Every Twilight Zone Parody in The Simpsons’ “Treehouse of Horror”

It’s an anthology horror series that has provided several of TV’s most iconic moments. What? No, we’re not talking about The Twilight Zone this time. We’re talking about The Simpsons’ “Treehouse of Horror,” the show’s long-running tradition of airing a spooky-funny Halloween special every fall. But a lot of “Treehouse of Horror” owes its success to Rod Sterling’s legendary series from the late ‘50s and early ‘60s. Especially during the early years of The Simpsons’ Halloween specials, many of the segments were parodies of classic Twilight Zone episodes. 

It’s probably fair to say that some younger viewers might not have any idea that certain “Treehouse of Horror” segments are based on The Twilight Zone. On the one hand, that just speaks to how effortlessly The Simpsons made these old stories its own. On the other, it’s a shame, because The Simpsons’ writing staff picked these specific episodes of The Twilight Zone to parody because they’re some of the best hours or half-hours of genre television ever to air. 

With The Twilight Zone airing regularly on SYFY, it seems like a fine time to note which “Treehouse of Horror” segments emerged from Serling’s classic show.  

Which Twilight Zone episodes are parodied in The Simpsons’ “Treehouse of Horror”?

“Hungry Are the Damned” / “To Serve Man”

The first “Treehouse of Horror” episode aired during The Simpsons’ second season, meaning The Twilight Zone was part of the tradition from the very start, as the middle segment was a parody of “To Serve Man,” the 24th episode of The Twilight Zone’s third season. That episode featured a seemingly friendly race of aliens visiting Earth with the purpose of serving mankind. But, as the episode’s heroine discovers too late, “To Serve Man” is a cookbook, and the hapless earthlings who got aboard the visitor’s ships are headed not for a life of interstellar luxury but for the dinner table. “Hungry Are the Damned,” which introduces Kang and Kodos, the mascots of the “Treehouse of Horror” series, flips the script. Lisa thinks the aliens’ book is titled How To Cook Forty Humans but it turns out some dust was obscuring another important word — it’s How To Cook for Forty Humans. Scorned, Kang and Kodos, who actually were benevolent unlike their Twilight Zone inspirations, leave Earth behind. Whoopsie. 

“The Monkey’s Paw” / “A Small Talent for War”

“Treehouse of Horror II” is the only episode to have two Twilight Zone parodies, although the first segment is only a partial parody, unlike the middle segment. “The Monkey’s Paw” is, as the title suggests, primarily inspired by the 1902 short horror story of the same name by author W. W. Jacobs. The cursed monkey’s paw the Simpsons acquire works much the same as it does in the story: the wishes come true, but in the worst possible way. Lisa wishes for world peace, prompting aliens (Kang and Kodos) to invade the unarmed Earth. This subplot borrows from “A Small Talent for War,” a segment in a Season 2 episode from the first revival of The Twilight Zone that aired in the late ‘80s. In it, an alien arrives on Earth and threatens to destroy the planet unless they fix their “small talent for war.” Humanity disarms, thinking the visitor is a pacifist, but the amused alien actually wanted the opposite: for mankind to become an even greater race of warriors with more powerful weapons. 

“The Bart Zone” / “It’s a Good Life”

The middle segment of “Treehouse of Horror II” is a proper Twilight Zone parody, as “The Bart Zone” riffs on the eighth episode of the show’s third season, “It’s a Good Life.” One of the more chilling episodes of the entire series, “It’s a Good Life” takes place in what remains of the world after a little boy realizes he has unfathomable, mind-reading and world-altering powers. Being a child, he uses this omnipotence to shape reality to his liking to the dismay of everybody else. “The Bart Zone” has a happier ending than “It’s a Good Life,” as Bart changes Homer back to normal, whereas The Twilight Zone’s Anthony whisks his victim away “to the cornfield” after turning him into a jack-in-the-box. 

“Clown Without Pity” / “Living Doll”

The leadoff segment of “Treehouse of Horror III” takes some inspiration from two other notable killer doll movies, Child’s Play and part of the 1975 anthology TV movie Trilogy of Terror; but the sixth episode of The Twilight Zone’s fifth season is clearly the main source material. In it, a young girl gets a doll named Talky Tina who soon takes a supernatural dislike to her admittedly abusive father. “Clown Without Pity” substitutes Talky Tina for a killer Krusty the Clown doll. Unlike with Talky Tina, there’s a quick fix to the toy Krusty’s murderous intent: a switch on the doll’s back has been set to “Evil” and merely needs to be flipped to “Good.”

“Terror at 5 1⁄2 Feet” / “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet”

“Treehouse of Horror IV” looked to The Twilight Zone for its middle segment. The third episode of the fifth season, “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet,” is one of the most famous episodes of the entire series. It stars William Shatner as a nervous flier who is horrified to discover that there’s a gremlin on the wing of his airplane trying to make the airliner crash — and nobody aboard believes him. “Terror at 5 1⁄2 Feet,” as the name suggests, trades a commercial plane for a school bus, but Bart faces the same horror, as none of his classmates will listen to his warning that there’s a gremlin about to rip the wheel off of Otto’s school bus, dooming everybody aboard. 

“Homer³” / “Little Girl Lost”

The fifth “Treehouse of Horror” was the first not to feature a Twilight Zone parody, but the following year would once again riff on one of the great Twilight Zone episodes with “Homer³,” the third and final segment of “Treehouse of Horror V.” It’s a parody of the 26th episode of The Twilight Zone’s third season, “Little Girl Lost,” which features a young girl who has fallen into a portal to another dimension that inexplicable opened up in her room. Her panicked parents can hear her but not see her, and her father must enter the dimensional portal and rescue his daughter before it closes as suddenly as it opens and traps her there forever. In “Homer³,” it’s not Lisa but Homer who enters “the third dimension,” giving The Simpsons a chance to showcase what was cutting-edge CGI in 1995. Bart enters the dimension to rescue his dad, but he’s too late and Homer is banished to the real world. 

“The Genesis Tub” / “The Little People”

“The Genesis Tub,” the middle segment of “Treehouse of Horror VII,” spoofs the 28th episode of The Twilight Zone’s third season, “The Little People,” which features an astronaut who deems himself a god upon discovering a race of tiny people on some distant planet. In “The Genesis Tub,” Lisa accidentally creates life while working on a school science project, and her creations worship her as a god. She is a kind god, unlike the main character in “The Little People,” as astronaut Peter Craig lets his power go to his head and acts like a cruel god. The Simpsons segment and The Twilight Zone episode have very different endings. Lisa is shrunk down to join her creations only to discover they don’t have a way to get her back to normal size. (A rebigulator? A concept so ridiculous it makes you want to laugh out loud and chortle.) In “The Little People,” Craig gets what’s coming to him as another alien race of giant people stumble upon him, and they accidentally squish the self-proclaimed god without much thought. 

“Stop the World, I Want to Goof Off” / “A Kind of Stopwatch”

It would be almost a decade before “Treehouse of Horror” would parody The Twilight Zone again, this time with the final segment of “Treehouse of Horror XIV” in 2003. “Stop the World, I Want to Goof Off” has Bart and Milhouse come into possession of a magic stopwatch that freezes time, allowing them to get up to all sorts of fun shenanigans — until they accidentally break it, leaving them with no way to start time up again. It’s a riff on the fifth episode of The Twilight Zone’s fourth season, “A Kind of Stopwatch,” which features the same basic premise.

“I’ve Grown a Costume on Your Face” / “The Masks”

Amazingly, it has been almost two full decades since a “Treehouse of Horror” segment parodied The Twilight Zone — kind of shocking, given how important a reference point the series was to the Halloween special’s early days. Perhaps this can be explained by the general trend of “Treehouse of Horror” not parodying straight horror as much as it used to. Or maybe it’s that recent “Treehouse of Horror” episodes have spoofed more well-known IP or modern titles rather than reaching back to old episodes of a black-and-white TV show from the early ‘60s. In any case, 2005’s “Treehouse of Horror XVI” is the most recent Twilight Zone parody, though it’s a very loose one. 

“I’ve Grown a Costume on Your Face” has a scorned witch cast a spell on the residents of Springfield that turns them into whatever Halloween costume they’re wearing. Aside from the idea of a mask becoming real, it doesn’t actually share all that much with the plot of “The Masks,” the fifth episode of The Twilight Zone Season 5. In that, a dying patriarch invites his terrible family over for Mardi Gras and demands they all wear grotesque masks that match their bad character traits as a requirement for being included in his will. When he dies and they remove the masks, they discover that their faces have been permanently warped so that their outside appearance reflects their inner ugliness. 

The Twilight Zone airs regularly on SYFY, check out the official schedule for details.