Original air date: 11/7/2010
After years of hosting the scariest haunted house in the neighborhood, Stan finds himself outdone by Buckle. So he decides to pull in five of the most dangerous serial murderers on death row. Meanwhile Steve and Akiko go trick-or-treating, with Steve promising an over-protective Toshi that he will return her by sundown.
Tropes:
- Big Brother Instinct: Toshi becomes this when Steve takes his sister Akiko out trick-or-treating. He chases Steve down after failing to bring her back by sundown.
- Bring My Brown Pants: Francine actually looks forward to wetting her pants out of fear each Halloween.
- Carload of Cool Kids: A jeep full of loud kids drives by while Steve and his friends are out trick-or-treating and they throw an egg at him.
- Cutting Back to Reality: Steve tries to use his Go-Bot suit as a method to escape Toshi and even has a whole transformation sequence, until it cuts back to show he’s just been awkwardly standing still with his eyes closed.
- Didn't Think This Through:
- Stan brings in real serial killers to terrify Francine without considering the fact that (A) the killers aren't as terrifying imprisoned and (B) this could potentially put everyone's lives at risk.
- Roger decides to release the killers to help Stan make his haunted house more authentic, which naturally leads to major trouble.
- Eldritch Location: Francine describes Buckle’s haunted house as this:Francine: I honestly don’t know how I got out of there. The upstairs hallway spiraled into a black hole, the weather kept changing, and I was a child again…
- Fake Kill Scare: Stan and Francine think Buckle gets killed by being crushed by his garage door, but really it’s just a Halloween prank.
- Gadgeteer Genius: Buckle uses all of his skills as a former Disney imagineer to create a truly spectacular haunted house. Apparently, he was let go because he refused to make his designs more family-friendly.
- Half the Man He Used to Be: Toshi cuts two of the serial killers in half with his katana, one horizontally and one vertically.
- Halloween Episode
- Hypocritical Humor: Stan says that sexy Halloween costumes are played out before walking out in a sexy Cowardly Lion costume.
- Insane Troll Logic: Stan decides to make his haunted house outmatch Buckle's by bringing in actual serial killers, despite how dangerous that actually is.
- It's All My Fault: Stan tells Francine that he only went with using serial killers because he felt betrayed by her saying Buckle's haunted house was scarier than his. When Francine says this is all her fault, Stan agrees with her.
- Jump Scare: Stan uses a devil-like mask to scare Steve out of his Dream Sequence of him getting private tennis lessons from Maria Sharapova. He gets so scared that he jumps out the second story window.
- My Sister Is Off-Limits: Toshi becomes an unstoppable samurai when Steve takes his sister Akiko out trick-or-treating. He chases Steve down after he fails to bring her back by sundown.
- Perplexing Plurals: Roger struggles with this as he’s trying to squeeze into some tight pants.Roger: There’s a lot of history in these jeans. Pam Anderson was wearing these and she found out she had all four hepatitises…hepatiti?
- Pop-Culture Pun Episode Title: A reference to the musical, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.
- Serial Killer: Stan brings five of them to his house to make his haunted house scarier than his neighbor’s.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: Steve spends his entire storyline trying to get together with Toshi's sister Akiko, while they both avoid Toshi's overprotective wrath. Once they talk Toshi down, Akiko thanks Steve because now she can date... Doug, a nine year old who happens to be a great dancer.
- Shout-Out: The kids’ Halloween costumes…except for Snot who’s just wearing his gym clothes:
- Steve as a Transformer (well, technically a Go-Bot, but still).
- Barry as Jonah Hill from Superbad.
- Akiko as Chun Li from Street Fighter.
- Doug as Gizmo from Gremlins.
- This Is for Emphasis, Bitch!:Stan & Francine: Scariest haunted house on the block, witches!
- Take Our Word for It: We only see the outside of Buckle's haunted house, and from what Francine describes of the interior, it's intense.Francine: I honestly don't know how I got out of there. The upstairs hallway spiraled into a black hole and the weather kept changing and then I was a child again.
- Too Dumb to Live:
- Stan decides to have five real serial killers (imprisoned, mind you) into his home just so he can upstage Buckle with a scarier haunted house.
- Roger then decides to free the serial killers just so he could make them more scary. Klaus calls him out on this, to which Roger laments that he never thinks things through.
- Stan cries outside a window to warn his neighbors to call the police since the serial killers are on the loose in his home, to which they respond by coming over to see them. Even Stan calls them morons.
- Stan, Francine, and Roger go to the woods to hide from the serial killers.Stan: Head for the woods. It’s always safe there!
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom:
- Stan bringing in five serial killers just to spruce up his haunted house.
- Roger setting the killers free inside the house, forcing everyone to take cover.
- "Wanted!" Poster: Toshi works fast. By the time Steve and Akiko get to the next house to trick or treat, he’s already made and distributed wanted posters with their pictures on them.
