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Original Air Date: Thursday, October 31, 1991  Three Bad Nightmares Once again, the episode is introduced by Marge, coming out to warn everyone that what they were about to witness might be too scary for the young ones. The previous year, no one listened to her, and sure enough, some kids had nightmares from some of it (allegedly). Marge basically just says "if you didn't listen to me last time, you're not gonna listen now", and she pretty much nailed it. As kids, we watched it, we loved it, and speaking personally, it really helped fuel my love for the holiday. These would quickly become an annual tradition in our house. The ongoing narrative this time around involves the kids, along with Homer, coming home from trick or treating with a massive haul of candy. They dump it on the floor and have at it, but Marge warns them that all that junk food is gonna give them nightmares. I don't know if there's any truth behind it, but I've always considered the nightmare theme of this episode a sort of reminder of Marge's initial warning from the first 'Treehouse of Horror' episode, therefore the whole episode is a bit of a jab at parents allowing their kids to maybe get away with more than they can handle. But that's just personal opinion.  Lisa's Nightmare Lisa and the family travel to (I believe) Morocco where Homer buys a creepy monkey's paw from a street vendor. This paw has the power to grant four wishes, but with each wish coming true, comes some sort of curse. Each of the family members, other than Marge gets a turn on the thing, and sure enough, with each wish comes a little something (or a big something) negative - almost as though the bigger the request, the worse things get. When Maggie and Homer make very small wishes, the cursed result is so minimal, it doesn't even really matter much. However when Lisa and Bart make their much bigger and more believable wishes, the cursed result is much worse, earning the whole family a whole bunch of critics (in a sort of self-aware way), and even causing an intergalactic war. It's a lot to pack into one small segment, and it moves very fast, but it's still solid in what it's trying to do. This one is mainly a parody of W.W. Jacobs' short story, 'The Monkey's Paw'. It also parodies a 'New Twilight Zone' episode called 'A Small Talent for War', using the aliens Kang and Kodos again. It also references 'Midnight Express', shortly. It mainly, however, focuses on the Monkey Paw story, whose lesson of "be careful what you wish for" is still abundant here, even though the segment is surrounded with humor. That brings me to a point about the whole episode - to further the idea of teaching kids who are watching some lessons along the way, starting with this most simple of life lessons. 3/5  Bart's Nightmare Not to be confused with the old video game of the same name, Bart's Nightmare is about him having a variety of special telekinetic and telepathic abilities. The people of Springfield have to constantly think happy thoughts, and always make sure to go above and beyond so that Bart gets his way. If anyone refuses, Bart can change them into whatever he wants. We see a few examples of this, and things honestly get pretty creative. You should see what he does with the cat. This all eventually leads to Bart wanting to watch 'Krusty the Clown', but when Homer refuses, it leads to Bart turning him into a Jack-in-the-Box. That's already most of the segment. The punchline is a reverse nightmare deal where everything in the dream looks pretty awesome for a mind like Bart's, but when the dream ends on a sweet note, he wakes up screaming. The segment relies a lot on visual gags, and much of it is hilarious. It was never really at the top of my list as far as these segments go, but it's definitely solid in its own right. This one is based on the 'Twilight Zone' episode, 'It's a Good Life'. For a little fun fact, voice actress for Bart, Nancy Cartwright's film career debuted in 'Twilight Zone: The Movie', in a segment which was also based on the same original episode. This is also, I believe, the only Halloween segment to acually parody the narration from 'The Twilight Zone', with 'Simpsons' mainstay, Harry Shearer imitating the voice of the legendary Rod Serling. It may not be one of my favorites, but it's an interesting love letter to the 'Twilight Zone' series, and has its own unique charm to it. 3/5  Homer's Nightmare The third and final act of the second 'Treehouse of Horror' (by the way, nothing ever takes place in the treehouse after this. The name just stuck) is probably the best of the three, so it definitely ends on a great note. Homer's nightmare involves him getting fired for sleeping on the job. He quickly takes a job as a local gravedigger, but we find that old habits die hard as he falls asleep while digging, making him look like an unearthed corpse. Meanwhile, Homer's former boss, Mr. Burns, is building a giant robot worker that will eventually replace human workers. The only thing it needs is a human brain. So, with a solid homage to 'Frankenstein', Mr. Burns and Smithers go grave robbing, only to find the open grave with Homer sleeping inside. They mistake him for being dead and take him back to the lab to put his brain in the robot, yielding exactly the result you'd expect - the robot is a big bumbling boob with a penchant for donuts. The farce here is very clearly 'Frankenstein', and aside from maybe Dracula, for my money, there really is no monster more classically famous. Once again, it's a decent love letter to classic horror. While the whole Homer bit is funny enough, Mr. Burns is the highlight of the segment. They took the concept of the mad scientist and overlapped it with your average, blue-collar worker, making it some of the most quotable Mr. Burns material in any 'Simpsons' episode. Mr. Burns is a personal favorite as it is, but he really lends himself to the Halloween material, as we'll see throughout these reviews. 5/5 The episode ends with a twist in which Mr. Burns' head has been grafted onto Homer's body upon him waking up from his nightmare. There's a tease for "next week's episode" where Homer seems to have to deal with the oddity of having an extra head, but the episode never came to pass. It was really just written as a gag, so the episode was never even planned, but the writers thought it would be a funny way to end the episode as though things are somewhat about to go back to normal.
Overall Episode Rating: 73%
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