TV Recap/Review: Marge Marries Jeff Probst in The Simpsons “Treehouse of Horror XXXVII”
The Simpsons’ annual trifecta of spooky delights returned tonight with “Treehouse of Horror XXXVII,” the show’s second Halloween outing this season after last week’s “The Revengening.” Featuring a stop-motion intro paying homage to Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas, with Bart stepping into Jack Skellington’s pinstripes. It’s followed by three new shorts: a magical shed that keeps swapping out Marge’s husband, a Pet Sematary-style burial that leaves Bart and Santa’s Little Helper in each other’s bodies, and a driver’s ed nightmare where Patty and Selma rule the DMV from hell. Guest stars include Jeff Probst and Tiffany Haddish. Here’s our recap and review.
“Bride’s Shed Revisited” - Written by Count Hackula (Joel H. Cohen)
Set before Homer (Dan Castellaneta) and Marge (Julie Kavner) had kids, this story takes place on their one-year wedding anniversary. Upset that Homer hasn’t built a DIY shed they received as a wedding gift, Marge decides to build it herself. Homer swoops in to tighten the last screw so he can take credit for it. After questioning if the rest of her life will be like this, she asks Homer to put the screwdriver in the shed, only for a flash of light to change her life forever.
Instead of Homer emerging from the shed, it’s Lenny (Harry Shearer), who acts as if nothing happened. Marge rushes inside and finds everything different, and the framed wedding photo shows her with Lenny, not Homer. Wearing nothing but a towel, Marge tries to stop Lenny’s advances. It works when he takes the chair to the shed and…
… Clancy Wiggum (Hank Azaria) emerges. The wedding portrait has changed again. Marge’s new husband asks for a foot rub. Thinking quickly, she asks him to retrieve the toe cream from the shed.
Marge rushes to Mr. T’s Tea Shop to meet the woman her phone claims is her best friend, Tiffany (Tiffany Haddish), who reveals that Marge is now married to Dr. Hibbert. Tiffany thinks this is a good thing and encourages Marge to keep using the shed until she finds a man who makes her happy.
In a montage set to “It’s Raining Men” by The Weather Girls, Marge auditions Ned Flanders, Horatio McCallister, Kang and Kodos, Seymour Skinner (and Agnes), Moe Szyslak, Comic Book Guy, and finally… Survivor host Jeff Probst (as himself).
Life seems pretty idyllic married to a hunky TV host, until Marge passes Homer arm-in-arm with Lunchlady Dora (Tress MacNeille) and is horrified to find that he doesn’t remember her at all. Jeff tries to cheer Marge up in bed, but when she calls him Homer, he gets upset and runs back to the shed, where Hans Moleman replaces him.
Marge finds Homer downtown eating ice cream, holding him at gunpoint and making him go through the shed with her. They both wake up on their iconic orange couch, and Homer reveals that he also went through a cycle of random marriages, including to Jeff Probst. They agree that everything is finally perfect, beginning to make out on the couch when their kids, Rod (Chris Edgerly) and Todd (Nancy Cartwright), march toward them with rifles to kill them for their sins.
“Dog Boy Afternoon” - Written by Obsession (Jessica Conrad)
Dinners at the Simpsons household have become underwhelming as Marge serves up “beige surprise.” When Santa’s Little Helper turns down a taste, Homer takes the dog and Bart (Cartwright) to Luigi’s for dinner. As father and son scarf down meatballs, the dog tries to get one, which Homer tosses into the street. Off-camera, Santa’s Little Helper is run over by a car.
Homer digs a grave at the pet cemetery while Bart cries about losing his best friend. As Homer haphazardly digs, he strikes his son in the head and decides to bury both bodies together. Homer slinks into bed to think of an excuse to tell Marge in the morning.
It rains that night. As lightning strikes the fresh grave, two things emerge from the dirt: Bart’s hand and Santa’s Little Helper’s paw.
The next morning, Homer gets to the kitchen with a story for Marge, only to find Bart chowing down mush on a plate and Santa’s Little Helper growling at him. The dog gets on a skateboard wearing a hat and carrying a slingshot in his mouth, which Marge thinks is a cute parody of Bart. She whisks the kids and dog to school as Homer cracks open a morning beer in disbelief.
During the ride to school, Bart hangs his head out the window while Santa’s Little Helper paws at Lisa (Yeardley Smith), crying. When they get to school, Bart bounds out on all fours barking; Lisa looks back at the family dog crying in the car, questioning things.
Back at home, the dog barks “Bart, Bart” at Lisa, who doesn’t quite understand. He drags over an Ouija board and points to a space that reads “Dog and I switched bodies after being buried in the same grave.” Homer overhears Lisa understanding what’s happened. She rushes to tell Marge, who thinks it’s a prank and heads to the laundromat. Homer confronts Lisa, claiming things are better this way. But when she points out that Bart is chewing on Homer’s vodka hat, he starts to strangle the boy-dog, only for the dog-boy to start attacking, biting Homer’s gut.
With Santa’s Little Helper in a crate, Homer drives to the animal shelter to have him put down. Lisa rides on Bart’s back, with the dog-boy calling other dogs to join in the rescue mission, confronting Homer in his car outside the shelter. Finding the meatball that spelled the dog’s death, Lisa slingshots it into the car and all the dogs charge in after it, tearing Homer apart.
Homer is buried in the pet cemetery, close enough to Snowball I’s grave that, when lightning strikes during that night’s storm, both are resuscitated with a body-swap. The short ends at Christmas, with Santa’s Little Helper and Snowball I acting like Bart and Homer, while Bart and Homer sit on the couch acting like a dog and a cat.
“Vehicular Dadslaughter” - Written by The Secret of Timh (Tim Long)
Set in the future, Bart and Lisa are teenagers, with Homer having disappeared seven years ago. Due to Bart’s repeated failures, they are now in Driver’s Ed together, led by Mr. Largo (Shearer), who plays a film for the class. As “You Can’t Spell Carnage Without Car” plays, Lisa gets the feeling she’s seen the driver, Gladys, before. The distracted driver crashes into an orphanage, and Lisa whispers to Bart how much she looks like their dad. The next cautionary tale is Rocco, a man grilling and driving who is unmistakably Homer, who also crashes into an orphanage. At the end of the movie, they see it was produced by the Springfield DMV.
Lisa and Bart sneak into the DMV at night and get caught by aunts Patty and Selma (Kavner). They ask about their dad in the video, but the sisters distract them with offers for early licenses. When Bart jumps into the photo seat, Lisa notices Homer’s license on the board behind them and realizes it’s a trap. She rushes in to try to get Bart out, but the sisters snap the camera, and the next thing they know, Lisa and Bart are in a DMV movie!
Lisa and Bart find themselves passengers in Homer’s car in a film called “Death Drive with Daddy.” Lisa tells Homer that Patty and Selma condemned him to live in an instructional video where he repeatedly died, but she has a DMV handbook and thinks they can beat them by following the rules. When a truck driven by the sisters heads towards them for a head-on collision, Lisa calculates the speed and guides Homer to a near-miss off-ramp in the nick of time.
“Dead of Winter” is next, with Homer’s car spinning out on an icy pond shaped like the sisters’ faces. Lisa instructs Homer on how to steer into the skid, and they make it off the ice safely.
“The Hill You Die On” is next, with the car winding around a narrow cliff. They become surrounded by a biker gang, Satan’s Vixens, made up entirely of Patty and Selma. Homer can’t do anything about them, but Bart and Lisa can, opening doors to send the sisters to their doom.
As he approaches the final challenge, Homer needs to use his turn signal, but it’s scalding hot. He sticks his right arm out the window to signal, but the sisters, flying on brooms, saw his arm off. He tries to use his left arm, and they do it again. Lisa holds the steering wheel and tries to get them through the exit to Springfield, but the tunnel mouths close up.
“Complete the final DMV Challenge,” the witch sisters instruct as they parallel park. When Lisa tries to do it, she is transformed into a hula-dancing dashboard ornament. It’s up to Bart, who parallel parks like a stunt driver. A tornado appears, sucking up Patty and Selma.
The next thing they know, Lisa, Bart, and Homer are in their living room with Marge, who is thrilled to be reunited with Homer. Lisa asks Bart where he learned to parallel park like that. “That’s parallel parking?” he asks.
Patty and Selma meet their comeuppance, trapped in their own instructional video called “DMV: Damnation Most Vile.” Their personal hell is being at the back of a long switchback queue that won’t move.
“Treehouse of Horror XXXVII” Review
After the exceedingly gruesome special “The Revengening,” this more traditional and family-friendly “Treehouse of Horror” episode was a nice palate cleanser. I’ve always been a big fan of Patty and Selma, so “Vehicular Dadslaughter” was the winner for me, but I genuinely enjoyed all three shorts.
That said, the real star of the show is The Nightmare Before Christmas intro. It plays like a loving tribute, with a distinctly Simpsons version of “This Is Halloween” underscoring the seasonal intro. The casting choices are part of the fun, with prankster Bart perfectly cast as master of ceremonies Jack Skellington. Even Professor Frink is well-placed as Sally’s creator, Dr. Finkelstein. One watch is simply not enough. Hands down, it’s one of the coolest “Treehouse of Horror” moments in the series’ history.
Season 38 continues next Sunday, November 1st, at 8/7c on FOX, with “Testing 1-2-3.”
In what she argues is not an attempt to get extra time on tests, Lisa has herself evaluated for three types of neurodiversity… which remind her of behaviors she’s witnessed in Principal Skinner, Comic Boy and Homer. Perhaps these atypical behaviors aren’t as atypical as we think.