Hope Lies on Television #12 - A Family Tradition, From A Non-Traditional Family

A few weeks ago Adam Batty, the editor of Hope Lies, suggested that I should write about The Simpsons for Hope Lies on Television, with a particular focus on their Christmas specials to provide a bit of seasonally appropriately content for the site. Since I sometimes spend most of my days thinking about The Simpsons anyway, it being my favourite television show ever and the single piece of art which has done the most to shape me as a person, I relished the opportunity, but never really found a way into the subject matter.  Fortunately, the show itself came to my rescue by producing a great Christmas special this year that created a nice framework for the resulting article, which I'm pretty proud of, even if the proof-reading leaves something to be desired on my part.

As an aside, I was surprised to discover whilst researching the article that I had seen all but one of the specials, since my viewing of The Simpsons has been spotty in recent years, so in the end all I had to do was catch that last un-watched episode. The episode in question was "The Fight  Before Christmas," and whilst it isn't the worst episode I've ever seen, but the moment at the very end when they make a joke about a Muppet version of Moe performing oral sex on Katy Perry makes a strong case for being the nadir of the show as a whole.

Top Ten Simpsons Treehouse of Horror Segments

"What the Hell are you smiling at?"

My lords and masters over at Box Office Prophets asked each of the writers to come up with a list of their favourite segments from The Simpsons' annual Treehouse of Horror episodes. Since there are few things in this life more than The Simpsons, I gladly acquiesced, and the full version of that article will appear on BOP on Monday. However, I thought I'd post my individual picks here, along with quotes and explanations for my picks as well, if only because it gives me an excuse to link to a bunch of hilarious Simpsons clips.