To make my first foray into the heading of Warm Fuzzy Viewings I'm focusing on a segment from a Treehouse of Horror episode that I could write about for page after page. The Segment, titled The Thing and I, from Treehouse of Horror VII, broadcast October 27, 1996, The piece is one of my favorite Simpsons Halloween segments ever written. In a plot that preys on our childhood fears of 'something in the attic', the essence of the story is that Bart's formerly conjoined twin brother Hugo has been chained in the attic and fed a bucket of fish heads for the last ten years. According to Dr. Hibbert he was "too crazy for Boy's Town, too much of a boy for Crazy Town," and was confirmed to be evil after a routine soul smear. Homer's decision to chain him up was, in his words, "the only humane thing to do."
The segment starts off with the Simpson clan hearing noised in the attic and seeing fleeting images in the vents, a thoroughly creepy start to a scary story. When Marge and Homer deny their efforts to find out more, Bart, Lisa and Maggie use some unsupervised time to dig into the mystery. Here's why it qualifies for consideration:
- most of the story takes place at night
- Simpsons kids investigate during a rain storm (Homer: "See Marge? Who needs a car wash you can drive around in the rain?)
- Kids hide in the closet to escape Hugo (with requisite fake-out gag involving vases
- Air vents and Attic mysteries!
Basically if it had started to snow halfway through this story it would have hit all the qualifiers for a Warm fuzzy Viewing. The Thing and I is an eerie, not alone in the house, the calls are coming from upstairs kind of story that cements exactly why this show excelled at Halloween specials.
