The Simpsons Halloween: Treehouse of Horror XIV recap

Treehouse of Horror XIV features Homer as the Grim Reaper, Professor Frink bringing his father back to life, and Bart and Milhouse being able to stop time.

Treehouse of Horror XIV opens with Bart and Lisa coming home after going Trick-or-treating. Having dressed as Charlie Brown and Lucy, they start going through their candy and Bart is unhappy with his haul. He and Lisa begin fighting in the living room and Bart winds up accidentally stabbing Homer with a fireplace poker. Furious at this, he tries to punish the kids by throwing a burning fireplace log at them, but accidentally hits Grampa instead. Marge comes in and scolds everyone to stop fighting, but Homer doesn’t let up. When he rolls Bart and Lisa up in a rug and begins beating it with a baseball bat, Marge says he disagrees with his approach to parenting and shoots him with a shotgun.

Watching the Simpson house from space, Kang and Kodos bash them for showing a Halloween episode in November. Commenting that no one is thinking about Halloween anymore, the two aliens already have their Christmas decorations up in the spaceship. With that, the 14th installment of Treehouse of Horror begins.

Reaper Madness

The Grim Reaper arrives at the Simpson house to take Bart, but the family evades him in a slapstick style chase. While the Grim Reaper eventually manages to capture Bart, Homer acts in memory of Snowball I and JFK and kills it by hitting it in the head with his bowling ball. When Death’s scythe and list disappear, Lisa remarks that Homer has created a World without death. Later on garbage day Marge tells Homer to take out the Grim Reaper’s remains. Deciding to try on the cloak, he finds that it’s pretty comfortable. But  when he does this it makes him become the new Grim Reaper.

Homer refuses to do the job at first, but steadily warms to it (despite Jasper preferring the other guy). He helps Lisa demonstrate to her class what he does and uses his power to get better seats when Bart hates their initial ones at a baseball game.

But one day Homer sees that Marge is on his death list. Initially refusing, he appears to yield to the demand to reap her. Climbing a mountain with a body that has Marge’s blue hair, Homer pleads with God to be released from the burden of being the Grim Reaper. Homer gets his wish and while God is taking the body, the cover slips off and it turns out to be Patty with Marge’s hair attached. He chases Homer with a ray of sun, but eventually yields by saying he is too old and too rich for that. Grateful for Homer’s action, Marge thanks him by making him extra pork chops

Frinkenstein

Homer gets a call from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences that is meant for Dr. Frink. It turns out that he’s won the Nobel Prize. But this is bittersweet for him, as Dr. Frink says that he was always a disappointment to his father and he died from a shark bite shortly after they had a falling out.

But since it turns out that he kept the body frozen, Dr. Frink decides to reanimate the body so it can appear at the ceremony. But this plan goes badly when Dr. Frink Sr. (Jerry Lewis) goes on a mission to steal body parts from other people. The body parts he steals include Principal Skinner’s spine and Ned Flanders’ heart. But Lisa manages to convince him to stop when reminded of the anguish he’s causing his son.

Dr. Frink Sr. tries to atone for his behavior while at the Nobel Prize ceremony, but this too ends in a rampage when he steals the brains of scientists to grow more intelligent. When Dr. Frink Jr. manages to stop him with a kick in the groin, Dr. Frink Sr. tells him that he’s proud of him for standing up to him. Due to his abilities, Professor Frink is able to hold onto his father’s soul through a box that talks to him.

Stop the World, I Want to Goof Off

While going through old comic books, Bart and Milhouse find an ad for a stopwatch that actually stops time. Ordering it, Bart immediately sees that it works and uses it with Milhouse to do whatever they want. They have a blast until Mayor Quimby outsmarts them by putting ultraviolet power on the floor at the town meeting everyone is attending. When he turns out the lights, a trail of footsteps point right at Bart and Milhouse.

The town chases them through the streets until they use the stopwatch to escape. It works, but Milhouse points out that in doing so they managed to break the watch. This means that with the exception of the two of them, time is stuck forever.

They have a lot of fun, but eventually become bored and decide to completely repair the watch to set time right. This takes them 15 years and when ready they put Martin in place as the mob’s scapegoat. The watch works as it should and when time is unfrozen the mob (which includes Oscar de la Hoya in a cameo) destroys Martin while Bart and Milhouse watch.

After Marge comments on Bart’s sudden tallness, Bart lets Lisa use the watch for a change. Finding the watch’s other button, she discovers that it can change reality. The second button causes the Simpsons to turn into various things, including bobble heads and TV Guide covers. Lisa eventually presses the watch so it lands on them all hula hooping with Bart back to his normal age. With that, Treehouse of Horror XIV ends with them all hula hooping.