The Simpsons to parody It & Death Note in double Treehouse of Horror

Cameron Frew
Images from It, The Simpsons and Death Note

The Simpsons will parody Stephen King’s It and Death Note in this year’s Treehouse of Horror episodes.

The Simpsons aired its first-ever Treehouse of Horror back in 1990, parodying the likes of Poltergeist, The Amityville Horror, Edgar Allen Poe’s The Raven and, notably, ‘To Serve Man’ from The Twilight Zone.

The latter show would become a major source of inspiration for future episodes, while also having its own spin on The Shining, Soylent Green, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and The Fly, among many other classics.

Somewhere along the way, the sitcom’s Halloween focus shifted away from horrors into run-of-the-mill pop culture parodies. However, this year, it’s tackling two iconic works: It and Death Note.

The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror to parody It & Death Note

Two Treehouse of Horror episodes will be included as part of the show’s upcoming 34th season, as revealed during Comic-Con, with the first episode focusing entirely on It, as opposed being split up into smaller segments.

Executive producer Matt Selman told Variety: “We’ve never done a single fantastical, bloody, scary, dark story, told over the scope of the the 20 minutes and 40 seconds that is an episode.

“I think the fans are going to be really excited. Certainly the tattoos already exist of Krusty as Pennywise. So we’re just writing towards the tattoos now. You want as many tattoo-worthy moments in your episodes as you can.”

The second episode will be split into three segments as per usual, with one of them parodying Death Note – however, a different animation studio is handling the segment, as it’s set to be an “incredible authentic” Simpsons anime.