History Recap / TheSimpsonsS9E4TreehouseOfHorrorVIII

* Magazine/{{MAD}}: The title "Fly vs Fly" is a parody of Mad Magazine's "Spy vs. Spy", written in the ''Spy'' logo font.

* TookALevelInJerkass: Homer does this twice in two segments by trying to kill Bart in Fly vs Fly and telling everyone his own daughter Lisa's a witch in Easy Bake Coven.

!!The Homega Man

Expecting to come out as "Superfly", Bart is disappointed to find that he and the fly's heads have been proportionally swapped. Still the undaunted Bart!Fly heads out to cause mischief while grotesque Fly!Bart is reluctantly accepted by the other Simpsons, who believe he's the "real" Bart. When Bart!Fly realizes that Fly!Bart's usurped his place in the household, he reveals himself to Lisa and she agrees to help him reverse the process. Fly!Bart attacks them both, but upon putting Bart!Fly in its mouth Lisa knocks it into the transporter and both boy and fly are restored to normal. Homer, seeing what the transporter has wrought, grabs an ax and vows to do what he "should have done a long time ago" -- and chases Bart around the house for playing with the machine.

* AdaptationDistillation: "Fly Vs. Fly" combines elements of both film adaptations of the original short story. As in 1958, Bart and the insect (as well as Snowball II and Santa's Little Helper) have body parts proportionally swapped, Bart!Fly turns the famous "Help me!" denouement in a spider's web into a prank upon the arachnid, and Homer seems about to destroy the machine at the end -- but instead intends to use his fire axe on Bart. From the 1986 film comes the MysteriousMist / OminousFog that accompanies the use of the teleporter (which also physically resembles the design of that version more than the old-time phone booths of '58) and Bart theorizing that going through the pods with a fly would merge them into one creature, albeit in a much more positive manner than what happened to poor Seth Brundle. Fly!Bart ambushing Bart!Fly and Lisa is a variation on the climax of that film, in which the grotesquely mutated Brundle, having kidnapped his lover, ambushed her ex from above when he came to rescue her. The hybrids of the pets might have been inspired by a notorious deleted reel from the '86 film involving a baboon-cat hybrid creature and its gruesome demise, which was cut after the first test screening for being so upsetting that the audience couldn't care about the protagonist after that.

* AngryFistShake: In "Fly vs. Fly", Bart!Fly tricks a spider into thinking that he's caught in its web. When he's about to be eaten, he slaps the arachnid and flies away. The spider watches him in anger, shaking four legs in synchronized movement, probably swearing revenge.

* DramaticThunder: The final stretch of "Fly vs Fly" takes place while it's raining outside, and there's some of this just before Bart!Fly manages to reveal himself to Lisa. (Later, when Fly!Bart is pursuing her, Marge shrugs off the action with "They're like this every rainy day.")
* DroolHello: Done by Fly!Bart in "Fly vs Fly" when it's about to attack Lisa.

** Witch!Selma refers to Witch!Marge's husband as "Durwood" ''a la'' ''Series/{{Bewitched}}'''s Endora referring to Darrin by that name (among others).
** Witch!Marge and her witch sisters click their back heels on the brooms to make them fly a la [[WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes Witch Hazel]].

* SweetTooth: Unsurprisingly, Fly!Bart loves maple syrup and eats sugar straight from the sack while the family watches TV...while Homer tries to sneak some for himself!

* WallCrawl: Fly!Bart can do this and uses it to get the drop on Bart and Lisa from above at one point.

* UnusuallyUninterestingSight: In "Fly vs. Fly," Marge says "He may be a horrible freak, but he's still my son. I'm sure we'll grow to accept him in time." As the next scene shows, it only took an hour for them to accept Fly!Bart.

* TrialByOrdeal: Ised to determine whether or not Marge is a witch in "Easy-Bake Coven".

* HalfwayPlotSwitch: The opening stretch of "Easy-Bake Coven" is a goof on ''The Crucible'', but once Marge is revealed to be an actual witch the parody is by necessity dropped.

He indulges in all the town's leftover pleasures (such as watching a David Spade/Chris Farley movie in an abandoned theater, sitting in his boss's office [DeletedScene only], and dancing naked in church) until a mob of Springfieldians mutated by the bomb (including Moe, Dr. Hibbert, Principal Skinner, Chief Wiggum, Krusty, Sideshow Mel, and Mr. Burns) and plot to kill him to get rid of the mistakes of the past for a better future. A car chase through town ensues, and Homer winds up back at his own house to discover his family alive and well -- the house's multiple coats of lead paint created "the perfect bomb shelter." The mutants are touched by the reunion and Marge suggests the two groups can be friends -- but it's a ruse to ensure the mutants' guards are down, as she and the kids promptly kill the mutants with shotguns. "Now ''that's'' the Marge I married!", exclaims the impressed Homer and the family decides to steal some Ferraris.

* ArtisticLicenseNuclearPhysics: While the neutron bomb France sent at Springfield did nothing more than strip the residents down to skeletons or turn them into mutants, an actual neutron bomb would have left nothing but a newly created crater.

* ArtisticLicenseNuclearPhysics: While the nuke France sent at Springfield did nothing more than strip the residents down to skeletons or turn them into mutants, an actual nuclear weapon would have left nothing but a newly created crater.

** In "Fly vs Fly", Homer accidentally punched Lisa in the face through the teleporter right after he put in directly in front of the toilet.

* CampingaCrapper: while no attention is drawn to it, in "Fly vs Fly", Homer accidentally punched Lisa in the face through the teleporter right after he put in directly in front of the toilet.

* MysteriousMist / OminousFog: Turns up several times with the transporter's usage in "Fly vs Fly" in a spoof of the 1986 film. After Bart goes through, Marge even asks "What's with all this mist?" as she and the others enter the kitchen. Though when Homer demonstrates it as an easy way to bypass the stairs in his house, some of the smoke is actually the result of the seat of his pants being ablaze.

* OhCrap: The mutants, right before Marge and the kids shoot them.

Expecting to come out as "Superfly", Bart is disappointed to find that he and the fly's heads have been proportionally swapped. Still, the undaunted Bart!Fly heads out to cause mischief while grotesque Fly!Bart is reluctantly accepted by the other Simpsons. When Bart!Fly realizes that Fly!Bart's usurped his place in the household, he reveals himself to Lisa and she agrees to help him reverse the process. Fly!Bart attacks them both, but Lisa manages to knock it into the transporter with Bart!Fly and both are restored to normal. Homer, seeing what the transporter has wrought, grabs an ax and vows to do what he "should have done a long time ago" -- and chases Bart around the house for playing with the machine.

* AbusiveParents: This applies to Homer perfectly in "Fly Vs. Fly" when he tries to kill Bart with an axe, caring more about the 35¢ transporter than his own son.

* DroolHello: Done by Fly!Bart in "Fly vs Fly" when it's about to attack Bart!Fly and Lisa.

* GenreBlindness: Bart clearly never watched either version of ''The Fly''. When he manages to catch the insect, he envisions the teleporters will fuse them together into some kind of superhero, and even says "I'd be stupid ''not'' to do this!"

* IronicDeath: Herman ended up perishing from a nuclear war even though his job was to help prepare other people for it and he died standing no more than a few feet from a bomb shelter.

* IdiotBall: Marge in "Fly vs Fly" by not getting up to stop Homer from killing Bart, she's just annoyed with Homer's behavior; and Homer in Easy Bake Coven for throwing a rock at his own house.

* MysteriousMist / OminousFog: Turns up several times with the transporter's usage in "Fly vs Fly" in a spoof of the 1986 film. Though when Homer demonstrates it as an easy way to bypass the stairs in his house, some of the smoke is actually the result of the seat of his pants being ablaze!

* SweetTooth: Unsurprisingly, Fly!Bart eats sugar straight from the sack while the family watches TV...while Homer tries to sneak some for himself!

* GenreBlind: Bart clearly never watched either version of ''The Fly''. When he manages to catch the insect, he envisions the teleporters will fuse them together into some kind of superhero, and even says "I'd be stupid ''not'' to do this!"

* MeaningfulName: The FOX Network censor named Fox Censor.

** "Fly vs Fly" is an WholePlotReference to ''Film/TheFly1958'' and [[Film/TheFly1986 its remake]]. When Bart steps into the teleporter with the fly, he's going for the latter but gets the former.

* AdaptationDistillation: "Fly Vs. Fly" combines elements of both film adaptations of the original short story. As in 1958, Bart and the insect (as well as Snowball II and Santa's Little Helper) have body parts proportionally swapped, Bart!Fly turns the famous "Help me!" denouement in a spider's web into a prank upon the arachnid, and Homer seems about to destroy the machine at the end -- but instead intends to use his fire axe on Bart. From the 1986 film comes the MysteriousMist / OminousFog that accompanies the use of the teleporter (which also physically resembles the design of that version more than the old-time phone booths of '58) and Bart theorizing that going through the pods with a fly would merge them into one creature, albeit in a much more positive manner than what happened to poor Seth Brundle. Fly!Bart ambushing Bart!Fly and Lisa is a variation on the climax of that film, in which the grotesquely mutated Brundle, having kidnapped his lover, ambushed her ex from above when he came to rescue her.

* AngryFistShake: In "Fly vs. Fly", Bart!Fly tricks a spider into thinking that he's caught in its web. When he's about to be eaten, he slaps the arachnid and flies away. The spider watches him in anger, shaking its four legs in synchronized movement, probably swearing revenge.

* ArsonMurderAndJaywalking: When revealed as a witch in "Easy-Bake Coven", Marge proudly declares she withered the village's livestock, soured their sheeps' milk, and made their shirts itchy.

* AdaptationDistillation: "Fly Vs. Fly" combines elements of both film adaptations of the original short story. As in 1958, Bart and the insect (as well as Snowball II and Santa's Little Helper) have body parts proportionally swapped, Bart!Fly turns the famous "Help me!" denouement in a spider's web into a prank upon the arachnid, and Homer seems about to destroy the machine at the end -- but instead intends to use his fire axe on Bart. From the 1986 film are taken the design of the telepods (and the MysteriousMist / OminousFog that accompanies their use) and Bart theorizing that going through the pods with a fly would merge them into one creature, albeit in a much more positive manner than what happened to poor Seth Brundle. Fly!Bart ambushing Bart!Fly and Lisa is a variation on the climax of that film, in which the grotesquely mutated Brundle, having kidnapped his lover, ambushed her ex when he came to rescue her.

** The mutants in "The Homega Man," who appear to be rotting. Wiggum at one point says that it "really brings a tear to your eyesocket" just before his eyeball falls out.
* {{Bowdlerization}}: The scene of Homer dancing naked in church was originally (as in, "as written in the script") going to be Homer dancing naked on the church's altar (though the church The Simpsons go to doesn't have an altar, as it's not a Catholic church), but the censors objected to the location (they were already wary about Homer dancing naked in church, but they only allowed it if the altar scene was changed to Homer dancing naked in the front row).

* MysteriousMist / OminousFog: Turns up several times with the transporter's usage in "Fly vs Fly". Though when Homer demonstrates it as an easy way to bypass the stairs in his house, some of the smoke is actually the result of the seat of his pants being ablaze.

** Homer watches a Creator/ChrisFarley[=/=]Creator/DavidSpade movie at the theater, most likely ''Film/TommyBoy'', as Homer gleefully says "Oh, Spade... why did you put Farley in charge of the bees?".

** "Fly vs Fly" is an WholePlotReference to ''Film/TheFly1958'' and [[Film/TheFly1986 its remake]]. When Bart stepped into the teleporter with the fly, he was going for the latter but got the former.

* YourMom: Yeardley Smith's (voice of Lisa) name in the end credits, which, in Halloween specials, are usually [[CreditsGag gag names]].

* AbusiveParents: This applies to Homer perfectly in "Fly Vs. Fly" when he tries to kill Bart with an axe, caring more about the 32¢ transporter than his own son.

* DisproportionateRetribution: At the end of "Easy-Bake Coven", when Lisa points out Homer is egging ''their'' house (prompting the crowd behind him to mock him), Homer sics the crowd on Lisa by calling her a witch.

* AdaptationDistillation: "Fly Vs. Fly" combines elements of both film adaptations of the original short story. As in 1958, Bart and the insect (as well as Snowball II and Santa's Little Helper) have body parts proportionally swapped, Bart!Fly turns the famous "Help me!" denouement in a spider's web into a prank upon the arachnid, and Homer seems about to destroy the machine at the end -- but instead intends to use his fire axe on Bart. From the 1986 film are taken the design of the telepods (and the MysteriousMist / OminousFog that accompanies their use) and Bart theorizing that going through the pods with a fly would merge them into one creature, albeit in a much more positive manner than what happened to poor Seth Brundle.

* DroolHello: Done by Bart!Fly in "Fly vs Fly".