Bart Simpson’s DraculaIs the BestTreehouse of HorrorSketch, It Just Is

We live in the age of the red-hot take , but I finger like this should n’t be one , correct ?

The Simpsons ’ annual tradition ofanthology spooktacularsis one of the august show ’s most august of founding . The exemption they allow — within the land of horror at least — often leads to the series ’ in effect homage , the finest parodies , and the swell gags .

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Mr. Burns digs in for a snack.

Mr. Burns digs in for a snack.Image: Disney

Freed from the restraint of let to make even the shadowy signified in the already absurd lives lived on Evergreen Terrace , their dateless riffs do n’t quite feel like they ’re the pant of a show stilltrying to retain relevancelong after many fans would objurgate is a serial well past its top . They ’re just good , silly , often comically violent number of fun . But while Treehouse of Horror has weather even as The Simpsons has mature over the last three decades — for proficient or worse , or however you feel about it — it ’s kind of amazing to think that the show has still not quite managed tonail a odd Treehouseas unequivocally and brilliantly as its fourth time at weirdy - squash racquet in 1993 with Treehouse of Horror IV .

I intend , come on . The Twilight Zone homage in Terror at 5½ Feet ! Flanders as the fiend in The Devil and Homer Simpson ! These are n’t just some of the most iconic consequence in Treehouse history , they ’re some of the most iconic second in The Simpsons , full stop .

And then there ’s Bart Simpson ’s Dracula . The good sketch in what is the best Treehouse of Horror .

Image: Disney

They’re dogs. And they’re playing POKER.Image: Disney

If you have somehow not seen it — frankly , what is wrong with you , why are you even reading this article , and serious news I guess , it’llbe on Disney+in a few weeks — Bart Simpson ’s Dracula is , well , The Simpsons . Doing Dracula . The vampire in this pillowcase of course ( or vampyr , as Lisa dramatically intones in its opening move moments , a read so iconic it as burn into my mind as the only , unequivocal path to say “ vampyr ” whenever that rare situation arises ) is none other than Mr. Burns . Because who else could be a literal bloodsucker than the domineering capitalist phantasma that stalk Springfield and Homer in adequate measurement ?

One convenient invite to Burns ’ not - at - all - funny castle afterwards , the Simpson family bump itself get going on zany escapes as Lisa assay to prove to her blissfully unlettered parent and brother that Burns is the one behind the vampire attacks tally Springfield as of later . Those attack ? Clearly the employment of a mamma . The castle ? Oh , it ’s just what being a billionaire gets you . His heterosexual out of Francis Ford Coppola smell ? He ’s an one-time mankind , what you gon na do . That said castle ’s underlevels lead to a crypt filled with vampire ? Weird flex , but we all bewilder ta get some quietus somehow . His life is call Yes , I Am a Vampire ? Details , schmetails !

It ’s that kind of absurd giddiness — and everyone but Lisa being willing enough to say “ eh ” and go along with it , and even then , she does too , eventually — that bring in Bart Simpson ’s Dracula glow bright than Vampire - Burns ’ pointiest fangs . Beyond its sharp dad civilisation parody , its dry breakup from reality just make for great gag after great gag ( “ Ohh … I guess killing will be fun enough , ” Homer laments , when Lisa bawl out him for wanting to use the slide into Burns ’ crypt , will never not crack me up ) . It combines everything you desire out of a good Treehouse sketch : unanimous generator material to riff off of , funny jokes , and a really smart use of The Simpsons ’ world traced onto an unexpected music genre .

Image: Disney

Straight outta the Gary Oldman wardrobe.Image: Disney

But while my childhood ego know the silliness of the ‘ Dracula ’ part of Bart Simpson ’s Dracula , as I ’ve arise older ( andonly more and more silly ) , it ’s the Bart Simpson ’s scrap of that deed that I have total to appreciate more and more . Because it ’s significant to think back that , beyond it being a nod to Coppola ’s induction of the source ’s name forhis 1992 classic , it is also there to cue us that everything we watch unfold in this story is through Bart ’s electron lens . And remembering that makes Bart Simpson ’s Dracula develop from laughable pastiche to something that is both really saucy and , in some means , kind of affecting .

The inherent fatuity of the cartoon — dancing from jest to oddball reference to more gags as everyone regard just kind of shrugs and roll with it — smacks so dead of the institution of a juvenile slacker like Bart , especially reach that , as the framing equipment explains before going in , he was meant to do a fleck base on Coolidge ’s A Friend in motive but changed it at the last second .

have the crotchet that his parents are all in secret the substantial vampire ( peculiarly Marge as the foreland vampire , in the truest acknowledgement of who rules the roost in the Simpsons family ) is reminiscent of his aversion for the authority figures in his life sentence . infernal region , even the zany climax of the cartoon breaking abruptly into a Charlie Brown Christmas mockery reads like a snotty biting - of - his - thumb ( or eating of his short ) in the counselling of it all . Of course Bart is told to tell a Halloween skit and ends it as a Christmas one . You do n’t tell Bart Simpson what to do !

Image: Disney

Also a good gag? The super fun happy slide.Image: Disney

But above all , what makes Bart Simpson ’s Dracula genuinely Bart ’s lens is that , well , Bart really is n’t the lens at all . Within the story itself , at least .

Lisa is .

And as ceaselessly , nightmarishly assholish as he can be to his minuscule sister as he can be , and as much as he would deign to take it publicly , deep down he loves her more than anything else in the world . So of course in his Dracula put-on he is n’t the hero . He ’s the dumb comical relievo who , as Lisa investigates the devious whodunit of Mr. Burns , gets himself done in just so he can ride a silly chute right back down into the lamia pit he and his sister just get by . Lisa is the hero sandwich , figuring it all out , denying the enticement — teasing temptation from her brother , no less , because that ’s their total kinship — of being converted into a vampire , hatching the plan to beat Burns . She ’s put in peril , but always finds a means out , even right at the very end .

Image: Disney