IX (Season 10, Episode 4, Aired October 25th, 1998)
I thought the opening scene, where the standard Simpsons opening has the members of the family killed brutally, and Freddy Kruger and Jason Voorhees are on the couch, happened earlier, but apparently, they didn’t think of having a darker version of the opening sequence (or at least the end of it) until season 10. It was funny.
“Hell Toupée” is a weird segment, at least in terms of premise. Apparently, it’s supposed to be a parody of “Hell Toupee” (without the accent), an episode of the Steven Spielberg produced anthology Amazing Stories,which aired in 1985. Homer gets a toupee that actually belongs to the robber Snake, who was executed for his crimes, and that causes Snake to take over Homer’s body and go on a murder spree. It’s an odd concept to center a story around, but the satire of it works, especially the electric chair segment, which satirizes bad Fox shows from that period and their overly exploitative nature. Apparently, Ed McMahon in that electric chair show was actually going to be Troy McClure, but Phil Hartman was unfortunately murdered a year earlier, so they had to reanimate the segment with Ed McMahon. Lisa also has a funny line in context, “I told you capital punishment wasn’t a deterrent”. (Lisa was one of those characters who was right, but people didn’t pay attention). Anyways, fun segment, still manages to be funny and biting (especially against capital punishment) despite the jarring idea behind it.
