Dig on Guillermo del Toro’s Epic Opening for The Simpsons Treehouse of Terror XXIV

Steve Barton |

Oct 3, 2013

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Entertainment Weekly

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Dig on Guillermo del Toro's Epic Opening for The Simpsons Treehouse of Terror XXIV The legendary Halloween episodes of “The Simpsons” have just gotten even more epic in scope and fun! How could this be possible, you ask? Three words: Guillermo del Toro. Check out the man’s take on the opening for “The Simpsons Treehouse of Terror XXIV” and get excited!

“The Simpsons titles are so iconic and yet they’ve never been riffed in this vein,” Del Toro tells Entertainment Weekly. “I really wanted to land the connections between the [show’s] set pieces and the titles and some of the most iconic horror movies and intersperse them with some of my stuff in there for pure joy,” he says. “For example the idea that Ms. Krabappel could be outside the school with Alfred Hitchcock, which is a reference to the sequence in The Birds that happens outside of the school in Bodega Bay. To use Chief Wiggum as the Cyclops from Harryhausen, dipping the [Lard Lad] donut in a water tank, to have the nuclear spill from Mr. Burns’ plant create zombies — all of this stuff seems to make sense to interconnect. If Homer really gets a radioactive isotope, he could turn into a reaper from Blade. Or the famous shot that is always in the titles — Maggie driving and then you pull back and there’s Marge driving, right? But in this case Maggie is driving, and she’s driving the car from the horror movie from the 70s called The Car, which is one of my favorite guilty pleasure B-movies. And what if Lisa is in the music class, but she’s in the music class with every Phantom of the Opera ever made? It was a unique opportunity.”

The opener of the 24th annual “Treehouse of Horror” is from Guillermo del Toro and features monsters and classic characters from horror films throughout history. In “Oh The Places You’ll D’oh,” the first of three spine-tingling stories, Homer rides around Springfield wreaking havoc as “The Fat in The Hat” in a rhyming Dr. Seuss-ian tale. In “Dead and Shoulders,” Bart is beheaded during a kite accident; his head is attached to Lisa’s body and they must live together as one. The final terrifying tale, “Freaks no Geeks,” features Mr. Burns’ traveling circus, The Burnsum and Bailey Circus, which has stopped in Springfieldland in the 1930s. Trapeze artist Marge and Strong Man Homer are performers, and things go awry when circus freak Moe starts to make advances towards Marge in the all-new “Treehouse of Horror XXIV” episode of The Simpsons” airing Sunday, October 6 (8:00-8:30 PM ET/PT), on FOX.

Voice Cast: Dan Castellaneta as Homer Simpson; Julie Kavner as Marge Simpson; Nancy Cartwright as Bart Simpson and Nelson; Yeardley Smith as Lisa Simpson; Harry Shearer as Skinner; Pamela Hayden as Milhouse and Jimbo; Tress MacNeille as Dolph.