Warning: Spoilers for The Simpsons season 34, episode 6.
"Treehouse of Horror XXXIII" sees The Simpsons broke its own anthology episode rules to mock the show’s decline with season 34, episode 3, “Lisa the Boy Scout,” and while the rest of the season has been less ambitiously experimental, each outing still finds time to mock some of The Simpsons' oldest plot holes, storytelling shortcuts, and glaring problems.
The Simpsons season 34, episode 6, “Treehouse of Horror XXXIII,” finally addresses the show's biggest modern problem, attempting to face the issue head-on and actually embracing it. The Simpsons is far more famous for its legendary early seasons than for its contemporary output, resulting in The Simpsons simultaneously being seen as a nostalgic classic that fans reminisce over, and a show that is still technically on the air and producing new content. The Simpsons season 34 acknowledges this reality by parodying Westworld in a segment set at a theme park populated by Simpsons fans solely interested in reliving the iconic yellow family's most classic, worn-out scenes.
How Season 34’s Treehouse of Horror Addressed The Simpsons' Golden Age
In "Treehouse of Horror XXXIII," a Simpsons-themed Westworld-style theme park contains the family’s robotic clones left on a repetitive loop, constantly reenacting memorable scenes from earlier episodes while delighted visitors discuss what they perceive as “classic Simpsons moments.” Similar to The Simpsons season 34 parodying Pennywise, this segment references numerous earlier The Simpsons episodes, skits, and quotes that fans in real life consider all-time classics, but these jokes all come with a sense of self-aware humor. While visitors are delighted to revisit moments from the glory days of The Simpsons (mostly scenes that occurred between seasons 3–12, often called the "Golden Age" by fans), the of the Simpson family themselves are horrified to find they are reliving the same old tired storylines ad nauseam.
The Simpsons Showed Its Modern Day Frustrations
While a theme park where fans paint themselves yellow to look like The Simpsons characters is already pretty on the nose, “Treehouse of Horror XXXIII” uses humor to highlight the frustrating double bind between the new and the nostalgic even more blatantly. The Simpsons mocks one of its own jokes when Homer throws two guests into the iconic hedge he famously backed into, complaining about being sick of the meme that became a popular gif years after the original episode aired. Even more explicitly, Marge tears down a statue of The Simpsons creator Matt Groening at the park’s entrance during her family's escape - a gag that acts as a straightforward reder to fans who argue the show’s original creative team was better than its current writers.
The entire self-effacing segment is dedicated to mocking The Simpsons for allegedly resting on its laurels and revisiting classic episodes instead of using its continuing existence to explore fresh new ideas. While fans love to look back on early episodes of The Simpsons, which are widely considered to feature some of the strongest television comedy writing in the history of the medium, no franchise can survive on nostalgia alone. Daring experiments like “Not IT,” where The Simpsons season 34 spoofs Stephen King, prove The Simpsons can still try new things without getting lost in self-referential meta-humor, devoting an entire episode to one extended Treehouse of Horror segment.
Why The Simpsons Can’t Make Golden Age Episodes Anymore
The Simpsons will always face fans who consider new episodes less innovative, less daring, and less straight-up funny than reruns from the Golden Age. In a sense, this criticism is accurate. The Simpsons was breaking new ground at the height of its popularity and the peak of its critical acclaim as seasons 3-12 saw writers attempt to cram in more jokes, more varied styles of comedy, and more subversions of conventional sitcom storytelling tropes into each outing. Over time, The Simpsons' success inevitably resulted in new shows imitating its style and taking the comedy even further, leaving Homer Simpson and pals behind.
While Family Guy’s cutaway gags pushed the envelope in of the surrealism and anti-humor prime-time sitcoms could utilize, but these elements were once again popularized by gags from The Simpsons' Golden Age. Sideshow Bob's absurd encounter with an endless stream of rakes, for example. The same ingredients that make Golden Age episodes of The Simpsons feel like classics to today's audience were new and fresh when the episodes first aired, but countless other shows have imitated, remixed, revised, and amplified these elements since. The Simpsons season 34 can’t make them feel new all over again.
How The Simpsons Season 34 Is Subverting Fan Nostalgia
The jokes in 2022's The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror special make clearer than ever how The Simpsons writers are likely aware of the hugely popular social media pages sharing classic moments from the series, as well as the many memes celebrating The Simpsons' Golden Age. Rather than defending its new episodes or attempting to recreate earlier outings, The Simpsons season 34 is instead poking good-natured fun at the show’s waning relevance and its nostalgic audience alike. Elsewhere, The Simpsons season 34 has parodied classic stories, mocked its own sometimes lazy writing, and made fun of the longevity enjoyed by Matt Groening's seemingly never-ending series.
While the Westworld parody in “Treehouse of Horror XXXIII” features jabs at The Simpsons' original creators and its past-facing fans, arguably the funniest gag comes when the episode its just how much the cartoon's age is showing. Mirroring how earlier season 34 episodes mocked The Simpsons plot holes, the Westworld spoof takes aim at the animated comedy's enduring staying power when Homer complains about being trapped in a television show that has not been good “since season 45." The gag concedes The Simpsons is not necessarily what it used to be, while also reassuring viewers that animation's favorite family is not going anywhere any time soon.
New episodes of The Simpsons air on Fox on Sundays.