YMMV / The Simpsons S5 E5 "Treehouse of Horror IV"

• Alternative Joke Interpretation: It's heavily implied that Nixon made a Deal with the Devil. Was this to become president, or to avoid legal consequences for crimes he committed while he was president?
• Ass Pull: Marge turns out to be the "master" vampire and has turned all of her family (but Lisa). Lampshaded In-Universe by Lisa who asks how is that even possible, and Marge just answers back that she has a life of her own other than being a housewife.
• Awesome Art: David Silverman goes all out with the Deranged Animation the episode boasts: characters move at their most fluid and passionate, facial expressions are twisted and exaggerated, and the camera angles are more inventive and inspired than the average episode. Even writer Bill Oakley admits that the design of the gremlin is ideal by looking genuinely creepy and like a Simpsons character at the same time.
• Creepy Cute: The gremlin is quite cute for Simpsons standards, even if it is a monstrous entity.
• Evil Is Cool: Has quite the iconic ToH villains in the series
  • Devil Flanders, being both unexpected, still fairly nice but likewise not one to be trifled with if the beginning and ending of the short show.
  • While brief, seeing Burns as a vampire is both hilarious and even a little scary when he bites Bart, but he manages to sell it well.
  • Likewise Vampire Bart short on-screen terrorizing shows he took to being a vampire like a fish to water and his near biting Lisa is legit scary. Makes one wonder if that the vampire change in him talking or he was really enjoying being undead.
• Franchise Original Sin: "Bart Simpson's Dracula" has many elements that later Treehouse of Horror segments would be criticised for - namely going for a Narrow Parody of a popular film released that year—but it's still seen as better than those, because the parody elements are mostly flavoring (as in, it's really just the name and Burns's design) and the rest is a pretty standard parody of Dracula and vampire stories in general, as well as being legitimately scary at points. Later segments would ape popular films and TV shows (some of which weren't part of the horror genre) that were released longer ago than the past year, with the parodies being borderline shallow.
• Harsher in Hindsight: In Bart Simpson's Dracula, Mr. Burns leads an undead army of vampires in search for blood. 16 years later in "Don't Have A Cow, Mankind", he joins the undead again, this time as a flesh-eating zombie.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • This wouldn't be the last time that Homer would descend to Hell or that Ned Flanders would become The Devil.
  • Marge turning out to be the head vampire is reminiscent of Treehouse of Horror VIII's "Easy-Bake Coven" - where she turns out to be a Wicked Witch as well.
  • Homer being tormented by Satan is amusing when you remember that Dan Castellaneta would voice him in Futurama (albeit the robot devil).
  • When Homer's head is turned into a donut, he can't stop himself from eating it, because he "taste[s] so sweet". Homer finding himself too delicious to resist eating would later form the plot of "Mmm... Homer".
  • Vampire Burns' Bram Stoker's Dracula-reminiscent Memetic Hair, which Homer calls "queer," looks forward to that of Futurama's Carol "Mom" Miller.
  • One Deleted Scene has Bart consider selling his soul (after witnessing his father sell his), only to then change his mind. A later canon episode would have him sell his soul for real, in order to prove that the soul doesn't exist.
• Nausea Fuel: In a Deleted Scene from "Bart Simpson's Dracula", Bart floats into the kitchen and asks Marge what's for breakfast. She gives him a plate of dead rats. Homer still bemoans over him having a better meal than he did.
• Padding: As was common in earlier seasons, the episode was about a minute short, so the shot of Kang and Kodos' laughter was made longer.
• Unintentional Period Piece: Richard Nixon nowadays can no longer use the excuse that he's not dead yet because he died six months after the episode aired.
• Values Dissonance: Homer mocks Mr. Burns' Dracula hairdo by saying it looks "queer" (to which Mr. Burns immediately snaps, "I heard that!")

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