This has always been one of my favourite Simpsons Halloween shows and I love all three segments which are all about the characters and are so full of such great quotes. I love all the parodies of famous works of art in the gallery book-ending part which is kind of strangely dropped as the third tale becomes the 'real' show. The first story was a fantastic take on an old scenario, selling one's soul to the devil in exchange for something. Flanders made for a surprisingly great devil and is evil yet just as char-diddly-arming! Maybe it works so well because he's so nice all the time. I love when Homer actually has the presence of mind to realise that the devil can't take his soul if he doesn't finish the doughnut of damnation, and he teases the devil about it who becomes enraged and flares up into a more traditional image of Satan for a moment and that's quite the excellent bit of striking animation they did there. Why did they make it so easy for Homer to get at and eat the last speck of the doughnut by placing it right in the fridge instead of just throwing it away? I do love that crazy absurd lapse in logic though. Besides we get treated to seeing Homer briefly go to hell and see a timeless and absolutely hysterical scene where Homer is ironically 'punished' by being force-fed endless doughnuts until he bloats up like a balloon and still enjoys it and actually wants more, to the hilarious astonishment of the blue demon delivering the torture! The scene was so well remembered that a toy was once made depicting it. And also the freakish doughnut-headed Homer who is picking and eating at his own head is a priceless funny sight gag! They kept the doughnut motif going in the tale pretty inventively. The second story is a neat Simpsonny spin on a certain old beloved Twilight Zone story, although a bus is a big change from a plane! It still has a nice atmosphere about it though, I love the rain and the eerie music. And it has a lot of moments and lines in it that make me laugh, like Homer terrorising Bart with the boat horn he 'found', and Ralph saying "You're deceptive!" What the?! I personally find the ending genuinely creepy! It then closes with a terrifyingly terrific Dracula story that features Mr. Burns as a parody of the Gary Oldman incarnation of the character from the 90's movie. It's so funny when Homer mutters that Dracula-Burns' hair looks "So queer." Yeah I remember that about the movie back when it came out. Oldman gave such a top performance but all you could really concentrate on was the stupid hairdo! Burns causes me to laugh again with the noise that he makes after Homer stakes him in the correct place and he disintegrates into gross old man mush! And then it ended, with such a bizarrely out of nowhere happy ending, with the family of vampires all about to get Lisa and then stopping to sing a sweet Christmassy tune while Santa's Little Helper tap dances? Okay why not! Enourmously fun classic episode, still so charming to watch after all these years. Happy Halloween indeed!
