History Recap / TheSimpsonsS9E4TreehouseOfHorrorVIII

* AnAxeToGrind: Homer tries to kill Bart with an axe at the end of "Fly vs. Fly".

* {{Bowdlerization}}: The scene of Homer dancing naked in church was originally (as in, "as written in the script") going to be Homer dancing naked on the church's altar (though the church the Simpsons go to doesn't have an altar, as it's not a Catholic church), but the censors objected to the location (they were already wary about Homer dancing naked in church, but they only allowed it if the altar scene was changed to Homer dancing naked in the front row).

He indulges in all the town's leftover pleasures (such as watching a Creator/DavidSpade[=/=]Creator/ChrisFarley [[Film/TommyBoy movie]] in an abandoned theater, sitting in his boss's office [DeletedScene only], and dancing naked in church) until a mob of Springfieldians mutated by the bomb (including Moe, Dr. Hibbert, Principal Skinner, Chief Wiggum, Krusty, Sideshow Mel and Mr. Burns) plot to kill him to get rid of the mistakes of the past for a better future. A car chase through town ensues, and Homer winds up back at his own house to discover his family alive and well -- the house's multiple coats of lead paint created "the perfect bomb shelter." The mutants are touched by the reunion and Marge suggests the two groups can be friends -- but it's a ruse to ensure the mutants' guards are down, as she and the kids promptly kill the mutants with shotguns. "Now ''that's'' the Marge I married!", exclaims the impressed Homer and the family decides to steal some Ferraris.

A parody of ''Theatre/TheCrucible''. In 17th-century Springfield, the townsfolk busy themselves by finding and killing witches. When Marge is accused of witchcraft, she pleads innocent, so it's decided to toss her off of a cliff to reveal the truth -- if she's innocent, she'll fall to her death, if she's guilty, she'll be able to magically escape. As it turns out, she ''is'' a WickedWitch, and flies off on her broomstick to her family and the townsfolk's horror. At their mountain hideaway, Marge reunites with her sisters/fellow witches Patty and Selma, and soon, thanks to eavesdropping on the Flanders, they head out to find some delicious kids to eat.

The Flanderses find themselves a target of the witches' intent, but before the threesome can haul off Rod and Todd, Ned and Maude offer them ''gingerbread'' kids instead. The witches find the cookies sufficiently tasty and spare the Flanders children, wishing they hadn't filled up on kids at their previous stops. According to Captain [=McAllister=], placating witches with treats was the origin of trick-or-treating, and the following year kids all over town happily go door-to-door for goodies. Homer, on the other hand, decides to egg a house -- which Lisa points out is his own. So he accuses ''her'' of being a witch and a mob promptly runs her out of town.

A parody of ''Film/TheOmegaMan'' (aka the second film adaptation of ''Literature/IAmLegend''). France threatens to destroy Springfield in response to a racist "frog legs" joke Mayor Quimby made, and Marge convinces Homer to look into getting a proper bomb shelter just in case. As it turns out, while he's inside one to examine it, the French see their threat through with a NeutronBomb, and he emerges to discover he's apparently the last man in Springfield.

* VinylShatters: Taken UpToEleven in "Fly vs. Fly" when [=FlyBart=] breaks the ''record player'' while chasing [=BartFly=] out of the house.

* SweetTooth: Unsurprisingly, [=FlyBart=] loves maple syrup and eats sugar straight from the sack while the family watches TV...while Homer tries to sneak some for himself!

* TookALevelInJerkass: Homer does this twice in two segments by trying to kill Bart in "Fly vs. Fly" and telling everyone his own daughter Lisa's a witch in "Easy Bake Coven".
* TheUnfavourite: Lisa in "Easy-Bake Coven"; Homer even goes so far as to [[OffingTheOffspring send an angry mob after her by accusing her of witchcraft]] just because [[DisproportionateRetribution she pointed out that he was egging their own house, causing the other villagers to laugh at him]].
* UnusuallyUninterestingSight: In "Fly vs. Fly", Marge says "He may be a horrible freak, but he's still my son. I'm sure we'll grow to accept him in time." As the next scene shows, it only took an hour for them to accept [=FlyBart=].
* VinylShatters: Taken UpToEleven in "Fly vs. Fly" when [=FlyBart=] breaks the ''record player'' while chasing [=BartFly=] out of the house.
* TheWeirdSisters: In "Easy-Bake Coven", Marge, Patty and Selma are witches who intend to eat the children of the Springfieldians.

* BlatantLies: "Fly vs. Fly" ends with Homer promising to not hurt Bart... while chasing him with a fire axe.

* TheUnfavourite: Lisa in "Easy-Bake Coven"; Homer even goes so far as to [[OffingTheOffspring accuse her of witchcraft]] just because [[DisproportionateRetribution she told him he was egging their own house, causing the other villagers to laugh at him]].

* WouldHurtAChild: In the second and third shorts; Homer attempts to kill Bart for messing with his transporter in "Fly vs. Fly", and then accuses Lisa of witchcraft to cover up for his own stupidity in "Easy-Bake Coven".

* ItCanThink: Flyhead-Bart shows a disturbing degree of intelligence - eavesdropping on Fly-Bart and Lisa's conversation, before attempting to murder them both to prevent them using the teleporter.

* IdiotBall: Marge in "Fly vs Fly" by not getting up to stop Homer from killing Bart (she's just annoyed with Homer's behavior); and Homer in "Easy-Bake Coven" for egging his own house.

%% * OminousFog

* TheUnfavourite: Lisa in "Easy-Bake Coven"; Homer even goes so far as to [[OffingTheOffspring accuse her of witchcraft]] just because [[DisproportionateRetribution she told him he was egging their own house, causing the other villagers to laugh at him]].

* NotMeThisTime: In "Easy-Bake Coven", Marge the witch insists that Lenny's turnip crop was destroyed by gophers and she had nothing to do with it, after having boasted about the things that she did do.

* AbusiveParents: This applies to Homer perfectly in the closing scene of "Fly vs. Fly" when he tries to kill Bart with an axe, caring more about the 35¢ transporter than his own son.

* TheUnfavourite: Lisa in "Easy-Bake Coven"; Homer even goes so far as to [[OffingTheOffspring accuse her of witchcraft]] just because [[DisproportionateRetribution she told him he was egging their own house, causing the other villages to laugh at him]].

* FrenchJerk: In "The Homega Man", Marge warns Homer about how unpredictable the French can be, "kissing a woman's hand" one moment, then "chopping off her head" the next. She's proven correct when France launches a neutron bomb on Springfield all because they didn't like a joke the mayor issued at their expense.

A parody of ''Film/TheOmegaMan'' (aka the second movie adaptation of ''Literature/IAmLegend''). France threatens to destroy Springfield in response to a racist "frog legs" joke Mayor Quimby made, and Marge convinces Homer to look into getting a proper bomb shelter just in case. As it turns out, while he's inside one to examine it, the French see their threat through with a NeutronBomb, and he emerges to discover he's apparently the last man in Springfield.

He indulges in all the town's leftover pleasures (such as watching a David Spade/Chris Farley movie in an abandoned theater, sitting in his boss's office [DeletedScene only], and dancing naked in church) until a mob of Springfieldians mutated by the bomb (including Moe, Dr. Hibbert, Principal Skinner, Chief Wiggum, Krusty, Sideshow Mel, and Mr. Burns) plot to kill him to get rid of the mistakes of the past for a better future. A car chase through town ensues, and Homer winds up back at his own house to discover his family alive and well -- the house's multiple coats of lead paint created "the perfect bomb shelter." The mutants are touched by the reunion and Marge suggests the two groups can be friends -- but it's a ruse to ensure the mutants' guards are down, as she and the kids promptly kill the mutants with shotguns. "Now ''that's'' the Marge I married!", exclaims the impressed Homer and the family decides to steal some Ferraris.

A parody of ''Theatre/TheCrucible''. In 17th-century Springfield, Marge is accused of witchcraft. She pleads innocent, and it's decided to toss her off of a cliff to reveal the truth -- if she's innocent, she'll fall to her death, if she's guilty, she'll be able to magically escape. As it turns out, she ''is'' a WickedWitch, and flies off on her broomstick to her family and the townsfolk's horror. At their mountain hideaway, Marge reunites with her sisters/fellow witches Patty and Selma, and soon they head out to find some delicious kids to eat.

The Flanders family finds themselves a target of the witches' intent, but before the threesome can haul off Rod and Todd, Ned and Maude offer them ''gingerbread'' kids instead. The witches find the cookies sufficiently tasty and spare the Flanders children, wishing they hadn't filled up on kids at their previous stops. According to Captain [=McAllister=], placating witches with treats was the origin of trick-or-treating, and the following year kids all over town happily go door-to-door for goodies. Homer, on the other hand, decides to egg a house -- which Lisa points out is his own. So he accuses ''her'' of being a witch and a mob promptly runs her out of town.

* AbusiveParents: This applies to Homer perfectly in the closing scene of "Fly Vs. Fly" when he tries to kill Bart with an axe, caring more about the 35¢ transporter than his own son.
* AccidentalMisnaming: When Marge tells her sisters about being exposed as a witch, one of them comments that this means [[Series/{{Bewitched}} she finally left "Durwood"]], and Marge corrects them about Homer's name. But they don't care.
* AdaptationDistillation: "Fly Vs. Fly" combines elements of both film adaptations of the original short story. As in 1958, Bart and the insect (as well as Snowball II and Santa's Little Helper) have body parts proportionally swapped, [=BartFly=] turns the famous "Help me!" denouement in a spider's web into a prank upon the arachnid, and Homer seems about to destroy the machine at the end -- but instead intends to use his fire axe on Bart. From the 1986 film comes the MysteriousMist / OminousFog that accompanies the use of the teleporter (which also physically resembles the design of that version more than the old-time phone booths of '58) and Bart theorizing that going through the pods with a fly would merge them into one creature, albeit in a much more positive manner than what happened to poor Seth Brundle. [=FlyBart=] ambushing [=BartFly=] and Lisa is a variation on the climax of that film, in which the grotesquely mutated Brundle, having kidnapped his lover, ambushed her ex from above when he came to rescue her. The hybrids of the pets might have been inspired by a notorious deleted reel from the '86 film involving a baboon-cat hybrid creature and its gruesome demise, which was cut after the first test screening for being so upsetting that the audience couldn't care about the protagonist after that.

--> '''Homer:''' Die, you chalk-faced goons!
* AluminumChristmasTrees: In "Easy Bake Coven," Wiggum's statement that Marge will "fall to an honorable Christian death" if she isn't a witch is presented as a bit of InsaneTrollLogic, but this attitude actually ''is'' consistent with how real-life witch hunters reasoned on both sides of the Atlantic. As they saw it, it was safer to just kill anyone suspected of being a witch, since you'd be ridding the world of a demon if the accusation was true, and if they were innocent then they'd be sent to heaven as a martyr.

* AssholeVictim: One of the suspected witches burned in "Easy Bake Coven" is Agnes Skinner. Lampshaded when Skinner cheerfully bids her goodbye after she declares she'll see him in Hell.

-->'''Homer''': (looks Bart dead in the eye) '''''I'll teach you to mess with my machine!'''''
-->(cue the episode ending with Homer chasing Bart with the fire axe back and forth across the living room)
* BlatantLies: "Fly vs. Fly" ends with Homer promising to not hurt Bart... while in the middle of chasing him with a fire axe.

* EatsBabies: Zigzagged in "Easy-Bake Coven". Played straight when, after eavesdropping on Maude Flanders fears about what witches do, Marge, Patty and Selma decide that eating kids sounds like a great way to get back at the villagers. Subverted when, upon reaching the Flanders' house, the witches are quite happy to accept a bribe of candy, cakes and other treats instead of eating Rod & Todd. Then double-subverted when, after finishing collecting their bribes from the Wiggums, Marge complains that she wishes they hadn't filled up on children before snagging all these goodies, belching before leading her sisters off into the sky.
* FrenchJerk: In "The Homega Man," Marge warns Homer about how unpredictable the French can be, "kissing a woman's hand" one moment, then "chopping off her head" the next. She's proven correct when France launches a neutron bomb on Springfield all because they didn't like a joke the mayor issued at their expense.

* HalfwayPlotSwitch: The opening stretch of "Easy-Bake Coven" is a spoof of ''The Crucible'', but once Marge is revealed to be an actual witch the parody is by necessity dropped.

* IdiotBall: Marge in "Fly vs Fly" by not getting up to stop Homer from killing Bart (she's just annoyed with Homer's behavior); and Homer in "Easy Bake Coven" for throwing a rock at his own house.
* InsistentTerminology: In "The Homega Man," the mutated Moe tells Homer that they prefer being called "freaks" or "monsters" rather than "mutants."

* MysteriousMist: Turns up several times with the transporter's usage in "Fly vs Fly" in a spoof of the 1986 film. After Bart goes through, Marge even asks "What's with all this mist?" as she and the others enter the kitchen. Though when Homer demonstrates it as an easy way to bypass the stairs in his house, some of the smoke is actually the result of the seat of his pants being ablaze.
* NewEnglandPuritan: The segment "Easy-Bake Coven" is a parody of ''The Crucible'' and its portrayal of witch hunt in the name of God. It's set in 17th-century New-England-like Springfield. Edna Krabapple is a fallen woman and wears a scarlet A on her chest as a reference to ''The Scarlet Letter''. 75 women have been processed and burned at the stake as witches. Marge pleads everyone to come to their senses and says that this witch hunt is turning into a circus. Naturally, she's accused of witchcraft. It turns out she really is a Wicked Witch, and flies off on her broomstick to her family's and the townsfolk's horror.
* NiceJobBreakingItHero: Maude Flanders talking to her husband about how witches steal and eat children in "Easy-Bake Coven" gives Marge and her sisters the idea to do just that, as originally they were just going to [[PokeThePoodle steal peoples' shoes]].

** In "Easy-Bake Coven," Mrs. Krabapple is wearing a [[Literature/TheScarletLetter Scarlet A on her chest]].

** The title of "Fly vs Fly" is a parody of Magazine/{{MAD}} Magazine's "Spy vs. Spy", written in the ''Spy'' logo font.

->'''Wiggum''': OK, here's how the process works. You sit on the broom and we shove you off the cliff.\\
'''Marge''': What?!\\
'''Wiggum''': Well, hear me out; if you're innocent, you will fall to an honorable Christian death. If you are, however, the bride of Satan, you will surely fly your broom to safety. At that point you will report back here for torture and beheading.

* UnusuallyUninterestingSight: In "Fly vs. Fly," Marge says "He may be a horrible freak, but he's still my son. I'm sure we'll grow to accept him in time." As the next scene shows, it only took an hour for them to accept [=FlyBart=].

** "Fly vs Fly" is an WholePlotReference to ''Film/TheFly1958'' and [[Film/TheFly1986 its 1986 counterpart]]. When Bart steps into the teleporter with the fly, he's going for the latter but gets the former.

* ArsonMurderAndJaywalking: When revealed to be a witch in "Easy-Bake Coven", Marge proudly declares she withered the village's livestock, soured their sheeps' milk, and made their shirts itchy.

* CampingACrapper: Both accidental and unremarked on.
** In "Fly vs Fly", Homer accidentally punches Lisa in the face through the teleporter immediately after putting the other end directly in front of the toilet.

* CampingaCrapper: Both accidental and unremarked on.