Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
Of all the great things about television, the greatest is that it’s on every single day. TV history is being made, day in and day out, in ways big and small. In an effort to better appreciate this history, we’re taking a look back, every day, at one particular TV milestone.
IMPORTANT DATE IN TV HISTORY: October 25, 1990
PROGRAM ORIGINALLY AIRED ON THIS DATE: The Simpsons, “Treehouse of Horror” (Season 2, Episode 3) [Watch on Simpsons World]
WHY IT’S IMPORTANT: It feels rather silly to have to try to make a case for the importance of “Treehouse of Horror.” With their annual Halloween specials, The Simpsons created the most indelible Halloween-themed entertainment since It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.
In its first ever installment, The Simpsons set the template: an anthology episode consisting of three parts. The early years took the time to construct a wraparound story that would explain the vignettes. The case of the first year, the premise was quite simple: the Simpsons kids are in the treehouse, telling scary stories, as children often do.
All three vignettes took fairly direct inspiration from other works of horror fiction, from Poltergeist and The Amityville Horror to a direct adaptation of Edgar Allen Poe’s The Raven, as narrated by James Earl Jones.
The best of the segments, “Hungry Are the Damned,” is a take on a Twilight Zone episode, the first of many future “Treehouse” installments to go the Rod Serling route.
Over the next 25 seasons, The Simpsons have kept up the holiday tradition, with its most recent installment premiering this Sunday. It’ll never be quite so simple again as it was with those three simple tales told in a treehouse, though.
[You can watch the very first “Treehouse of Horror” episode of The Simpsons on Simpsons World]
Joe Reid (@joereid) is a freelance writer living in Brooklyn. You can find him leaving flowers for Mrs. Landingham at the corner of 18th and Potomac.
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