It just wouldn’t be Halloween without watching some Simpsons Halloween specials. Granted, I haven’t watched a new one in quite a few years (has anyone?), but the classic era episodes are essential Halloween watching. Here, then, are the ten best segments from the annual Halloween episodes of The Simpsons.

#10: Starship Poopers
Treehouse of Horror IX
October 25, 1998

When Maggie loses her baby legs and sprouts a crop of writhing tentacles, it’s revealed that Homer isn’t her father at all. The secret truth is that Marge had been abducted and inseminated by Kang, a drooling space octopus.

Kang, as the rightful babydaddy, wants to take his daughter home; Homer wants none of it. Naturally, they go on The Jerry Springer Show to settle the dispute, which leads to the following exchange:

Marge: I can’t believe it. Jerry Springer didn’t solve our conflict.
Lisa: And now he’s dead.

Hilarious.

#9: Dial “Z” for Zombies
Treehouse of Horror III
October 29, 1992

Bart and Lisa, as have so many children before them, inadvertently raise the dead and unleash a horde of brain-starved zombies on Springfield. Once the undead masses threaten to overtake the town, it’s up to the kids to cast the spell that will send them back to their graves–but not before Homer has a courageous showdown at the book depository.

Aside from being a great Simpsons episode, it’s a lot better than George Romero’s last two Dead movies, too.

#8: Nightmare on Evergreen Terrace
Treehouse of Horror VI
October 29, 1995

It’s a parody of Wes Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street, with Groundskeeper Willie taking the place of Freddy Krueger and killing children in their dreams. Like Krueger, he’s taking revenge on the children of the people who burned him to death; unlike Krueger, he was burned not because he was a child murderer but because nobody really cared when he got set on fire.

The episode has legitimately scary moments and imaginatively designed dream sequences.

It also has the following excellent line from Principal Skinner: “Children, I couldn’t help monitoring your conversation. There’s no mystery about Willie. Why, he simply disappeared. Now, let’s have no more curiosity about this bizarre cover-up.”

#7: The Devil and Homer Simpson
Treehouse of Horror IV
October 28, 1993

Homer, desperate for a donut, sells his soul to the devil, who turns out to be none other than the pious Ned Flanders (as he says, it’s always the one you least suspect). Once Homer eats the donut, his soul belongs to the devil…OR DOES IT?!

#6: Time and Punishment
Treehouse of Horror V
October 30, 1994

This sequence is inspired by Ray Bradbury’s famous short story “A Sound of Thunder.” You know the one; it’s the story that taught us all that if you travel back in time and so much as bend a blade of grass, you will fuck everything up for sure. So don’t do it!

Unfortunately, Homer Simpson is the one traveling through time in this case—an ability he develops after accidentally jamming his hand in a toaster—so, in terms of preserving the timeline as we’ve known it, the outlook is none too good. With each trip into the past, he inadvertently does some measure of damage that changes everything about the world he comes from. At one point he finds himself in a world where Ned Flanders is the unquestioned lord and master of the universe; another time he is an ant-sized Homer plagued by a gargantuan Bart and Lisa.

Each time he finds his reality destroyed, he again travels to the prehistoric past in attempt to set things right. In typical Homer fashion, he fails each time. Once he squashes a bug, once he kills some dinosaurs, and on one particularly memorable occasion he sits down on a fish, squeezing the life out of it and prompting him to deliver one of the greatest lines in the whole history of The Simpsons: “Oh, I wish I wish I hadn’t killed that fish.”

 #5: The Homega Man
Treehouse of Horror VIII
October 26, 1997

Thanks to those cheese eating surrender monkeys the French, a neutron bomb detonates on Springfield, leaving Homer apparently the last man alive. After surveying the corpse-filled town, he proceeds to do many of the things you and I would do if we knew we could behave however we liked without fear of consequences: he sees movies, dances naked in a church, etc.

But nothing good lasts forever, and it’s not long before a crowd of cloak-wearing mutants shows up anxious to devour his skin. Will he escape safely or will he be killed and eaten by mutants like so many other men in his position? Tune in to find out!

#4: Terror at 5 1/2 Feet
Treehouse of Horror IV
October 28, 1993

In a parody of what is arguably the most famous episode of The Twilight Zone, Bart sees a monster on the side of his school bus, tearing it apart.

As with William Shatner before him, nobody believes his wild tale of destructive gremlins, and it quickly drives him mad.

#3: Citizen Kang
Treehouse of Horror VII
October 27, 1996

Though more dated than any other single thing on The Simpsons, tied in as it is to a specific moment in time, “Citizen Kang” is so hilarious that it is every bit as worth watching now as it was when it was timely.

The 1996 Presidential election is only a few days away, and space aliens Kang and Kodos put into motion a sinister plot to take over the world: they abduct candidates Bill Clinton and Bob Dole and assume their identities through bio-duplication!

Only Homer knows the truth about what the aliens have done and once he accidentally kills the real candidates (ha ha, whoops!), it’s up to him alone to thwart their nefarious plan. Unfortunately, the nature of the political process may leave him powerless to stop it.

Personal favorite line, from Kang: “We have reached the limits of what rectal probing can teach us.”

#2: Bart Simpson’s Dracula
Treehouse of Horror IV
October 28, 1993

Mr. Burns is a vampire! Maybe he will bite you and turn you into a vampire! And he has a Super Fun Happy Slide in his house! Watch out for that!

After all manner of scares and laughs, this episode ends in perhaps the funniest way of any episode ever, by transforming into A Charlie Brown Christmas. Happy Halloween, everybody!

#1: The Shinning
Treehouse of Horror V
October 30, 1994

Oh, holy cow is this one great. As the title would lead you to guess, this segment is a parody of Stanley Kubrick’s classic film version of The Shining. The most impressive thing about this little cartoon is that it manages to hit every pertinent point of the two hour film, distilling it down to its very essence in just seven minutes. But even if you’ve never seen the movie from which this draws its inspiration, there is plenty here for you to enjoy.

The story in a nutshell: Homer is hired on as the winter caretaker for a hotel Mr. Burns owns, and he brings his family with him. The hotel is full of spooks and haints, and they do all they can to make Homer go crazy and kill his family. Adding to the ghosts’ influence is the fact that the hotel is completely devoid of all beer and cable TV, and it’s this more than anything else that pushes Homer over the edge.

And when he goes over the edge, he does so in absolutely marvelous form. Homer’s freakouts are some of the most comical things mankind has yet unleashed upon the world. Homer screams and jibbers while contorting his face and body into positions so bizarre they make me get down on my knees and give thanks to the heavens for the fact that animation exists. He goes from one comical pose to the next, each more hilariously improbable than the last, leaving the viewer laughing so hard he wets not just his pants but the pants of several people nearby.

Don’t worry—Homer doesn’t succeed in his quest to kill his family. He does eliminate Groundskeeper Willie with an axe to the back, however, so if you’ve got a crush on the hirsute Scotsman you may want to have a tissue handy.

If You Hated This, You Will Also Totally Hate:

• Treehouse of Horror V
• Give The Simpsons Its Due
• The Simpsons Movie
• Cartoon Wars
• An Animated Discussion — Part Two