Recap / The Simpsons S 27 E 5 Treehouse Of Horror XXVI

Treehouse of Horror XXVI is a Treehouse of Horror Halloween episode of The Simpsons and the fifth episode of the 27th season.

The episode opens with a Kricfalusi-style animated short where the Simpson children are trick-or-treating before being set upon by soul-hungry spirits with a monstrous Frank Grimes among them. The spirits chase after the Simpson children into their house, with the Frank Grimes monster taking Homer's soul in return.

It contains the following segments: Sideshow Bob finally kills Bart, then revives him when he realizes that the thrill of defeating his mortal enemy is gone in "Wanted: Dead, Then Alive"; Homer once again plays a famous movie monster (see "King Homer" in "Treehouse of Horror III") in "Homerzilla"; and "Telepaths of Glory", a Chronicle parody where Bart, Milhouse, and Lisa gain powers from a strange hole.

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Tropes associated with the opening:

• Art Shift: Guest director John Kricfalusi once again brings his unique surreal look to the Simpsons.
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: The kids are attacked by a 25-foot zombie called Frank Grimes.
• Beware My Stinger Tail: Maggie, disguised as a bee, saves Bart and Lisa by stinging Grimes in the tongue.
• Creepy Children Singing: During "The Soul Candy Song", after the zombie Frank Grimes peels Bart like a banana and exposes his gooey red soul, the singer shifts to the little children singing like this:
  He's hungry for your vitals;
  He likes you moist and ripe.
  And should he find you spiced with sin,
  Then you're his favorite type!
• Deranged Animation: A John K. specialty.
• Shout-Out: Bart and Lisa wear colourful Huckleberry Hound and Cindy Bear masks respectively.
• The Something Song: "The Soul Candy Song", written by Kricfalusi, of course.
• Title, Please!: This is the first Halloween opening-title that does not even show the "Treehouse of Horror" title!
• Witch Classic: One is seen flying on her broomstick, amongst the ghosts chasing the Simpsons kids.
• Your Soul Is Mine!: Zombie Grimes and the ghosts want to eat the Simpsons kids' souls during it. In the end, Grimes manages to eat Homer's.

Wanted: Dead, then Alive

Bart is killed by Sideshow Bob, who then goes on to become a professor at Springfield University. However, he is disappointed by his lazy students, and misses the thrill of killing Bart, so he decides to revive him so he can kill him again.

• Acquitted Too Late: Snake Jailbird. Lisa mentions in the family's search for Bart that Snake was tried and executed for Bart's murder, though she knew that Snake had nothing to do with it, and that it was Bob all along.
• And Show It to You: After impaling Bart with a Harpoon Gun, Bob adds insult to injury and twists it further by yanking the projectile from Bart's chest, ripping out his heart as he does so! Bonus points as Bart sees the hole in his chest, then looks at Bob holding his heart as he utters out his last words before dying.
• And This Is for...: Homer, after he has bludgeoned Bob to death with an antique lamp:
  "That's for trying to frame Krusty!"
• Axes at School: Played with: Bob brings a Harpoon Gun to Springfield Elementary's music room, and not only does he kill Bart with it, but Principal Skinner sees the spectacle and lets him get away with it, since it's after-school hours.
• Back from the Dead: Bart at first, when he's brought back with the Reanimator machine so that Bob can kill him over and over again. The Simpson family eventually finds Bart's remains and brings him back from the dead, this time for good.
• The Bad Guy Wins: So what would happen if Sideshow Bob finally killed Bart? This segment provides an answer.
• Belated Injury Realization: Played with: After Bob impales Bart in the chest with a Harpoon Gun, Bart seems unfazed and shrugs it off as if it was nothing... at first. Then he suddenly realizes he's dying, and Bob points it out further by pulling the spear projectile and his heart out of his chest. Ouch!
• Bewitched Amphibians: Bob grabs the potions needed for the Reanimator machine and says, "Those bastards know how to par-tay!", then drinks one and turns into a frog. He's back to human form in the next scene, though.
• Bland-Name Product: At one time Bob takes a selfie with Bart's body during the "Largo al factotum" part and posts it on Fiendbook (parody of Facebook); he even updates his status from "attempted murderer" to "murderer".
• Bloodier and Gorier: Moreso than almost any other Treehouse of Horror segment. While it is a given that this segment would be dark, due to its premise of Sideshow Bob finally killing Bart, the way in which Bart is killed (and then revived and killed over and over again) firmly cements the story as this.
• Blood Lust: After murdering Bart, Bob takes the child's body back to his home. He uses a corkscrew to make a hole in Bart's forehead, leaning the boy's head forward and collecting a few drop's of Bart's blood to mix with his wine.
• Bludgeoned to Death: Bob mercilessly beats Bart with a sledgehammer until the young boy's guts spill out and he is lying dead in a pool of blood.
• Body in a Breadbox: Parodied: When Bob returns home after attending Springfield University as a professor, he opens the wall compartment near a portrait... and reveals Bart's decomposing corpse, which he has stuffed in there, now standing as his trophy.
• Bond One-Liner: Bob, after he beats up Bart to a bloody pulp with a sledgehammer:
  "We're both going to be sore tomorrow!" [cackles in glee]
• Book Dumb: At one point Bob works as a poetry professor trying to teach the works of T. S. Eliot to students who are tech-savvy, but Book Dumb. When this fails, he criticizes them for being a bunch of idiots.
• Bowdlerise: The UK broadcaster of The Simpsons, Sky, took exception to much of this segment and cut it to ribbons, with removals including most of Bob's initial killing of Bart, several of Bart's later deaths in the montage, Bob hiding the evidence from Skinner and the rest of the Simpsons and Bob's uses for Bart's corpse. This turns the story into a rather incomprehensible mess.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Seconds before Homer revives Bart with the Reanimator, he points out the animation for his dead son looks fine.
• Bullying a Dragon: Bart learns this the hard way when taunting Bob with a "You Wouldn't Shoot Me" while writing an "X" on his forehead with blue chalk, and using a "Sucking in a Tree" chant when confronted with a Harpoon Gun in the music room.
  Bart: [unfazed by his being shot, at first] Ha! Nice try, Bob, but I'm sure you made some... [he starts to falter] stupid... mistake...
  Bob: Not this time. [pulls the projectile from Bart along with his heart]
• Came Back Wrong: Bart eventually uses this on purpose to get revenge on Bob, combining Bob’s severed head with a chicken and a pair of antlers just before reviving him, thus turning Bob the Chicken-moose into an abomination to all.
• The Cameo: The posters that appear on Fiendbook are Fat Tony, Russ Cargill, and Snake Jailbird, the latter of which later doubles as a Death by Cameo according to Lisa.
• Comic-Book Time: Lampshaded by Bob's remark about his "24 years of trying to kill a ten-year-old child".
• Continuity Nod: Bob's "Die Bart Die" tattoo, first seen in "Cape Feare", appears again along with the rake. Bob's poetry recital with his glasses on, first used in "Krusty Gets Busted", returns in Springfield University.
• Deadpan Snarker: Bob has one when he turns into a frog via potion:
  "I feel like a bad New Yorker cartoon."
• Death Is Cheap: The re-animation machine Bob creates easily brings Bart back to life with no ill effects every time Bob kills him, no matter how severe the boy's body was damaged.
• Death Montage: Played for Laughs. Poor Bart gets Impaled with Extreme Prejudice by a Harpoon Gun and then gets his heart ripped out of his chest; gets whacked with a sledgehammer not once but many times in the manner of Monty Python and the Holy Grail; gets his head blown clean off with a gun; fed to a lion; Squashed Flat by a steamroller, then folded into a paper plane before being thrown into a Deadly Rotary Fan, then picked up and tossed into a cremation furnace; handed a shockingly expensive electric bill for the Reanimator that induces a Hollywood Heart Attack; liquefied into juice (which has happened offscreen); and hacked into pieces with an axe (also happened offscreen). And he gets revived each time he gets killed only to become a cosmic punching bag.
• Dies Wide Open: Bart does this in some of his deaths.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Bart got Bob arrested for trying to frame Krusty the Clown in an armed robbery, and again for trying to murder his aunt Selma. So, Bob decides to make Bart his enemy, and in this episode brutally murders the little boy and keeps his decomposing body as a trophy. Bob then reanimates Bart and bludgeons the child to death with a sledgehammer. Perfectly fair!
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Sure, Bart gets impaled, disemboweled, used as a household item and a trophy, bludgeoned to death many times with a sledgehammer, and revived only to become a cosmic punching bag again and again and again; but in the end, he manages to get better and defeat Bob with help from his family. Also, as Marge points out, he has been showing responsibility with Santa's Little Helper, which would explain his Undying Loyalty and determination to find Bart. Oh, and did we mention that he hangs out at Springfield University, with Bob as a new mix-and-match critter?
• Enraged by Idiocy: Bob lashes out at tech-savvy, Book Dumb teens for not getting anything right about T. S. Eliot, before stepping on a rake and giving them all F's.
  "I didn't think the author of Cats could be insulted further!"^note Eliot actually wrote Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, which in turn is adapted into the musical Cats by Andrew Lloyd Webber.
• Evil-Detecting Dog: Santa's Little Helper knows that something's not right in Bob's Victorian-style house.
• Fist Pump: Bob does this in a victory pose with a smile on his face after looking at Bart's body in awe, as he has just killed his Arch-Enemy for the first time.
• Foreshadowing: In Bob's living room, while Bob is drinking wine mixed with Bart's blood, one credit appears as "Re-Animator Raynis" next to Bob. Much later, Bob creates a Reanimator that does exactly that: bring Bart Back from the Dead.
• If I Do Not Return: Parodied: After Bart is impaled and gets his heart yanked out, he knows that he's dying and won't come back home, so he tells his Arch-Enemy his last words: "Tell my father... he's... fat..."
• Informal Eulogy: After Bob kills Bart for the first time:
  "The deed is done. 24 years of trying to kill a ten-year-old child have finally paid off."
• Killed Mid-Sentence: Subverted: Bart uses his parodied Kissing In A Tree chant on Bob, but before he gets to the "G" part in "S-U-C-K-I-N-G", Bob fires a spear projectile on him, impaling him. It doesn't faze Bart, at first, and he keeps talking until he falters. And when Bob yanks the projectile and the heart out of Bart's chest, he finishes his last words before dying.
• Kissing In A Tree: Parodied with Bart taunting Bob with this Playground Song, right before he gets Impaled with Extreme Prejudice by Bob's Harpoon Gun in the music room:
  Bob and a spear gun,
  Sitting in a tree,
  S-U-C-K-I-N-
• Let's Dance: Lampshaded by Bob when he pulls out a Harpoon Gun at the music room:
  Bob: Now let me put this in terms that a young boy would understand: you and I have danced a grand pas de deux worthy of Nijinsky, but this... is... the final... plié!
  Bart: [not amused] Yawn. You couldn't kill me with that thing if I drew an "X" on my forehead. [he does so with blue chalk and makes a taunting dance]
• Loophole Abuse: Principal Skinner takes advantage of the fact that the murder of Bart Simpson took place outside school time to exempt himself from any legal responsibilities.
• Mix-and-Match Critter: Bob ends up as this when his head is crossed with antler horns and the body of a chicken and other animal parts.
• Mummies at the Dinner Table/Talking to the Dead: After killing Bart with a Harpoon Gun, Bob decides to hide the evidence from everyone. But rather than burying Bart, he takes him to his Victorian-style home where he mixes A Glass of Chianti with Bart's blood, plays golf with his corpse, and uses him as a (bad) freshener. Bob even talks with the corpse every once in a while, sometimes with a "Hello... Bart."
• Mythology Gag: The entire segment involves Bart dying at the hands of Sideshow Bob, who later finds out that life is meaningless without his Arch-Enemy around, and discovers that the only thing that made him happy in his life was killing Bart; so he creates a Reanimator machine and brings his Arch-Enemy back to life to kill him over and over again. This plot is kinda similar to The Itchy & Scratchy Show episode "The Tears of a Clone".
• Obstructive Bureaucrat: After Sideshow Bob is turned into a Mix-and-Match Critter, one of his students asks what he's supposed to be. He says he's supposed to be a full-fledged faculty member but the people in charge of evaluating him are too slow.
• Of Corpse He's Alive: Bob hides the evidence that he killed Bart from Principal Skinner and Bart's father Homer, the latter by having Bart's body watch The Itchy & Scratchy Show and smile, and by showing Homer the tattoo on his (Bob's) back that says "I ♥ Bart" with a Heart Symbol.
• Off with His Head!: Homer uses an antique lamp to beat up Bob so hard that he cuts off his head.
• Oh, and X Dies: The fact that Bart Simpson would die at the hands of Sideshow Bob in this segment was announced by the show's executive producer Al Jean just nearly five months before the episode aired, in an attempt to hype up the suspense while keeping the "how?" (by Harpoon Gun... and other stuff) a secret.
• Only a Flesh Wound: The second time that Bart gets hit in the stomach with a sledgehammer after being brought back again, he tells Bob, "Still not dead." Then Bob whacks him on the head, and the boy replies, "Psych!" Then Bob gets infuriated and whacks him in a frenzy so hard that Bart's guts are spilling out before he finally succumbs to his wounds.
• Out-of-Character Alert: Bart sees a message coming from Milhouse's cellphone, saying, "Largo stuck in harp," then, "Looks funny. Sounds exquisite," (which is something that Milhouse would not say) before going to the music room (where violin music is heard) and then discovering that it was Sideshow Bob who had lured him in using Milhouse's phone. As one review noted, "'[L]ooks funny, sounds exquisite' should have been a giveaway."
• Papa Wolf: Homer Simpson. Don't you ever harm his son in a way you can kill him over and over again, or you will regret it.
• Phoneaholic Teenager: Sideshow Bob attempts to teach a classroom full of these. Plus their papers keep making Game of Thrones references.
• Police Are Useless: It's pretty obvious that the police are absent in the case of the murder of Bart Simpson. Bob even calls Chief Clancy Wiggum on the phone and asks him if Bob can use the shotgun to kill Bart and his family, in which Wiggum gives him the go ahead. And this is moments after the Simpson family have brought their missing loved one to life.
• Pre-Mortem Catchphrase: The third time Sideshow Bob kills Bart (by beating him to death with a sledgehammer), his last words are "Ay caramba!"
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: Double subverted: When Bob shoots Bart in the chest with a spear gun, and Bart tells him in a weak voice that he has made some stupid mistake:
  Bob: Not this time. [yanks the projectile and Bart's heart from his chest]
• Public Domain Soundtrack: The classical music that Bob plays on the gramophone is an instrumental version of "Largo al factotum" from The Barber of Seville by Gioachino Rossini (with the score arranged by Chris Ledesma, no doubt). Bob even sings, in a baritone voice, "I did it, I did it, I did it, I killed Bart dead!"
• Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: Bob: "...but this... is... the final... plié!"
• Rake Take: Bob steps on a rake in Springfield University after scolding its lazy students for insulting T. S. Eliot and dismissing them.
• Reference Overdosed: Hoo boy! There's a lot of Shout-Outs in this segment. They are: American Girl (which Bob references as Milhouse's wallpaper); Vaslav Nijinsky (ballet dancer and choreographer also referenced by Bob); the Friday the 13th and Mortal Kombat franchises (when Bob murders Bart with a Harpoon Gun in a gruesome way... and takes a selfie with the corpse and uploads it on social media); The Fairly OddParents! ("Tell my father... he's... fat..."); Facebook (here known as Fiendbook); Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd in What's Opera, Doc? (also referenced by Bob); Weekend at Bernie's (when Bob carries Bart's corpse to his house where he plays and drinks with it); The Itchy & Scratchy Show (Bob has Bart's corpse watch the show); Joker: Going Sane (when Bob tries living a normal life by taking up poetry class after killing Bart, only to realize that life just isn't the same without Bart around); The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliot (lines are recited by Bob); Google, Wikipedia, and Twitter (which the social media-obsessed students use); Cats (which Bob claims Eliot is the author of); Game of Thrones (which said students reference); Snapchat; White Zinfandel (a dry-to-sweet, pink-colored blush wine, which Bob compares Bart to); Harry Potter (when Bob goes to Springfield's University's Black Arts Building for the ingredients for the Reanimator); The New Yorker (which Bob references as a frog); Re-Animator (when he creates the aptly named machine used to resurrect Bart); Lucky Charms (in which its leprechaun mascot is one of the ingredients used for the machine); Monty Python and the Holy Grail (when Bob makes a whack at Bart with a sledgehammer, and Bart keeps replying that he's still not dead, forcing Bob to bludgeon him in fury until his (Bart's) guts spill out); and Batman: The Brave and the Bold's Animated Adaptation of Emperor Joker (Bart's Death Montage).
• Rule of Symbolism: At the end of the segment, Bob finishes The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock with "...By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown / Till human voices wake us, and we drown." According to T. S. Eliot, "Once you wake up to the knowledge that the ideals of romance are a fantasy—in part because you yourself are incapable of achieving them—you die a little inside." Being that this is a non-canon segment, Bob has fulfilled his lifelong goal of killing Bart and goes all Emperor Joker on him by repeatedly killing him over and over again; but once the voices of the Simpson family wake up Bob and defeat him, those goals of killing Bart are now over.
• Shout-Out: The title spoofs the Bon Jovi song "Wanted: Dead or Alive", from their 1986 album Slippery When Wet.
• Soundtrack Dissonance: The background music that plays in Bart's Death Montage is Elvis Costello's "Accidents Will Happen", which is a song about "the gamesmanship of romance" and "a kiss-off to a lover given her walking papers for crimes both real and imagined", according to AllMusic. Of course, if taken in context, the lyrics imply that Bob used to be a victim of humiliation and defeat by Bart in previous episodes, but now it seems that Bart is not the only victor when Bob turns the tables on him.
• Spy Speak: Parodied: Bob tells Bart in music-related "terms only a young boy would understand" (since they are in the music room) that they have "danced a grand pas de deux worthy of Nijinsky" (meaning that they have fought each other through years of episodes, each ending with Bob being thwarted), but calls the confrontation in the music room "the final plié" (meaning that it will be their last confrontation when Bob gets to kill him). Bart, however, understands and is unamused, meaning that he's heard it all before and knows Bob's plan will fail, like always. This time, however, Bob truly means it and succeeds.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: The montage part when Bob steamrolls Bart into paper, then folds him into an airplane and flies him into a Deadly Rotary Fan that shreds him into bits; he then picks up Bart's pieces and tosses them into a cremation furnace.
• Took a Level in Badass: Bob. After 24 years of trying to kill Bart, he has the upper hand by taking Milhouse's smartphone, a violin, and a spear gun to school and brandishing the latter on Bart, who thinks that Bob's plan will fail again, as usual. The boy is wrong... dead wrong, as it goes to show that Bob truly means business.
• Victory Is Boring: Sideshow Bob quickly finds out that killing Bart robbed him of the one thing that brought excitement into his life.
• Villain Ball: Creating a reanimating machine that can bring your Arch-Enemy back to life in order to kill him again and again is easy. Leaving him in the basement exposed by clear windows so that his Badass Family can see him is a bad idea.
• Villain Episode: In this case, it's A Day in the Limelight for Bob, who has the whole episode to himself.
• Visual Pun: At the very end of the segment, mix-and-match critter Bob tells his students he's supposed to be "A full professor! But the tenure committee is excruciatingly slow" (meaning that he isn't doing well and has become a failure) before he literally lays an egg like a chicken.^note (since "to lay an egg" is an idiom for "to produce a failure or a flop" or "to do something that is unsuccessful")
• Vocal Dissonance: After Bob shoots Bart with a Harpoon Gun, Bart's voice quivers a bit while telling him he's (Bob) made "some... stupid... mistake"; but when Bob pulls the projectile and Bart's heart out of his chest, and he (Bart) collapses onto the floor, his weak 10-year-old boy's voice slips into a dying grownup woman's voice as he barely utters out his last words before he dies.
• "Wanted!" Poster: Parodied by the title screen, in which the word "Wanted:" appears, followed by the blood that spells out "DEAD", before finishing the title in normal letters.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Homer kills Bob with an antique lamp and Bart berates him with, "What about all the times he tried to kill ME?!"
• With Lyrics: Bob sings to the tune of "Largo al Factotum", whose new lyrics go like this:
  I did it, I did it, I did it, I killed Bart dead!
  Laaa, la la la la la la la la, lots of blood!
  I did what could not be done...
  To Bugs Bunny by Elmer Fudd!^note Apparently he hasn't watched What's Opera, Doc? or Rabbit Rampage (the non-lethal version), both involving Elmer's victory over Bugs.
• Would Hurt a Child: Bob definitely has this in spades. And yet he loves Bart so much, he brings him Back from the Dead so that Bob can kill his Arch-Enemy again and again.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: In a normal episode Bart WOULD get away with mocking a harpoon gun-wielding Sideshow Bob. But given this is the start of a Halloween episode... he is not so lucky.
• You Wouldn't Shoot Me: Bart tells Bob, "Yawn. You couldn't kill me with [a Harpoon Gun] if I drew an 'X' on my forehead." It... doesn't work.

Homerzilla

A parody of Godzilla; the grandfather of the Simp-san family frequently sacrifices a doughnut to a giant sea monster to keep it at bay. When he dies and no more donuts are sent, the monster comes to shore and wrecks the city.

• Ad Bumpers: Parodied at the very end of this segment after all the Homerzilla merchandise gets dumped into the ocean where the sea monster wakes up and roars in anger:
  Narrator: [voice-over] Homerzilla will return... as soon as people have forgotten about the last one. [Homerzilla's roar is heard once more]
• Anachronism Stew: Though the film was set in the 1950s, the citizens watch a karaoke singer perform Tony Orlando and Dawn's "Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree" near a karaoke machine before the power is cut off. Karaoke machines didn't exist in Japan until the 1970s. And the song was actually released as a single on February 19, 1973.
  • Mr. Burns is seen wearing samurai armor, which have been rendered obsolete by the late 19th century. It's appropriate as Mr. Burns is always lagging a hundred years behind.
• Apocalypse How: 1950's Japan starts becoming Regional Societal Disruption or Collapse by the end of the first part of the segment because of Homerzilla's rampage.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: As a panicked and depressed scientist sees Homerzilla's rampage on TV, a scrolling news caption says, "Breaking News. Tokyo: Homerzilla Stomps the City! Ramen Prices Skyrocket! Geishas Giggle Coyly."
• Bland-Name Product: Among the Homerzilla merchandise being thrown into the sea are Zilla Wafers, a parody of Nilla Wafers.
• Breath Weapon/Kill It with Fire: Homerzilla breathes fire! Duh!
• Cassandra Truth: Grampa sent out a doughnut offering every day to appease Homerzilla, while everyone else disbelieved him. After he passed away and the doughnut offerings stopped, Homerzilla attacked Japan. Despite this, Moe refused to admit that Grandpa was right...at least until Homerzilla killed him.
• Cherry Blossoms: Miss Hoover and the students hear Homerzilla's faint roar beneath the ocean, but she calms them down by telling them it's just "excitement over the cherry blossoms":
  Lisa: Of course! The cherry blossoms! They're so beautiful, [looks around] and yet...
• Continuity Nod: Among the guests at the Homerzilla remake premiere are Lurleen Lumpkin, Dredrick Tatum, and the Grumple.
• The Cuckoolander Was Right: The townspeople all ridicule Grampa Simp-san for his ritual of sacrificing doughnuts to Homerzilla, since they don’t believe the creature to be real. Until the monster comes ashore...
• Deliberately Monochrome: 1950s Japan in the first part of the segment.
• Do Not Taunt Homerzilla: Played straight with Moe; averted with Lisa.
• Foreign Remake: An in-universe example; an American movie studio decides to make a big budget remake of the old Japanese Homerzilla movie. It bombs at the box office^note which is ironic as the 1998 Godzilla film referenced to was a financial success (and a big one at that) .
• Gratuitous Japanese: The title screen is this, as katakana letters spell out "Hōmājira" (ホーマージラ), with the English title appearing on the bottom.
• Insane Troll Logic: The execs reason that since the original Homerzilla was so popular because of how cheap and cheesy it was, then a remake that does the exact opposite will be even more successful.
• Insurance Fraud: When the Zilla film remake bombs, the executives drop everything related to it at the ocean and falsely claim to have lost the items so the insurance will cover the movie's expenses.
• Kaiju: Homerzilla, of course.
• Man in a Rubber Suit: Homerzilla is revealed as this when he falls off the set and has to be propped back up.
• No Ending: We don't see how the conflict in either of the Zilla films end, and this is also true in the short overall after Homerzilla is revealed to be Real After All.
• Product Placement: Parodied in the American remake of "Zilla" when Homerzilla picks up a tanker truck of Buzz Cola.
• Proscenium Reveal: The whole black and white segment at the start of the segment turns out to be an old Japanese movie that the executives of an American movie studio are watching.
• Pun: Homerzilla makes a bad one when he stomps on one of the houses of the Springfield Prefecture:
  "D'oh-jo!" [lifts up his foot to reveal a crushed dojo]
• Real After All: At first it appears Homerzilla only exists in movies, but at the end of the episode, when all the merchandise for the failed American Homerzilla movie is tossed into the ocean, the creature is revealed to be real after all.
• Sedgwick Speech/Tempting Fate: When Homerzilla arises from the beach and incinerates Moe for having ridiculed Grampa Simp-san's beliefs about the sea creature:
  Moe: [raises his fist in anger] Ha! I still refuse to admit the old man was right! [the monster's fire breath incinerates him to a skeleton] Legitimate difference of opinion. [one more fire breath reduces him to ashes]
• Seppuku: When Grampa dies he joins the previous Simp-san grandfather, who commits hara-kiri and dies again rather than spend eternity with him.
• Shout-Out:
  • Grampa Simp-san at one time utters Franziska von Karma's "foolishly foolish fool" line from the Ace Attorney series.
  • The Homerzilla remake has him fighting a flying turtle with fangs.
• Square-Cube Law: Invoked by Prof. Frink, who claims that Homerzilla will collapse under his own weight once he leaves the water. He is immediately proven wrong. ^note  Much like Godzilla, Homerzilla has bulky thighs and a thickened tail coupled with an upright posture which would help him stablize his weight.
• Take That!: To the two American remakes of Godzilla (mostly the 1998 version directed by Roland Emmerich ^note which also featured Simpsons cast members Hank Azaria, Harry Shearer and Nancy Cartwright, down to the shortening of the title to "Zilla"), and to the upcoming Star Wars film The Force Awakens, which Comic Book Guy says he wanted to get a good seat for, and which he believes "will stink to high heaven!" Oh, and PETA for the lizard burgers.
• Talking the Monster to Death/Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: Lisa tries reasoning with Homerzilla not to destroy the town. When that fails, she goes for the latter trope by telling him he needs a breath mint; see below.
• Translation Convention: It's pretty obvious that the inhabitants of 1950s Japan speak very good English, since the first part is a film.
• You Need a Breath Mint: Lisa tells Homerzilla this after his fire breath incinerates a wheelbarrow:
  Lisa: Right, right. The city's the only place you can get tuna rolls at five in the morning... because you do have fishy breath! I'm just telling you!

Telepaths of Glory

While Bart, Lisa, and Milhouse are on a hike, Milhouse falls down a hole. Bart and Lisa follow to rescue him, and they find a load of radioactive ooze down there. A bubble of the stuff pops and blows them back out of the hole. Lisa and Milhouse quickly discover that the goop gave them Mind over Matter powers. Bart didn't get any powers despite going through the same experience, as they're linked to intellect and Bart doesn't have much of that.

Cut to a montage of Lisa and Milhouse using their powers. Lisa uses hers to cheat at a gym examination by flying up the rope she was supposed to climb, Milhouse drops Dolph into a volcano after Dolph bullies him, Lisa turns Bart's 'Skinner is a wiener' graffiti into 'Skinner is a winner' (only for Skinner to change it back as he thinks someone misspelled wiener), plays the background music on all her instruments, and Milhouse plays Whack-A-Mole with his bullies, merges his parents into Two Beings, One Body, and gives Apu and Snake multiple arms. Yup, he's gone mad with power.

Milhouse then fills the Simpsons' yard with moai statues of him and gathers many citizens of Springfield into a giant ball, before the ball and statues are zapped away, and Milhouse is brought low with another zap. Bart congratulates Lisa on doing that, but she didn't. Turns out, it was Maggie, who'd sucked on a nuclear rod instead of a pacifier and now has powers of her own.

The rest of the short is Maggie's changes to the world, set to Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.

• Call-Back: To the previous segment when Maggie uses her powers to turn Homerzilla into Barney the Dinosaur.
• Disproportionate Retribution: When Dolph Starbeam gives Milhouse a wedgie, the latter floats upward, talking Dolph with him and dropping him into a volcano nearby. Dolph even lampshades this:
  "This is not a proportional punishmeeeeent!"
• Drunk with Power: Milhouse of course, which is lampshaded by Lisa.
  Lisa: Milhouse has gone mad with power. Frankly, I thought it wouldn't take this long.
• Found Footage Films: It's from the point of view of the camera that Lisa takes hiking.
• Funny Background Event: Scrat gets run over by a boulder right when Milhouse jumps into the hole.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Milhouse ends up losing his powers by being struck by Maggie with a nuclear rod mistaken for a pacifier.
• Left the Background Music On: Jazz music plays in the background during the montage where Lisa and Milhouse use their newfangled powers. Later on, the same music is played when she makes all the musical instruments fly and play the same jazz music, before Homer arrives and becomes angry, making her drop all the instruments to the ground and stop playing the background music.
• Mandatory Line: Much like they did in Treehouse XI (and an Ironic Echo at that, considering that said cameo was on the Halloween episode after the one where they hosted a Milestone Celebration), Kang and Kodos appear at the end of the segment to complain about the fact that they weren't included in this episode.
• Mind over Matter: Lisa and Milhouse's powers.
• Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Milhouse uses his powers to give both Apu and Snake Jailbird multiple arms. Snake uses them for wielding multiple guns at once....
• Multi-Armed Multitasking:...while Apu claims he can now diaper all his kids at once.
• Non-Indicative Name: Neither Lisa nor Milhouse use Telepathy in this episode. Their powers are more like telekinesis.
• No-Sell: The radioactive goo doesn’t have any effect on Bart, much to his chagrin since it gave his sister and friend superpowers.
• One-Man Band: Lisa uses her new powers to play all her favorite instruments at once, effectively becoming a one-girl-orchestra.
• Personality Powers: Lisa notes that the telepathy powers are linked to intellect, which is why she and Milhouse have it and Bart doesn't.
• Radiation-Induced Superpowers: How Lisa and Milhouse get their powers.
• Shout-Out: When Milhouse falls into the hole, Scrat is seen running after his acorn in the background. Also, Milhouse summoning moai statues of himself is a reference to the Tartaros Arc of Fairy Tail. When Bart and Lisa go down the hole to save Milhouse, Fred Flintstone's car can be briefly seen.
• The Cameo: Kang and Kodos. At the end of the segment, they appear to complain about doing this trope.
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Milhouse goes mad with power, using it to literally force his parents back together (by fusing them into a Two Beings, One Body), taking revenge on his bullies and making giant statues of himself.
• Whole-Plot Reference: To Chronicle.

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