Treehouse of Horror IX

:For the continuing series of Halloween specials, see Treehouse of Horror series.
"Treehouse of Horror IX", also known as "The Simpsons Halloween Special IX" is the fourth episode of Season 10, as well as the ninth Halloween episode.
==Synopsis==
Opening - A Halloween-themed opening sequence where the family arriving home takes a deadly turn.
Hell Toupée - Thanks to Springfield's "three strikes law", Snake gets executed on live television for smoking at the Kwik-E-Mart and his body parts get used for transplant. Homer becomes the lucky recipient of Snake's pompadour hair, only to become possessed and go after the three witnesses to his final crime: Apu, Moe, and Bart.
The Terror of Tiny Toon - After Marge bans Bart and Lisa from watching a violent Halloween episode of The Itchy & Scratchy Show, Bart finds a plutonium rod in the family toolbox as a remote control battery and the two get transported into the I&S episode they're watching...and soon find out that all the brutal, rib-tickling violence isn't so funny when it's happening to them.
Starship Poopers - After Maggie begins growing fangs and losing her baby legs in favor of tentacles, a visit from Kang and Kodos prompts Marge to confess that Maggie is the product of an alien abduction/one-night stand with Kang. To save Maggie from being taken back to Rigel 7, The Simpsons and Kang and Kodos go on The Jerry Springer Show to solve their out-of-this-world custody problem.
== Full Story ==
=== Opening Sequence ===
A darkly comic take on the normal Simpsons opening: Bart paints "The Simpsons Halloween Special IX" in red paint instead of writing a funny chalkboard punishment line. The family arriving home in the driveway also gets a morbid twist when the family never makes it to the couch. Bart takes a fatal fall off his skateboard, Lisa crashes through the roof, and Marge hits Homer with her car (something that would comically be done later in the newer, high-definition opening). It's just as well, as Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees (which actually talks in this; he's normally mute in the movies) were waiting for them to come in. Krueger asks where the family is and Voorhees just brushes it off and turns on the TV. 
=== Hell Toupée ===
 
The evil Snake is arrested for smoking inside the Kwik-E-Mart. He is buying a comb and uses nacho cheese as hair gel, before lighting up a cigarette in a no-smoking area. He is instantly arrested by the police Chief Wiggum. Snake fully admits he broke the no-smoking law and will pay the fine, only for Wiggum to say that after burning down an orphanage (first strike) and blowing up a bus full of nuns (second strike) (with Snake protesting the last instance had been "self-defense") where this is Snake's third strike, so he will be executed without trial in accordance with the three strikes law. Before hauling Snake away, Chief Wiggum helpfully points out that the cashier Apu, the bartender Moe and the beautiful, pretty, and kind Bart are all witnesses to Snake's infraction; Snake threatens to kill all of them. Snake is executed in the electric chair on World's Deadliest Executions, hosted by Ed McMahon and proudly broadcast on Fox. Chief Wiggum then sends the body to the hospital to be carved up for organ donations.
Shortly afterwards, the lazy Homer visits Dr. Nick Riviera, who gives him a transplant of a full head of still-smoldering hair. The hair is Snake's, and when Homer goes to sleep the following night, Snakes soul has possessed the hair and it plants its roots in Homer's brain. With the hair controlling his body, Snake uses Homer to murder Apu by stuffing him in his own Squishee machine, although not before explicitly referencing Apu's role in Snake being executed. Snake later removes Moe's heart with a corkscrew and leaves him slumped face-first in a bowl of Penicill-Os cereal. Bart realizes that the other two witnesses have been killed, but is shocked when his own father possessed by Snake comes after him, although after "Homer" refers to Bart as "snitchy", Bart then realizes that it wasn't actually his dad who was trying to kill him, but rather Snake who was controlling Homers body. He begs Homer to fight the hair and, after a struggle, Homer rips Snake’s lush, soft and luxurious pompadour hair off his head regaining control of his body. The hair tries to smother Bart and then, as Wiggum bursts through the door with Eddie and Lou in order to arrest Homer for his two prior murders (eventually just settling for arresting him for Moe's murder due to Chief Wiggum not being able to pronounce Apu's name), jumps toward the window when Homer fingers the hair as the true culprit instead of him. Wiggum opens fire and the hair is riddled with bullets killing it and Snakes soul goes to the afterlife and is thus used as a blanket by Maggie, and he finishes the story remarking, "Now that's what I call a bad hair day!"
=== The Terror of Tiny Toon ===
Marge forbids Bart and Lisa from watching the Itchy and Scratchy Halloween special, taking the batteries out of the remote control and putting them in her purse. They refuse to go trick-or-treating with Marge as Homer is dressed as a hobo and Maggie is dressed as a pirate. But when Marge goes, Bart finds a small piece of highly unstable plutonium in Homer's toolbox and hammers it into the remote's battery slot. When they use the remote, the kids actually enter the world of Itchy and Scratchy. They watch Itchy decapitate Scratchy when he trick or treats at his house and use his head in the manner of a Jack-o-lantern.
While the two laugh, Scratchy's head asks why Bart and Lisa are laughing to which Itchy replies that they are laughing at his misfortune. Scratchy re-attaches his head to his body, declares what the duo did was very mean, and forms a partnership with Itchy to "teach them a lesson they will never forget", and begin to attack Bart and Lisa. But as they try to escape, the hated character Poochie passes by, but he is run down by their car. They escape from the car, and the cat and mouse wind up on when Itchy and Scratchy fell in an pot of soup because Homer changed the channel. Bart and Lisa return to Itchy and Scratchy's house when he changes the channel back. Lisa urges Homer to press the "exit" button, which gets her and Bart (whose body was devoured from the neck down by piranhas, leaving only his skeleton) out of the television. She presses the "rewind" button on the remote to restore Bart's flesh. Itchy and Scratchy smash through the screen, however, they emerge the same size as their real animal equivalents, and they are therefore harmless. The family decides to keep Itchy and Scratchy as pets, with Homer even putting Itchy in a hamster terrarium (and Itchy quickly starts running on the hamster wheel). Scratchy and Snowball end up falling in love, which Marge finds sweet, but then tells Scratchy that this means that he has to get neutered, which causes him to scream "No" while covering his crotch.
=== Starship Poopers ===
Marge discovers Maggie's first baby tooth, which appears to be a sharp fang. Maggie later loses her "baby legs" and grows green tentacles. Marge decides to take her to Dr. Hibbert, who prescribes "Fire, and lots of it!" after Maggie crunches his equipment with her fang. At home, Maggie loses her arms too (off screen), and it is found that she can contact somebody by sucking extra-rapidly on her pacifier, which appears to be the alien duo, Kang and Kodos. They arrive at the Simpson house, coming to retrieve Maggie. Kang claims that Maggie is his daughter, and then Marge reveals that Kang is Maggie's biological father and retells the story: Kang and Kodos abducted her while she was doing laundry, selecting Marge for a cross-breeding program. She says the aliens used mind-control techniques on her (Kang simply pointed and said "Look behind you!" before zapping her with an insemination ray). She recalls that nine months after the abduction, Maggie was born. Kang and Kodos demand that the Simpsons give Maggie to them and a struggle ensues. Both Homer, Marge, and aliens start to fight over Maggie until Bart (who is angered by this) stops them and suggests that there can be only one way to solve the problem: let the Simpsons appear on The Jerry Springer Show, with Homer and Kang fighting it out. After an audience member calls him out for being an absent father, Kang uses his ray gun to annihilate her and the entire audience. During Jerry's "final thought", where Jerry explains that no one wins when parents put their petty problems above the welfare of their child, and hopes that whatever decision Homer, Marge, and Kang come up with about Maggie will be a good one, Maggie and Kang attack Jerry and kill him, then he and Homer resume fighting, with Marge being embarrassed over it.
Kang and Kodos now threaten to kill every American politician unless the Simpsons give Maggie to them. Marge and the others slyly imply that the aliens couldn't possibly kill every politician, and as they fly off to do so, Bart reminds them not to forget Ken Starr. Just when they are about to take off, Maggie takes out her pacifier and tells everyone with Kang's voice "Very well. I'll drive! (laughs maniacally) I need blood!". 
==Behind the Laughter==
=== Production ===
*This episode was nominated for the 1999 Emmy Award for Outstanding Music Composition for a Series (Dramatic Underscore).
== Citations ==
fr:Simpson Horror Show IX
pl:Treehouse of Horror IX
pt:A casa da árvore dos horrores IX
Category:Anthology
Category:Music Composition Emmy nominated episodes
Category:Crime-themed Episodes
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Category:Bart episodes
Category:Lisa episodes
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Category:THOH with Couch Gag
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