The Simpsons S 17 E 4 Treehouse Of Horror XVI - TV Tropes

Original air date: 11/6/2005

Production code: GABF-17

This year's Halloween episodes include: Bart teaming up with a band of rejected robots after being replaced while in a coma in "B.I.: Bartifical Intelligence," Homer and several ancillary characters being hunted down by Mr. Burns as part of a reality show in "Survival of the Fattest," and a witch curses costumed townspeople after losing a Halloween contest in "(I've Grown) A-Costume To Your Face."

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Tropes:

• Call-Back: Yeardley Smith is credited as "The Lizard Queen".
• Replaced the Theme Tune: A new standard Treehouse of Horror ending theme debuts with this installment; instead of a harpsichord and whistling playing out the standard-key-and-tempo Simpsons theme, a more slower and somber orchestral take on the theme plays.
• Take That!: The opening is a massive one for Fox for delaying the shows to November due to the coverage on the World Series. Kang and Kodos deliver one to the Cubs.

  Kang: (using the Accele-Ray to speed up the World Series) Faster!
  Kodos: But the fabric of the universe itself may shatter!
  Kang: Good. Only then could the Cubs finally win!

"B.I.: Bartificial Intelligence":

• Abusive Parents: Down to the title, this is a Whole-Plot Reference to A.I.: Artificial Intelligence, with one important changed plot point: Homer thinks that the robot is The Ace, so he selfishly dumps Bart in the woods instead of the robot.
• All Just a Dream: The events are Homer's dream. While he's demonically possessed.
• Asshole Victim: Homer is cut in half and has to be fused to David's lower half to live, but considering the fact that he deliberately abandoned Bart in the woods and lied to the rest of the family that Bart went to culinary school, Marge and Lisa don't object to this, believing that Homer deserves it for abandoning Bart. And if that wasn't enough, the robotic legs broke off due to Homer's weight, leaving him unable to walk again.

  Homer: This STINKS! I got stubby little robot legs, and an ass that's not equipped for an adult diet! (the robotic legs break, causing him to fall) Ohh.....

• Bad News in a Good Way: Lisa's reaction when Bart jumps out the window and hits the pavement.

  Lisa: Uh, mom? Remember how you wished we would never grow up?

• Blatant Lies: Homer tries to invoke this when Marge confronted him for trying to cover up his abandonment of Bart:

  Marge: You told me he was at culinary school!
  Homer: You wanted to believe the lie!

• Catchphrase Interruptus: Bart attempts a backwards jump out a window into a swimming pool and only gets out "Cowa—!" before hitting the ground and ending up in a coma from which he's predicted never to wake up. This becomes a Brick Joke later when he unexpectedly emerges.

  Bart: —BUNGA! (realizes he's in a hospital bed) What the—

• Half the Man He Used to Be: Homer and David, Bart's robot replacement, get this treatment when Bart comes back for revenge; Homer's legs are cut off and David is split down the middle of his body.
• Human Shield: The robot that replaces Bart uses Homer as one to protect itself from Bart. Not that it does him any good.
• It's All About Me: The reason Homer dumps Bart in the woods is because he prefers David for selfish reasons.
• Major Injury Underreaction: Homer's response to being bisected at the waist is to complain that he was wearing his good pants at the time.
• Partially-Concealed-Label Gag: Bart gets into a fight at the zoo. He lands in the peacock habitat, and is relieved, until a peacock moves and reveals it to be a mutant peacock habitat. The peacocks reveal that their trains are a collection of real eyes nestled between scorpion tails before advancing on Bart.
• Saw Blades of Death: Bart's improvised Powered Armor has an arm-mounted buzzsaw that cleanly cleaves Homer and David in half together.
• Shout-Out: Lisa reads Robert Caro’s “Master of the Senate” at the beginning of the story.
  • Two of the abandoned robots Bart meets recreate the music video from Herbie Hancock's song Rockit.
• Threat Backfire: David tries to prevent Bart from destroying him by using Homer as a Human Shield. Considering Homer was the one who dumped him in the woods with no remorse, Bart bisects him (and Homer) before David can finish saying "to get to me, you'll have to go through your father."
• Ungrateful Bastard: Bart finds some runaway robots on the woods that give him a place to spend the night in exchange for making them feel loved. He instead takes them apart while they're sleeping to create Powered Armor so he can take revenge on Homer and David (and pees on one of them. Granted, it was a urinal robot).
• Unknown Rival: Bart loathes David for acting as his replacement, but the reverse doesn’t seem to be true: David is never demonstrated as harboring any kind of resentment toward Bart, and Homer suggesting David wanted Bart out of the family was likely a lie, given that he also lied to Marge about sending their son to "culinary school". At worst, the robot uses Homer as a Human Shield, but this was more on David’s assumption that Bart would never actually saw his father in half.
• Un-Paused: Bart shouts "COWA-" right before getting injured and knocked into a coma. When he awakens from the coma, he sits up with a shout of "-BUNGA!"
• Visual Pun: The robot that replaces Bart is "boot" started by being kicked by the technician who delivers him to the Simpsons.

"Survival of the Fattest":

• Amoral Attorney: The Blue-Haired Lawyer, to the point of being Too Dumb to Live. Burns makes it pretty clear that he is going to hunt down every man that he has invited to his home, kill them and make trophies out of them, and, right after pointing out how illegal it is (because it's his job as Burns' legal counselor), the Blue-Haired Lawyer drafts a letter that gives Burns a bulletproof legal defense for said killings, without apparently having done any attempt to bargain for his life in exchange. He's the second man to get killed by Burns as a result.
• Big Damn Heroes: Marge whacks Mr. Burns and Smithers with frying pans from behind and saves Homer. And then hits Homer with said pans for being out of the house all night without trying to call her.
• Black Comedy Cannibalism: After a while being chased by Burns, the survivors start to eat each other... by which we mean Homer eats Frink within the first six hours of running (he was just that hungry).
• Born-Again Immortality: Apu alludes to Reincarnation when Mr. Burns shoots him. He comes back as a rabbit.

  You can't kill a Hindu!

• Calling Out for Not Calling: Marge hits Homer with a frying pan because he didn't try to call her all night. Considering that he was unable to call her was because he was trying not to get killed by Mr. Burns — and this is something Marge perfectly knows because the whole hunt was broadcasted on a sports network live and she saw it — it crosses over into Disproportionate Retribution.
• Emergency Multifaith Prayer: When Mr. Burns shoots and kills Apu, the latter, with his last words, says "You've got me but I shall be reincarnated." A few seconds later, Apu is reincarnated as a rabbit and taunts him by saying that he can't kill a Hindu, only to get his tail caught in a bear trap and cry out "Aah, help me, Jesus!"
• Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humor: Burns not only finds hunting people to be enjoyable but, when he fails a shot and only wings Krusty, his response to Krusty trying to make a joke out of it is to blow him away and keep shooting at the corpse for an unknown amount of time in a rage (which the hosts of the live broadcast of the hunt dismiss as "an awful show of Unsportsmanlike Gloating").
• Glad-to-Be-Alive Sex: Homer and Marge have sex after she saves him. However, they forget that Mr. Burns's hunt was being televised, which means the sports analysts are still there to comment on everything.
• Heavenly Concentric Circles: Lenny dies and goes to his personal version of Heaven. All of the angels take the form of Carl and hover on the clouds positioned in concentric circles that lead to a light sphere.
• Hope Spot: Moe gets one when, despite being impaled on a weathervane, he scratches a lotto ticket he finds in his jacket pocket and, to his delight, finds that it's a million dollar winner. As he speculates that his injury isn't too bad and he just might make it out alive, Chief Wiggum comes crashing down on top of Moe, fatally crushing him.
• Hunting the Most Dangerous Game: Burns looses a large number of people into a hunting reserve and spends the majority of the segment hunting them for sport.
• Hypocritical Humor: After reincarnating as a rabbit, Apu gleefully taunts Mr. Burns by stating that "you cannot kill a Hindu" before crying out "help me, Jesus!" after getting his tail caught in a bear trap.
• Immoral Reality Show: It turns out that Burns' hunting spree is being aired live on Fox Sports. This revelation is even weirder when it turns out that Marge has a TV Guide advertising this event (with Homer being chased by Burns on the cover and the label "Must Flee TV"). She wondered what that meant until she saw the show.
• Insult Backfire: The Comic Book Guy hears Burns telling them all that he is going to hunt them down and that he is going to give them a Mercy Lead of five minutes and says a sarcastic "five minutes running!? Shoot me now!" Burns instantly obliges him and makes him his first kill of the night.
• Lawful Stupid: Mr. Burns' lawyer draws up a document that allows Burns to claim hunting people is part of his religion right after Burns announced his clear intention to hunt down the lawyer and all the other men he invited. Of course, the idea that such a document would stand up in a court of law is itself an example of Hollywood Law.
• Lethally Stupid: Homer is single-handedly responsible of a large number of hunted people being killed, including eating Frink and being too fat to climb a tree in which the rest are hiding, causing it to become a Tree Buchet when he lets go and tossing them into the air for Burns to shoot like clay pigeons.
• Never Win the Lottery: Moe finds out he's won the lottery seconds after being Impaled with Extreme Prejudice.
• Recycled Title: "Survival of the Fattest" shares a title with a story from Simpsons Comics 12, "Survival of the Fattest!".
• Reincarnated as a Non-Humanoid: Mr. Burns spots Apu hiding in the bushes and shoots him. Before he dies, Apu states he will be reincarnated due to being Hindu, and comes back as a rabbit that pops out of his human corpse, only to walk into a bear trap.
• Skewed Priorities: As discussed at the end, the censors will show the sheer amount of violence that occurred in the episode, but refuse to show Homer and Marge becoming intimate.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Mr. Burns continues to pump bullets into a dead Krusty.
• Too Dumb to Live:
  • Despite Mr. Burns giving everybody a five-minute head start before hunting them, Comic Book Guy somehow thinks that's worse than getting hunted. Unsurprisingly, he's the first person to be killed.
  • In spite of knowing Mr. Burns wants to kill him, his lawyer drafts a document that'll allow him to get away with it.
• Tree Buchet: While being hunted for sport, many Springfieldians hide in a tree. Homer tries to climb on, and ends up flinging them all out.

  Moe: OH YA FATASS!

• What Happened to the Mouse?: Principal Skinner is one of the guests Mr. Burns tries to hunt, but he is nowhere to be seen after everyone disperses following the deaths of Comic Book Guy and the Blue-Haired Lawyer. As he is never seen being shot and his head is neither seen in Burns' hunting bag, it could be assumed that maybe Skinner somehow escaped and/or survived.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Burns' Blue-Haired Lawyer, who is arguably the most loyal employee of his (even over Smithers), creates a binding contract for the game and once he signs it, is prompted executed by Burns.

"(I've Grown) A-Costume To Your Face":

• And Knowing Is Half the Battle: Spoofed by Dennis Rodman. He explains he did his "educational" cameo as community service.
• Becoming the Costume: A witch curses everyone in town by making them become their costumes.
• Blessed with Suck: Skinner at first doesn't mind being transformed because, having dressed as a G.I. Joe, he hasn't changed too much... up until his mother points out that this means he no longer has any genitalia. One quick look down the front of his pants later, Skinner is going "Oh, Crap!" like everybody else.
• Brutal Honesty: After a witch wins the prize, Mayor Quimby calmly asks of her identity, to which she nervously but bluntly stated that she's actually a real witch, and that she's not wearing a costume at all.
• Burn the Witch!: After a witch is disqualified from a costume contest for being a real witch instead of someone wearing a witch costume, someone says "Burn her..." but it turns out he means the witch's prize instead of the witch herself.
• Butt-Monkey:
  • Nelson improvised a Lone Ranger costume everyone mistakes for a raccoon. When everyone is transformed, he becomes... a raccoon, to his dismay.
  • Hans Moleman is changed into a mole despite not wearing any costume.
• Cute Witch: Maggie is still adorable as a green-skinned witch.
• Didn't Think This Through:
  • Neither Disco Stu (Steve Martin, arrow through the head) or Skinner (G.I. Joe, no junk) think it through when the witch places a curse on everybody.
  • The witch also didn't see that Maggie was dressed as a witch... even though it doesn't change anything at the end.
• Disproportionate Retribution: After being disqualified from a costume contest, a witch retaliates by cursing the townspeople into Becoming the Costume.
• Disqualification-Induced Victory: The costume contest's runner-up becomes the new winner once the witch is disqualified for not wearing an actual costume.
• Forced Transformation: The intent of the witch's spell, but Hans Moleman was turned into a mole even though he wasn't wearing a costume.
• For Halloween, I Am Going as Myself: The witch. Deconstructed when the fact it's not a costume gets her disqualified in a contest.
• Gainax Ending: After the transformed people beg Witch!Maggie to change them back, since she's a baby (and apparently doesn't understand simple English) she just turns them into pacifiers. Moe and Dennis Rodman then deliver an out-of-nowhere PSA on adult illiteracy.
• Karma Houdini: The witch never gets her comeuppance for cursing Springfield into their costumes.
• Losing Your Head: Homer gets his head detached when the witch curses him. It causes him to have trouble drinking his beer.
• Mass Transformation: The witch in the third segment transforms the whole town into their costumes, since Maggie was dressed as a witch they try to convince her to change them back, but instead she turns them into giant pacifiers.
• Mistaken for Racist: Played for Laughs, as Dr. Hibbert is assumed to have dressed as Blacula instead of Dracula.

  Quimby: And now the finalists for Best Costume. First, we have Blacula.

  Hibbert: Oh, because I'm Black and I'm Dracula, that makes me Blacula? (muttering) My wife said "Don't go as Dracula", but I said, "Bernice, we live in the 21st century..."

  Quimby: (to guard) Send him the standard racist remark apology. They're in the middle drawer.

• Our Werewolves Are Different: As Bart was dressed like an Eddie Munster-esque character, he is turned into a werewolf by the witch. He's one of the few who actually loves the spell's effects, since he gets quite a kick out of roaming around the ruins of the town, howling at the moon and eating rats.
• Two Men, One Dress: Patty and Selma attend a costume contest in a horse costume, with Patty as the horse's front and Selma as the horse's rear. When the witch turns everyone into their Halloween costume as retribution for losing the contest, Patty and Selma become the horse's two halves.
• Vampire Doctor: Dr. Hibbert was dressed as a vampire. When Grandpa gets injured by a fall, the now vampiric Dr. Hibbert picks him up and flies off. It takes Grandpa a second to remember that shattered hips don't require getting poison sucked out of your neck.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: The witch in the third act leaves the short completely after turning everyone into costumes and never returns, not even when Maggie turns everyone into pacifiers at the end.
• Wicked Witch: The witch not only looks like an old hag, but she curses the whole town after her disqualification.

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