Treehouse of Horror XI

"Treehouse of Horror XI", also known as "The Simpsons Halloween Special XI", is the first episode of Season 12. This is the first Treehouse of Horror episode to air in November. This is also the first Treehouse of Horror episode to air in the 2000s (also originally going to be an episode for Season 11 in production order).
==Synopsis==
This year's terrifying stories include: 
Intro: The Simpsons as The Munsters getting attacked by the neighbors (except for Lisa, who's the only human in the family).
G-G-Ghost D-D-Dad: Homer dies from eating broccoli and is sent on a mission to do one good deed before being let into Heaven.
Scary Tales Can Come True: In this warped take on such fairy tales as "Hansel and Gretel", "Rapunzel", and "Goldilocks and the Three Bears", Bart and Lisa are peasant children kicked out of their own homes and forced to wander the forest, where they get taken in by a witch who's plotting to eat them.
Night of the Dolphin: After seeing a dolphin take abuse at a marine park, Lisa sets him free to live in the wild -- and unwittingly dooms humanity when the dolphins march on land and demand justice for all the years of being abused and exploited by humans.
==Full Story==
===Opening===
The titles are a parody of opening sequence, presented in black-and-white and with the Simpsons theme done in the style of The Munsters theme song. Homer is Herman Munster, Marge is Lily Munster, Lisa is Marilyn Munster (holding a book on copyright law), Bart is Eddie Munster, and Abe is Grandpa Munster. An angry mob of townspeople with pitchforks and torches appear and confront the Simpsons. The mob kill Marge and Grandpa with wooden stakes (and some cloves of garlic around Marge's neck), set Homer on fire, and set a leghold trap on Bart's head. Then they walk away leaving Lisa unharmed possibly due to her normal appearance to walk away from the scene pretending as if she was never there without any connection of the monstrous family.
===G-G-Ghost D-D-Dad===
In a parody of , the Simpsons are eating breakfast, while Homer reads his horoscope, where it states that he will die that day, and someone will compliment him at work. Marge's horoscope says that her husband will die. Homer dismisses it and leaves for work. On his way to work, he narrowly escapes death several times. When he gets to the power plant Lenny compliments him... about a rattlesnake on his arm.
Since he is still alive at the end of the day (despite multiple injuries and close calls) Homer scoffs at the horoscope, but is finally killed after eating some broccoli, which Dr. Hibbert informs Marge that it is "the deadliest plant on Earth - why, it tries to warn you itself with its terrible taste!"
But when Homer reaches Heaven, informs him that he hasn't done a good deed in his life, and in order to enter Heaven, he must return to Earth as a ghost and do a good deed within twenty-four hours.
Over the next twenty-four hours, he tries to do good deeds but succeeds only in getting a noogie from Nelson and accidentally dropping Agnes Skinner to her death (Homer's claim of being positive she was going to be the next Hitler doesn't pass muster). With only one minute left, he grabs a baby from a runaway pram which then rolls into traffic and explodes.
Confident that he will now get into Heaven, he returns to St. Peter, who apologizes as he had not been looking during Homer's good deed for disobeying. Thus, Homer is sent to Hell, where Satan gives him noogies for all eternity and asks him to stop shouting because he will wake up John Wayne, who it turns out that he has already woken up for his day in Hell.
===Scary Tales Can Come True===
In a fairy tale setting, the family are peasants living in a pumpkin cottage in a fairy tale world, with the lazy Homer as the village oaf. But when Homer is fired, became jobless and they are unable to afford food, he vows that no child will go hungry in his home. He then tosses out the beautiful peasant Bart and the pretty peasant Lisa into the nearby woods, where they find a former son and daughter pair (who were also tossed out by Homer), are now skeletons. Lisa, using her book of , guides them through the forest's many dangers, including a and .
Meanwhile, Marge admonishes Homer for throwing out the kids (she was planning to sell them, and is already advertising Maggie for "two chickens or best offer"), and orders him to get them back. While Homer is looking for his kids, he finds 's tower.
Rapunzel asks Homer to rescue her and lowers her hair so that he can climb up to her window. But Homer is way too heavy, and he is only able to climb part of the way up over Rapunzel's pained cries before his weight separates Rapunzel's hair (and possibly scalp) from her head, causing Homer to plummet to the ground. Homer pushes the pile of hair behind a bush with his foot and runs off.
The kids go to a gingerbread house where a witch invites them inside. Soon Lisa is in chains and sweeping, and Bart is being .
But before the witch can cook them, they distract her by saying she has no one to look good for, and when she claims her boyfriend (George Cauldron) is coming by soon for a date, Homer bursts in. The witch zaps him repeatedly, making him part-chicken and part-fish among other things. She tries to stuff him in the oven, but Homer overpowers her and shoves her in, locking the door. As she dies, Homer (almost) reverts to normal, and the family's surprised when a very handsome man named George Cauldron shows up for a date with "Suzanne".
Later, the family is eating dinner and Marge says that although they are poor, they will never go hungry again thanks to Homer, who can now lay eggs with his chicken lower-body-half.
===Night of the Dolphin===
-Every instance of dolphin killing does not need to be reported in an encyclopedia article about the episode. This is not a retelling of the show.-
In a parody of , Lisa goes to Marine World, a -like park where she takes pity on a dolphin called Snorky. Lisa sets Snorky free (in homage to ), but unknown to her, he is the king of the dolphins and resents humans for forcing him to do tricks. He plots to take over the world. The dolphins begin their war by attacking Springfield, killing Lenny Leonard in the ocean. Snorky strikes back and kills the Sea Captain and then he and his army start marching towards the town on their caudal fins.
The dolphins go all around Springfield killing various characters like Jeremy Freedman, Abraham Simpson, Kent Brockman, and Raphael. And Snorky interrupts a town meeting and one dolphin soldier kills Groundskeeper Willie by breaking through the windows and then right through him, he takes the stage and tells Springfield that dolphins used to live on land, but were banished to the ocean by humans. As the dolphin king, he then banishes all humans to the ocean for revenge.
After a speech by Homer about mankind's many achievements, the humans choose not to submit to the dolphins' will without a fight. But as the humans are walking out of the hall, Lisa sees a small dolphin with a set of around its face. She takes it off and it bites her. A war ensues between the dolphins and the humans, lots of people are injured, Apu is beaten by one of the dolphins, and a few of the citizens are killed.
In the end, the dolphins win the fight, and the Simpsons and other residents of Springfield are floating in the ocean. Lisa regrets that her actions "doomed mankind", while Marge tells her that she is just exaggerating and that they will just have to adjust to living in the ocean. Then Krusty's corpse floats over to her, disgusting her and making her nudge it away. Krusty's body floats over to join many other corpses; an overhead shot then shows the floating bodies are lined up to spell "The End?".
===Epilogue===
Meanwhile, after the final story ended, the two aliens Kang and Kodos complain that they have been left out of the Simpsons Halloween special. Until they receive a phone call from a store called Old Navy, asking if the Rigellians can do a commercial for the chain of clothing stores, which they accept.
==Behind the Laughter==
===Reception===
The episode received generally positive reviews. Den of Geek said, "it is probably one of the funniest Halloween episodes of the show's history". The episode got a 4.02 rating out of 5 ranking 69 out of 373 episodes. Matt Groening called the third segment his personal favorite scenes from all the series.
The episode got an 8.4 reader rating from TV.com and a 7.6/10 on IMDb. Colin Jacobson of DVD Movie Guide gave the episode a positive review saying "Even in the weakest Simpsons seasons, you can count on the Halloween episodes to deliver good amusement. Or at least pretty decent comedy, as evidenced by the up and down “Treehouse XI”. None of the segments excel, but none of them flop either, so they keep us entertained. It’s really hard to fault a mainstream network TV series that references glory holes, so “Treehouse XI” gets a positive appraisal despite a few missteps."
== Citations ==
fr:Simpson Horror Show XI
pl:Treehouse of Horror XI
pt:No Dia das Bruxas XI
ru:Дом ужасов XI
Category:Firsts
Category:Bart episodes
Category:Lisa episodes
Category:Homer episodes
Category:Holiday episodes
Category:Anthology
Category:Season premieres
Category:Halloween Episodes
Category:Episodes with a alternative Gracie Films logo
Category:'Of' Episodes
Category:Animal-themed Episodes
Category:Fantasy-themed episodes
Category:Episodes with alternate end credits
Category:Episodes on DVD
Category:Written by Rob LaZebnik
Category:Written by John Frink
Category:Written by Don Payne
Category:Written by Carolyn Omine
Category:Directed by Matthew Nastuk
Category:Simpson Family Are Pariahs episodes
Category:Parody episodes
Category:Highly Rated Episodes
Category:12-rated episodes
Category:Episodes rated M