Notes for 35ABF13 (Treehouse of Horror XXXV)

[Matt Garvey]

Fine Halloween episode with all parts reasonably horrory in their own
ways, even if none struck a big chord with my pop culture tastes. Denim
was probably the most enjoyable and humorous.

Other things:
-Began with a TV-14 warning
-All credits much smaller than usual
-Second episode in a row (air order) showing an unlikely beau for Agnes
-Mildly interesting (if only because the episode number is so low for a
TOH post-wraparound) coincidence that production codes of this episode
and the one that introduced the word "embiggen" (3F13) both start with a
3 and end with a 13 (in fact F13)

Delay of horror
I don't know about any other area, but here in Cleveland, the entire Fox
lineup is on a 9-minute delay and it wasn't even the regular football
game to blame. No... not that I saw this one, maybe something odd
happened, but the 4:30 Lions/Packers game was presumably over when I
tuned in, to find "bonus coverage" in progress of an overtime in a
Rams/Seahawks game! And that one actually ended at 7:59, but then we had
to get 6 minutes of ads, a quick return to say nothing but goodbye, and
more ads, with The Simpsons not starting till just before 8:09. It's bad
enough when THE SCHEDULED game goes late... or when it doesn't go late
but the network insists on running over for postgame "coverage"... but
this isn't even the game we were supposed to see! AND it was over in
time! SO STOP SHOWING IT when your time is up. EAT SHIT.

[Bice]

Post by Matt Garvey
Delay of horror
I don't know about any other area, but here in Cleveland, the entire Fox
lineup is on a 9-minute delay and it wasn't even the regular football
game to blame.

Same here in the Harrisburg, PA area, although it seemed more like
10-11 minutes that everything was running behind. I usually DVR the
whole Sunday night animated line-up and watch it later. Fortunately,
I checked in around 9pm, realized everything was running late and was
able to adjust the DVR.

I got that the first segment of the new Simpsons was basically just
political commentary (with a Pacific Rim style giant robot thrown in),
and the last one was a prody of "Venom" (I think - I've never seen any
of those movies), but what was that middle section with Burns'
employees drowning in corn syrup and then coming back to haunt him
supposed to be? Was it a specific parody of something? Why was the
animation style so noticably "off" for that section?

-- Bob

[Matt Garvey]

Post by Bice

Post by Matt Garvey
Delay of horror
I don't know about any other area, but here in Cleveland, the entire Fox
lineup is on a 9-minute delay and it wasn't even the regular football
game to blame.

Same here in the Harrisburg, PA area, although it seemed more like
10-11 minutes that everything was running behind. I usually DVR the
whole Sunday night animated line-up and watch it later. Fortunately,
I checked in around 9pm, realized everything was running late and was
able to adjust the DVR.
I got that the first segment of the new Simpsons was basically just
political commentary (with a Pacific Rim style giant robot thrown in),
and the last one was a prody of "Venom" (I think - I've never seen any
of those movies), but what was that middle section with Burns'
employees drowning in corn syrup and then coming back to haunt him
supposed to be? Was it a specific parody of something? Why was the
animation style so noticably "off" for that section?
-- Bob

Going from the title of that middle segment and some quick moments
within it, I am guessing it's an Edgar Allan Poe pastiche, though I am
not familiar enough with his works to tell whether it's even more (or
even less) based on Poe. The color and flecky effects suggest an old
film, so maybe it's meant to just look arbitrarily old-timey or maybe
there is a specific classic Poe adaptation it's playing on.

By the way, you want to keep the e in noticeably (able); the description
of the general rule is almost absurdly detailed, for words ending in a
vowel + ce or ge, keep the e before suffixes beginning with a or o
(IIRC), but it's all for a good reason: the e preserves the soft sound
of the consonant so it doesn't, for example, seem to be pronounced
notikably. (Compare practicable, which does use a k sound, though I know
it's not actually a combination of practice and -able. On the other
hand, making a word to say something is able to be practiced, you'd
write practiceable and say it with an s sound.) Other times, the e is
optional/a matter of taste, as in likable/likeable, lovable/loveable,
though my dictionary favors the no-e versions there, i.e. don't use it
unless you need it.

[Bice]

Post by Matt Garvey

Post by Bice
Was it a specific parody of something? Why was the
animation style so noticably "off" for that section?

By the way, you want to keep the e in noticeably (able);

I make that mistake every time. You'd think by now I would have
learned.

The spell check in most software usually catches it for me, but my
newsreader is so old it doesn't have a spell checker.

-- Bob

[Matt Garvey]

Post by Bice

Post by Matt Garvey
Delay of horror
I don't know about any other area, but here in Cleveland, the entire Fox
lineup is on a 9-minute delay and it wasn't even the regular football
game to blame.

Same here in the Harrisburg, PA area, although it seemed more like
10-11 minutes that everything was running behind. I usually DVR the
whole Sunday night animated line-up and watch it later. Fortunately,
I checked in around 9pm, realized everything was running late and was
able to adjust the DVR.
I got that the first segment of the new Simpsons was basically just
political commentary (with a Pacific Rim style giant robot thrown in),
and the last one was a prody of "Venom" (I think - I've never seen any
of those movies), but what was that middle section with Burns'
employees drowning in corn syrup and then coming back to haunt him
supposed to be? Was it a specific parody of something? Why was the
animation style so noticably "off" for that section?
-- Bob

Going from the title of that middle segment and some quick moments
within it, I am guessing it's an Edgar Allan Poe pastiche, though I am
not familiar enough with his works to tell whether it's even more (or
even less) based on Poe. The color and flecky effects suggest an old
film, so maybe it's meant to just look arbitrarily old-timey or maybe
there is a specific classic Poe adaptation it's playing on.

By the way, you want to keep the e in noticeably (able); the description
of the general rule is almost absurdly detailed, for words ending in a
vowel + ce or ge, keep the e before suffixes beginning with a or o
(IIRC), but it's all for a good reason: the e preserves the soft sound
of the consonant so it doesn't, for example, seem to be pronounced
notikably. (Compare practicable, which does use a k sound, though I know
it's not actually a combination of practice and -able. On the other
hand, making a word to say something is able to be practiced, you'd
write practiceable and say it with an s sound.) Other times, the e is
optional/a matter of taste, as in likable/likeable, lovable/loveable,
though my dictionary favors the no-e versions there, i.e. don't use it
unless you need it.

[Ant]

Post by Bice

Post by Matt Garvey
Delay of horror
I don't know about any other area, but here in Cleveland, the entire Fox
lineup is on a 9-minute delay and it wasn't even the regular football
game to blame.

Same here in the Harrisburg, PA area, although it seemed more like
10-11 minutes that everything was running behind. I usually DVR the
whole Sunday night animated line-up and watch it later. Fortunately,
I checked in around 9pm, realized everything was running late and was
able to adjust the DVR.

Fox could had shown this new episode during the second half of October
2024 since it showed the other new non-Halloween episodes. Oy!