Line #20 Recap/TheSimpsonsS12E1TreehouseOfHorrorXI


1	[[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thoh_xi_promo.gif]]
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3	'''Original air date:''' 11/1/2000
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5	'''Production code:''' BABF-21
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7	Homer needs to do a good deed before he can go into Heaven in ''G-G-G-Ghost D-D-D-Dad'', the Simpson kids get lost in a warped fairy tale world in ''Scary Tales Can Come True'', and dolphins rise from the waters to take over Springfield in ''Night of The Dolphin''.
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9	----
10	!!Tropes:
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12	* AbusiveParents: Homer and Marge in the second story. Homer throws the kids away and Marge berates him for doing that instead of ''selling'' them. In the woods, the kids stumble on the skeletons of [[NoodleIncident two older siblings they never met that Homer did the same thing to]].
13	* AccidentalMurder: Bart unwittingly caused Goldilocks' death when he used a chair to block the door. Neither he nor Lisa knew Goldilocks was in the bedroom.
14	* AlwaysChaoticEvil: The dolphins are this in the third story, especially after their king is freed, who then declares war on humans. Calling them evil might be debatable considering it was ''[[HumansAreTheRealMonsters humans]]'' that caused them to suffer for thousands of centuries, though they are depicted as murderous and don't give two shits against attacking nice humans such as [[Characters/TheSimpsonsLisaSimpson the one]] who saved their king in the first place.
15	* ArtisticLicenseBiology:
16	** In the first act, ''broccoli'' is portrayed as one of the most poisonous plants on Earth. This is PlayedForLaughs, of course.
17	** In the third act, dolphins have no trouble moving on land (by TailfinWalking) and are not worried about dehydration or sunburn. Justified since the dolphins' backstory establishes that they actually used to live in the surface by the time of humanity was around, which leads to...
18	* ArtisticLicensePaleontology: Just the whole "dolphins used to live on land until humans banished them into the ocean where they suffered for millions of years" thing. While ancestors of dolphins and other cetaceans did live on land, they were still hoofed quadrupeds then and gradually evolved for sealife. By the time the first humans appeared, cetaceans have already become sea creatures.
19	* AssholeVictim: Homer dropping a person to their death would be horrifying, were the victim not the abusive and insufferable Agnes Skinner. He even tries to justify the act with the trope, in-verse.
20	-->'''Homer:''' I'm pretty sure she was gonna be the next [[UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler Hitler]]. Hello? Good deed done.
21	* TheBadGuyWins: The dolphins win the war, and banish all of Springfield (and, presumably, the entire human race) to the sea. Although this may be subverted if you consider humans as [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters the real villains for banishing the dolphins into the ocean in the first place]].
22	* BaitAndSwitch: In "Scary Tales Can Come True", Bart comes across the Three Bears' porridge. He first tests Papa Bear's porridge and finds it too hot, then he tests Mama Bear's porridge and finds it too cold. He then looks over at Baby Bear's porridge, says, "Well, this doesn't take a genius."... and pours Mama Bear's porridge into Papa Bear's.
23	* BearsAreBadNews: The Three Bears, as Bart and Lisa quickly figure out and Goldilocks finds out the hard way.
24	* BreakingOldTrends: It's the first "Treehouse of Horror" episode not to air on Halloween.
25	* BrickJoke: A deleted scene showed that Abe would have exploded out of a dolphin after being swallowed by one earlier.
26	* CallBack: The witch transforms Homer's head into a fish, resembling the corporate logo that formed half of Mr Sparkle in "In Marge We Trust".
27	* CurseCutShort: Homer interrupts Lisa just short of calling the ungrateful baby dolphin that bit her a "son of a b...."
28	* ConvenientlyTimedDistraction: In "Scary Tales Can Come True" segment, when the witch tries to stuff Homer into her stove, she gets distracted when she hears a knock at her door allowing Homer to overpower her and shove her into the stove and lock her inside.
29	* CookedToDeath: At the end of "Scary Tales Can Come True", the witch (named Susan) is roasted alive in her oven.
30	* DeadlineNews: The dolphins take over the news while Kent Brockman's reporting, holding his cameraman hostage to make him change the story. Kent defies them, and is beaten to death with a volleyball for his trouble.
31	* DefiantToTheEnd: Even when being eaten alive by a dolphin, Abe vows that ''"[[RegretEatingMe I'm gonna give your liver such a punching]]!"''
32	* DeviousDolphins: In ''Night of The Dolphin'', an aquarium dolphin named Snorky leads the rest of dolphinkind to rebel against the humans, take back the land for themselves, and force humanity into the sea to die.
33	* DisgustingVegetarianFood: Discussed by Hibbert in "G-G-G-Ghost D-D-D-Dad" after Homer dies from eating the broccoli, calling it a deadly plant and even going so far as to tell Marge that it warns people with its terrible taste.
34	* DownerEnding:
35	** "G-G-G-Ghost D-D-D-Dad": Homer succeeds in pulling off a good deed, only for St. Peter to miss it and banish him to hell regardless.
36	** "Night of the Dolphin": [[TheBadGuyWins the dolphins win the war]] and all of Springfield are banished to the sea.
37	* DriveThruAntics: When Homer orders a meal from Krusty Burger at the drive-thru, a dolphin chatters over the speaker. Homer then says "Yes, I will have fries with that.", and pulls-up to the drive-thru window, where a dolphin beheads the Squeaky-voiced Teen, whose severed head lands in Homer's lap. [[UnusuallyUninterestingSight Homer then scoffs and says "Anything to get out of work."]]
38	* EpicFail: Homer choking to death on a piece of broccoli is one thing, but Homer's ''ghost'' trying to eat the ''exact same'' piece of broccoli, choking and dying '''''again''''' is on a whole other level of failure.
39	* ExactWords:
40	** In ''G-G-G-Ghost D-D-D-Dad'', Homer is denied entry into Main/{{Heaven}} by St. Peter (despite saving Bart from Nelson and saving a baby from death), which prompts him to deliver this gem:
41	--->'''Homer:''' [[TemptingFate Well, I'll be damned]].\
42	'''St. Peter:''' I'm afraid so, yes. (he pulls a lever; Homer descends to Main/{{Hell}})
43	** In ''Scary Tales Can Come True'', Homer [[FalseReassurance told his children]] no child would starve in his home. Cut to the next scene with him ditching them at the forest.
44	* ForcedTransformation: Homer in the second story gets transformed by the wicked witch into a fish-headed chicken with brooms for wings. After killing her, he is changed back except for his lower half, which can conveniently ''lay eggs''.
45	* {{Foreshadowing}}: As Snorky escapes in a parody of the iconic scene from ''Film/FreeWilly'', his tailfin strikes Lisa in the face. Given what happens soon after, it's safe to say it wasn't an accident.
46	* GenreSavvy: In "Scary Tales Can Come True," Lisa has a collection of Grimm's Fairy Tales, enabling her to figure out that she and Bart are in the Three Bears' house and beat a hasty retreat. She tries to apply the same thinking when they stumble upon what's clearly the witch's house from Hansel and Gretel, [[{{Downplayed}} but winds up just following Bart's impulse instead]].
47	* GreyAndGreyMorality: "Night of the Dolphin". On one hand, the dolphins hold a vendetta because humans mistreated them and banished them to the ocean. On the other hand, their retaliation is [[DisproportionateRetribution murdering humans in droves]], and they make no exception for innocent humans or even the one who ''helped'' them.
48	* HelpingGrannyCrossTheStreet: Homer (as a ghost) tries to carry Agnes Skinner across the street to get into Heaven, but ends up dropping her in the street.
49	-->'''Homer:''' Um, I'm pretty sure she was going to be the next Hitler.
50	* HopeSpot: In ''Night of the Dolphin'', the Springfielders start fighting back against the dolphins and winning, with Homer leading a counter-attack to "drive them back to the sea". Cue a GilliganCut to the population of Springfield floating in the ocean.
51	-->'''Homer''': You gotta hand it to those dolphins. They just wanted it more.
52	* {{Horrorscope}}: In the story "G-G-Ghost D-D-Dad", Homer reads a horoscope saying he will die that day. Not only that, Marge's horoscope says her husband will die that day. Homer doesn't believe it; instead, he's focused that he may get a compliment from an attractive coworker. Marge is scared though.
53	* HumansAreTheRealMonsters:
54	** The intro has this at full force, with an angry mob murdering the harmless Simpsons-as-Munsters family.
55	** The reason why dolphins declare war against humans is that humans banished them into the ocean "where they suffered for millions of years".
56	* KilledOffScreen:
57	** Bart and Lisa's "other brother and sister".
58	** Goldilocks' death in the Three Bears' home.
59	** Rapunzel losing her scalp.
60	* LosingYourHead:
61	** The first half of the Sea Captain’s fate. The second half is a humiliating impersonation courtesy of a dolphin.
62	** The Squeaky-Voiced Teen working at Krusty Burger suffers from this too.
63	* LineOfSightAlias: The witch is questioned on her boyfriend's name, to which she replies, "George..." before looking at her cauldron and adding "Cauldron, George Cauldron." It's subverted when George Cauldron later appears for real.
64	* MandatoryLine: Kang and Kodos appear at the end to [[LampshadeHanging complain about the fact that they weren't included in this episode]].
65	* NiceJobBreakingItHero: Marge ends up causing Homer's death by insisting he eat his broccoli, which turns out to be bad for you after all.
66	* NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished: Lisa frees an abused dolphin into the sea, but said dolphin later returns with an army of dolphins to take over the surface and drive humanity into the sea. Also, Lisa helps a baby dolphin by taking off a soda can ring that was stuck around its nose. It thanks Lisa by biting her hand.
67	* NoodleIncident: How a snake got onto Homer's arm during the "G-G-G-Ghost D-D-D-Dad" segment is never explained. Neither is the so-called "testicle incident" he brings up before dying from broccoli.
68	* OffingTheOffspring: Homer deliberately attempts to sacrifice Lisa to the dolphins, possibly aware of his daughter's role in causing this mess.
69	* OhCrap:
70	** Done by a crab of all beings in "Night of The Dolphin" after listening to the dolphins' plan to retake the land before [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere getting out of dodge]]. Lenny gets one soon after during his night swimming before he finds out his soon-to-be assailants are dolphins, not sharks.
71	** Goldilocks when the the Three Bears find her and [[KilledOffScreen maul her to death]].
72	** Rapunzel right before she loses her scalp when Homer tries to climb up the tower to save her.
73	* PapaWolf: The first dolphin punched by Homer when the war between Springfield and the dolphins began was the baby dolphin that bit Lisa in the arm only seconds earlier.
74	* ThePearlyGates: Homer appears at them when he dies, where he's told by Saint Peter that he is unable to go to Heaven unless he does a good deed. They're shown to be electrified when Homer tries to climb over them.
75	* PoliceAreUseless: Finding Lenny's corpse bearing all the signs of dolphin-related injuries, Chief Wiggum declares the culprits are teenagers.
76	* RaceAgainstTheClock: Homer will go to Hell if he misses the deadline.
77	* RealAfterAll: The witch's boyfriend George Cauldron wasn't made up after all.
78	* ShoutOut:
79	** The intro has the Simpsons as a parody of ''Series/TheMunsters''.
80	** The start of the dolphin attack on Lenny is a parody of the opening of ''Film/{{Jaws}}''.
81	** The shots of the dolphins ominously surrounding the townspeople by sitting on power lines, cars, and rooftops while remaining eerily silent are a tip of the hat to Hitchcock's ''Film/TheBirds''.
82	* ShownTheirWork: When King Snorky speaks, his mouth doesn't sync to his words. This is because dolphins "speak" through their blowholes which is their only means of respiration (hence why cetaceans can eat underwater without drowning).
83	* SoleSurvivor: In the opening, a mob (consisting of Lenny, Carl, Tim and Helen Lovejoy, Krusty the Clown, Sideshow Mel, Principal Skinner, Edna Krabappel, Otto, Groundskeeper Willie, Moe, Apu, Ned Flanders, Mr. Burns, and Dr. Hibbert) shows up and kills most of the Simpsons/Munsters, with Homer/Herman being burned, Abe/Vlad and Marge/Lily getting staked (with Marge/Lily getting a wreath of garlic clovers around her neck for good measure), and Bart/Eddie having a bear trap clamped on his head. Only Lisa, who portrays TokenHuman Marilyn, is spared.
84	* StockYuck: Homer is killed by ''broccoli'', which is supposedly toxic in this story, and Doctor Hibbert says "It tries to warn you with its terrible taste!"
85	* StrangelySpecificHoroscope: Homer's horoscope says that he will die today. Lisa lampshades the trope by saying it's unusually specific. Worried, Marge looks at her horoscope, which says that her husband will die! Oddly, Homer focuses on the second part of his horoscope which says that an attractive coworker may compliment him, and he immediately thinks of his friend Lenny. It's never explained why exactly those horoscopes were as specific as it was that day.
86	* ThrowEmToTheWolves: Bart unknowingly did this to Goldilocks. He didn't know she was inside the bears' house when he locked it with a chair.
87	* TooDumbToLive:
88	** Lenny. Alcohol and night swimming in the ocean is a bad idea, even without vengeful dolphins.
89	** Lisa removes a six-pack plastic ring from a baby dolphin, who then [[UngratefulBastard bites her in the arm]]. This was the last straw for [[PapaWolf Homer]], and he [[LaserGuidedKarma punches it almost right away]].
90	** Homer takes this a step further by choking to death '''while he's already dead''', because he just had to try eating the exact same piece of broccoli that killed him in the first place. When his ghost's ghost arrives at the Pearly Gates, he sheepishly admits his stupidity to St. Peter and gets sent back to Earth.
91	** Goldilocks trying to open the jammed door instead of running in any other direction, [[KilledOffscreen which leads to a gruesome unseen death]].
92	* TorchesAndPitchforks: The intro features people using those to lynch the Simpsons featured as the Munsters (except for Lisa, who's portrayed as an {{Expy}} of Marilyn Munster and thus looked normal).
93	* UngratefulBastard: The Dolphins make repeatedly clear they don't make exception for Lisa in their war against humans just because she saved their leader. Repeated when she frees a baby dolphin trapped in a six pack ring, and it promptly ''bites her''. By the end of the episode, Lisa openly regrets taking pity on them.
94	* UnusuallyUninterestingSight:
95	** Homer is rather ambivalent about a rattlesnake clinging to his arm.
96	** At the Krusty Burger's drive-thru window, an employee's severed head falls into Homer's lap, and he simply scoffs at the idea of doing anything to get out of work.
97	* UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom:
98	** In ''Night Of The Dolphin'', Lisa frees an abused dolphin, who turns out to be ''the King'' of the dolphins -- and thus King Snorky begins the dolphin invasion of Springfield.
99	** In ''Scary Tales Can Come True'', Bart uses a chair to lock the door to the house, in case the bears saw them. However, he and Lisa weren't aware of Goldilock's presence inside the house and unknowingly left her to die by trapping her inside the house.
100	* VillainBall: In ''Night of the Dolphin'', Springfield is successfully cowed into leaving, until one baby dolphin attacks Lisa just to be a prick. This ends up their RageBreakingPoint and Springfield begins engages in battle against the dolphins. Played with since the dolphins still win, though endured a lot of violence and fatalities to do so just from that one moment of pettiness (especially in the full cut where Springfield brutally murders a ton of dolphins).
101	* WaitingSkeleton: In the ''Scary Tales Can Come True'' segment, Homer abandons Bart and Lisa in the woods and tells them to "Say hi to your other brother and sister". Bart and Lisa then notice a pair of skeletons resembling themselves.
102	-->'''Lisa''': Let's face it. They're not great parents.
103	* YankTheDogsChain: Homer manages to do one good deed, only to go to Hell for missing the deadline, since St. Peter wasn't paying attention and didn't see it.
104	* ZippingUpTheBodybag: When Homer first dies.
105	-->'''Medical Attendant:''' Sure is easy when they're stiff like this... (''sees Bart and Lisa are upset'') [[VerbalBackspace and very sad]].

Context Recap / TheSimpsonsS12E1TreehouseOfHorrorXI