouse of Horror’s Halloween specials made fun of their own tendency to kill off the show’s main characters, as their non-canon status makes this a possibility.

Similarly, The SimpsonsSeason 36 acknowledged a major plot hole when episode 4, “Shoddy Heat,” highlighted the inconsistency of Homer’s age. A Season 4 episode revealed that Homer was born in 1956, but the Season 33 premiere portrayed him as a high school student in 2000. “Shoddy Heat” laughs at this inconsistency rather than explaining the discrepancy, proving that the series has a sense of humor about its own narrative shortcomings. Similarly, Season 36 Episode 5, “Treehouse of Horror XXXV,” took aim at another classic joke in the Edgar Allan Poe parody “Fall of the House of Monty.”

The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror XXXV admitted its visual jokes are hard to read

Carl complained about the epitaphs of Lenny’s ancestors

In “The Fall of the House of Monty,” Burns played a greedy 19th-century industrialist who abused workers at his corn syrup factory. Workers like Lenny, Carl, Moe, and Homer spent the day working tirelessly at the corn syrup factory and the night working on building the luxurious Burns mansion. The SimpsonsThe Edgar Allan Poe parody soon turned dark when the workers were killed, but this fate wasn’t much of a surprise. Early on, Lenny had already pointed out that two generations of his family died while working on the unnecessarily elaborate house.

When Lenny pointed to two statues immortalizing his predecessors, Carl noted “That’s a lot to read” as the camera panned toward their long, detailed epitaphs. It was a self-conscious joke that pointed out that the written vision chokes The Simpsons are often too plentiful for viewers to read them all on first viewingand would be absurdly impractical in reality. Since The Simpsons features funny signs at least once in almost every episode, this affectionate mockery of the show’s reliance on this style of comedy was a funny, self-referential joke. However, this wasn’t the first time the show pointed this out.

The Simpsons poked fun at its reliance on jokes written before

Season 34 featured a similar moment of self-awareness

Before The Simpsons Season 36’s Treehouse of Horror Halloween special, Season 33, Episode 13, “Boyz N the Highlands,” featured a similarly self-parodic moment. Homer mentioned a series of board games, the camera panned toward them, and he asked if viewers would have a chance to read their titles before the scene continued. This sly joke, as well as Carl’s comment about the ridiculous statues, was a fun reminder that the show’s characters are aware of how crazy and unrealistic their reality is. Activated characters The Simpsons sometimes they apparently know they’re on a TV show and don’t hesitate to criticize it.