XIII (Season 14, Episode 1, Aired November 3rd, 2002)
Oooh, spooky! The 13th Treehouse of Horror.
I like this opening segment, especially since it returns to the format of having someone (in this case, the ghost of Maude Flanders, who died last season) actually relate these stories to the Simpsons. Framing sequences seem to have gone away in any form, so this is at least a nice compromise, even if it doesn’t appear again in the episode.
“Send in the Clones” is apparently a parody of a 1996 Michael Keaton/Andie MacDowell movie “Multiplicity”, though with a magic hammock instead of a machine. However, while not necessarily a Twilight Zone episode parody like before, it use the structure of a Twilight Zone episode, including a magic object that serves the protagonist well (sold by a shopkeeper who warns of its strange powers), only for it to backfire and the protagonist to die. It actually makes the episode work a lot more, with Homer’s natural apathy and laziness amplifying the stakes of the situation, and him basically forming so many clones that they form a horde. A lot of really funny jokes, mostly with the clones doing Homer’s work for him and them being even dumber than him. There’s a really funny gag near the climax where there are so many Homer clones, there’s some that look different, like one that looks like Peter Griffin from Family Guy (my favorite Simpsons slight against that awful show) and Homer’s original design from The Tracy Ullman Show, complete with Dan Castellaneta doing his original voice…
