Treehouse of Horror VI

Not wishing to suffer a night of boring stories and horrid family activities with Patty and Selma, Homer scours the house for a hiding place and has to settle for a spot behind the bookcase after Bart, Lisa and the pets take the better ones.

But behind the bookcase is the doorway to another dimension, a place where shapes are extended beyond the 2 dimensions of the Simpsons universe, along the hypothetical 'Z-Axis'. This leads to Homer noticing things he has never been able to see before, such as his big belly and butt.

The place Homer is taken to is a massive grid-like universe, not unlike the movie Tron, where the stars shine brightly above and odd shapes and idiosyncrasies are in abundance. Among the many curious things Homer encounters is the library from Myst, which I thought was a cool reference. Also, the music as Homer wanders around in this mysterious place is very nice, it's a shame it never made it to any of the Simpsons CDs.

In the end, though Homer's own ignorance of quantum physics (he never read the book by that wheelchair guy) and despite Bart's rescue attempts, the universe collapses on itself and Homer falls into oblivion, or some place much, much worse...

...the real world. Well, at least he still has his erotic cakes.

This is a truly great episode. Grew up watching it end it was absolutely scary and enjoyable. Years later it is still one of the best Simpsons episodes. Each of the three segments are truly unique. You will really enjoy each one of them.

It's hard to believe this episode came out before toy story. The producers of the simpsons were really on the cutting edge with this episode, both from a storytelling and technical perspective. The metacommentary goes beyond what you would expect from something this old and even in 2024 is still stands as one of the best episodes of the entire show.

If you look in the background of the third dimension world, you'll see lots of mathematical references and those are actually accurate. The raytracing is also pretty damn good for the era. Not to mention the shadow casting, particularly in the last scene. It's really incredible to think these guys managed to do that back in 1995.

I'd had vague memories about this episode from way back, primarily because of the third act with Homer stumbling into the third dimension (best CGI 1995 had to offer).

Couple of really good lines here, but it's mostly the 3D gimmick. And the middle segment turns out to be the weakest.

But the real laughter is in the opener, a terrific jab at commercial advertising - and Homer's gluttony. Just seeing Lard Lad run amok is worth the price of admission.

7/10

Even the lesser efforts are better than just about anything seen at the time. We have the giant commercial entities destroying Springfield after Homer steals a giant donut. Even when the things die, they fall on hospitals and orphanages. Then a Freddy Krueger reprise has Lisa falling asleep at the wrong moment. Finally, whoever thought of this is an utter genius. Recognizing that cartoons, like the Simpsons are in two dimensions, the writers have Homer enter the third dimension and face Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. The conclusion is fantastic.