The Simpsons’ Treehouse of Horror Spoofs Divisiveness with Kaiju
by Danica Davidson November 4, 2024
Last night The Simpsons aired its yearly “Treehouse of Horror” special, and once again it included nods to otaku interests. The first story segment, titled “Information Rage” and written by Rob LaZebnik, spoofs American politics in the form of giant fighting kaiju.
It begins when Lisa inadvertently starts a culture war in Springfield because of her support for LED lights. Anger among the townspeople leads to a giant red kaiju that comes out of the sea and attacks the Center for Disease Control, the Gay Steel Mill, and forms of energy that don’t come from fossil fuels.
Then an angry blue kaiju comes out of the sea and goes after plastic straws and the Springfield Fracking Company, and then asks for donations for the senate race in Nevada. The two kaiju face off and begin shooting at each other with Japanese writing underneath. The blue kaiju shoots a “liberal arts ray” and the red kaiju shoots back with a “book banning blast.”
Eventually Bart and Lisa have to get into a giant mecha that’s purple (red mixed with blue) to show the importance of togetherness and that people have more in common than differences. But then more kaiju pop up, including Four Chan Saurus, Facebookzilla, and Mecha-Reddit. The nods to Pacific Rimkaiju and mecha are all very clear.
The Simpsons has used Japanese pop culture in the past for their “Treehouse of Horror” episodes, most notably with “Death Tome,” a spoof of Death Notein “Treehouse of Horror XXXIII.” (Check out Otaku USA’s interview with Simpsons producer and writer Carolyn Omine on how “Death Tome” came to be.)
Other examples include Treehouse of Horror XXXIwhich had an Anime Homer fighting a Mecha Burns, and Treehouse of Horror XXVwhich showed Homer as Zoro from One PieceMarge as Rangiku in BleachBart as Naruto in NarutoLisa as Mikasa in Attack on TitanMaggie as Pikachu in Pokémonand Santa’s Little Helper as Haku in his dragon form in Spirited Away.
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Danica Davidson is the author of the bestsellingManga Art for Beginnerswith artist Melanie Westin, plus its sequel,Manga Art for Everyoneand the first-of-its-kind manga chalk bookChalk Art Mangaboth illustrated by professional Japanese mangaka Rena Saiya. Check out her other comics and books at www.danicadavidson.com.
Could The Simpsons please start sharing some lottery numbers?
The long-running animated television series is once again being hailed as a modern day Nostradamus.
In an episode titled Bart To The Future, which was released in 2000, Lisa Simpson is shown growing up to become the first female president of the United States.
She is dressed in an outfit strikingly similar to the one the US’ first female Vice-President Kamala Harris wore to the 2021 presidential inauguration, including her accessories.
Al Jean, one of the best known among The Simpsons writers, commented about the similarity on social media.
“@TheSimpsons ‘prediction’ I’m proud to be a part of,” he wrote on X.
But this was not the first time an episode of The Simpsons has served as a coincidental fortune-teller.
Here are a few other examples of the show’s accurate squints into the future:
Politics tamfitronics President Trump
Lisa Simpson became president in that episode after a “President Trump”, 16 years before Donald Trump was actually elected to the US presidency. However, reports the animated series foresaw an image of Trump on an escalator and predicted the electoral map from his win turned out to be false.
Politics tamfitronics Lady Gaga playing the Super Bowl
The singer appeared as a guest on The Simpsons in 2012. An animated Gaga is shown playing a concert in which she flies through the air – much like she did during her half-time performance at the Super Bowl, the annual US football league championship game, in 2017.
Politics tamfitronics Smartwatches
Well before you could strap that Apple smartwatch on your wrist, The Simpsons had something similar in a 1995 episode.
Politics tamfitronics Siegfried and Roy tiger attack
Siegfried Fischbacher and Roy Horn, the famous Las Vegas performers who worked with big game cats, were parodied by the show in 1993.
In the episode, a white tiger attacks the characters “Gunter and Ernst” during their act, as revenge for having been snatched away from his life in the wild.
In real life, Horn suffered a career-ending injury in 2003 after a tiger attacked him during a show.
Politics tamfitronics Cypress Hill
The hip-hop group Cypress Hill discussed collaborating with the London Symphony Orchestra in a 1996 episode of The Simpsons titled Homerpalooza.
Nearly three decades later, the two ensembles recently did just that in a performance at London’s Royal Albert Hall. CNN
EDITOR’S NOTE: The first week of the O.J. Simpson case in mid-June 1994 hurried, with newshounds racing to attain the data. The excellent thing that was once sluggish was once The Skedaddle.
The soccer sizable had been accused of killing his ex-wife and her buddy, and there he was once on dwell tv, on the inspire of his buddy’s white Ford Bronco with a gun to his head. The freeway was once like a parade — with the police, media and followers following “The Juice.” There had been crowds on the overpasses, signs, cheers and fists punching the air because the pursuit unfolded.
In The Associated Press newsroom, editors and writers had been riveted to miniature televisions. And that’s the set many would preserve for the subsequent 17 months — glued to a TV because the so-called “Trial of the Century” unfolded.
FILE – In this June 17, 1994, file tell, a white Ford Bronco, pushed by Al Cowlings carrying O.J. Simpson, is trailed by Los Angeles police vehicles as it travels on a freeway in Los Angeles. Simpson, the decorated soccer superstar and Hollywood actor who was once acquitted of costs he killed his aged wife and her buddy but later stumbled on liable in a separate civil trial, has died. He was once 76. (AP Describe/Joseph Villarin, File)
After Simpson died Wednesday at 76, the AP is making available the chronicle wrapping up the total developments from The Skedaddle.
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O.J. ARRESTED IN SLAYINGS OF EX-WIFE AND HER FRIEND
O.J. Simpson was once hunted down and captured in his driveway Friday evening after running from costs of murdering his ex-wife and her male buddy and main police alongside 60 miles of freeways and metropolis streets.
“I will’t categorical the phobia I had that this matter would not discontinue the manner it did,” acknowledged Simpson’s legal skilled, Robert Shapiro, who had worried earlier that the aged soccer sizable would abolish himself.
Out of doorways the walls of Simpson’s property, members of Simpson’s family hugged each varied and cried after observe of the arrest came out.
A cheer came up from the gang of 300 spectators.
The arrest quickly sooner than 9 p.m. culminated an fabulous drama that unfolded on dwell national TV true thru which police first launched costs in opposition to the aged soccer sizable, then acknowledged he had disappeared and sooner or later adopted him alongside the highways for bigger than an hour.
After the white Ford Bronco came to a discontinue at Simpson’s property, a man believed to be his lifelong buddy and teammate, Al Cowlings, obtained out. Simpson’s legal skilled arrived on the mansion almost an hour later and the arrest came minutes later.
Sooner than fleeing as he was once about to be arrested, the aged soccer sizable left a handwritten letter proclaiming his innocence, pronouncing goodbye to chums and making “a final need” to “recede my teens in peace.”
Shapiro earlier acknowledged he feared Simpson was once suicidal and pleaded with him to give up. On the same info convention, a buddy read Simpson’s letter.
“I’ve had a big existence, sizable chums,” the soccer Hall of Famer’s letter acknowledged. “Please think the right O.J. and not this lost person.”
The district legal skilled called it “the drop of an American hero,” and Los Angeles police, angered that he reneged on a promise to give up earlier in the day, mounted a manhunt for him and a aged teammate.
In the letter, Simpson wrote that he tried to acquire “many of the beautiful things” in existence and asked: “Why acquire I discontinue up like this?”
“First, all individuals realize, I had nothing to acquire with Nicole’s execute,” Simpson’s letter begins. “If we had a say, it’s on story of I loved her so grand.”
“I don’t prefer to belabor knocking the click, but I will’t bear what’s being acknowledged. Most of it is entirely made up. I do know you possess a job to acquire, but as a final need, please, please, please, recede my teens in peace,” he wrote.
Shapiro acknowledged Simpson has been “exceedingly uncomfortable,” but he didn’t know if Simpson had committed suicide.
“I’m maintaining my fingers crossed and praying that we are going to seemingly be in a characteristic to carry him into a court docket,” Shapiro acknowledged.
“Wherever that you would be capable of possibly well even be, for the sake of your family, for the sake of your teens, please give up straight.”
Police straight mounted a manhunt when Simpson fled, and acknowledged he would be armed.
“Mr. Simpson is available somewhere and we can secure him,” Police Cmdr. David Gascon urged newshounds.
If convicted of killing Nicole Simpson and Ronald Goldman, Simpson – amongst basically the most excellent celebrities ever charged with execute – might possibly well face the death penalty.
“We saw, presumably, the drop of an American hero,” District Attorney Gil Garcetti acknowledged.
Simpson, 46, was once scheduled to give up at 11 a.m. but failed to honor the agreement made with Shapiro, Gascon acknowledged.
Shapiro acknowledged he was once with Simpson, Cowlings and two medical doctors in a apartment in the San Fernando Valley on Friday morning when police called to direct they had been coming to arrest him. He acknowledged Simpson and Cowlings, who grew up with Simpson in a San Francisco housing undertaking and was once his teammate in high school, on the College of Southern California and the Buffalo Funds, vanished sooner than police arrived.
“The Los Angeles Police Division is actively browsing for Mr. Simpson,” Gascon acknowledged. “The Los Angeles Police Division can be very unhappy with the actions surrounding his failure to give up.”
Authorities also had been having a question Cowlings, Garcetti acknowledged, warning, “Whenever you assist him in any design that you would be capable of possibly well even be committing a criminal.”
The investigation was once anchored by a monstrous array of proof, from media experiences of a blood-stained ski cloak to a bloody glove.
Gascon declined to direct how the police lost Simpson, who was once handcuffed and wondered by police Monday but let plod. He had been seen at his apartment earlier in the week and attended his ex-wife’s funeral Thursday. Someone akin to Simpson was once seen driving away from his apartment an hour sooner than his anticipated give up.
Mike Botula, a spokesman for Garcetti, acknowledged the costs incorporated the special capital punishment circumstance of extra than one killings. There isn’t this kind of thing as a bail in such cases, Botula added.
“A final decision on whether we would query the death penalty will seemingly be made at a later time,” Botula acknowledged.
Fans and colleagues of the sports chronicle who had insisted on his innocence had been compelled by Friday’s arrest warrant to confront an ominous possibility – that Simpson will possess killed the mother of their two teens, daughter Sydney, 9, and son Justin, 6.
“There’s nothing to direct moreover that the guidelines must rob its route,” acknowledged Howard Cosell, who labored with Simpson on ABC’s “Monday Night Soccer.”
The bodies of Mrs. Simpson, the soccer superstar’s strikingly beautiful ex-wife, and Goldman, a 25-yr-mature aspiring model and waiter at a current restaurant, had been stumbled on commence air Mrs. Simpson’s posh apartment.
Mortally wounded by extra than one stab wounds, the bodies had been stumbled on in a pool of blood by a passerby.
The couple divorced in 1992 following a seven-yr marriage. While serene married, Mrs. Simpson called police in 1989 pronouncing she feared he was once going to abolish her. She had been punched, slapped and kicked by Simpson, who pleaded no contest in the case, authorities acknowledged.
Some experiences urged the two had been attempting to reconcile on the time of the slayings. They’d not too lengthy previously been seen collectively, but a family buddy acknowledged those attempts failed and Simpson had turned vengeful.
“He was once telling her girlfriends and her that if he ever caught her with someone he would abolish her,” the buddy urged The Associated Press, talking on situation of anonymity. “She thoroughly broke it off with him three weeks previously.”
Through his attorneys, Simpson maintained his innocence, claiming he was once at dwelling on the time of the slayings, anticipating a limousine to rob him to the airport for a flight to Chicago. He attended his wife’s funeral Thursday and employed forensic experts to assist in his defense.
Simpson flew to Chicago the evening of the killings and was once summoned dwelling by police the subsequent morning.
In filing the costs, authorities painted a grim image in stark distinction to Simpson’s stunning moves on the soccer field. Simpson was once accused of the utilization of a knife to abolish Mrs. Simpson and Goldman. The knife hasn’t been stumbled on, Garcetti acknowledged.
Goldman, his family acknowledged, wasn’t romantically bright with Mrs. Simpson. Reports indicated he fought valiantly for his existence.
Orenthal James Simpson is identified to many because the nimble and noteworthy running inspire for the Buffalo Funds, for whom he field a single-season NFL rushing file with 2,003 yards in 1973. He helped get USC a national champion in 1967 and received the Heisman Trophy in 1968.
He also was once extensively seen as a tv sports commentator and in commercials for Hertz apartment vehicles. He also produced plenty of tv motion photographs and had featured roles in such productions as “Roots” and “The Naked Gun” comedies.
After the warrant was once launched, Hertz dropped Simpson.
