It’s finally time for ‘The Simpsons’ to win competitive Emmy for ‘Treehouse of Horror’
With its 11 Best Animated Program wins and 24 Emmy victories elsewhere, “The Simpsons” certainly isn’t hurting for attention from the TV academy. Nevertheless, the clear consensus among Gold Derby users is that it’s time for the Fox staple to triumph in the top animation category once more. Its dozenth animated program win would specifically be for its 33rd annual “Treehouse of Horror” episode, which would only be the fourth one ever nominated there. At this point, the series’ Halloween specials have brought it no competitive Emmys at all, but that will finally change if our odds prove correct.
The newest special, “Treehouse of Horror XXXIII,” aired one day before Halloween 2022 and, as usual, consists of three unrelated segments. It is the first without an opening scene and the second (after Season 27’s) to have been directly preceded by a non-“Treehouse of Horror” Halloween episode (“Not It”). For the first time in 20 years, each of this special’s chapters was devised by a different writer. The first spoofs “The Babadook” by having Maggie fight for her life against a demon-possessed Marge. Then, Lisa stars in a “Death Note” parody in which she gains the power to kill anyone she wishes by writing their name in a book. Finally, android versions of the Simpsons become self-aware and escape from their theme park home, which is modeled after the setting of “Westworld.”
One of the episode’s best features is its use of Japanese-style animation in the “Death Tome” segment, which gives the show’s beloved characters interesting, more realistic new looks. Also, the final “Simpsons World” chapter is chock full of nostalgia as the robots reenact moments from some of the show’s earliest seasons and are eventually revealed to be cogs in a whole network of animated series theme parks, some of which are based on “Bob’s Burgers,” “Futurama” and “SpongeBob Squarepants.”
The three “Treehouse of Horror” episodes that were previously nominated for the animated program Emmy were the sixth (1996), 23rd (2013) and 25th (2015) ones. In those respective cases, “The Simpsons” lost to “Pinky and the Brain,” “South Park” and “Over the Garden Wall.” Although none of the past 32 specials resulted in any competitive wins, the 23rd one received an individual achievement award for character animation, and the 24th was given two for background and color design.
“The Simpsons” most recently took the top animation prize in 2019 for its Season 30 installment “Mad About the Toy.” This brought an end to a decade-long losing streak that began after it scored its 10th win in 2008 for Season 19’s “Eternal Moonshine of the Simpson Mind.” Before then, the show prevailed in 1990 (Season 1, “Life on the Fast Lane”), 1991 (Season 2, “Homer vs. Lisa and the 8th Commandment”), 1995 (Season 6, “Lisa’s Wedding”), 1997 (Season 8, “Homer’s Phobia”), 1998 (Season 9, “Trash of the Titans”), 2000 (Season 11, “Behind the Laughter”), 2001 (Season 12, “HOMR”), 2003 (Season 14, “Three Gays of the Condo”) and 2006 (Season 17, “The Seemingly Never-Ending Story”).
A whopping 16 of the series’ other Emmy wins were for voice acting. Half of these are divided evenly between Dan Castellaneta (1992-1993, 2004, 2009) and Hank Azaria (1998, 2001, 2003, 2015), with remaining core cast members Nancy Cartwright (1992), Julie Kavner (1992), Yeardley Smith (1992) and Harry Shearer (2014) having won once each. The other four voice awards went to recurring actors Jackie Mason (1992), Marcia Wallace (1992), Kelsey Grammer (2006) and Anne Hathaway (2010).
Rounding out the “Simpsons” Emmy haul are three more individual achievement awards (2010, 2018, 2021) and a pair of Best Music and Lyrics trophies for “We Put the Spring in Springfield” (from 1996’s “Bart After Dark”) and “You’re Checkin’ In” (from 1997’s “The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson”). Including its 20 unsuccessful animated program bids and 13 more voice performance ones, the show has racked up an additional 65 Emmy nominations since 1990.
In their fight for this year’s animated program crown, the team behind “The Simpsons” should be particularly leery of “Entergalactic” (which is ranked fourth by our odds) simply because it’s a Netflix special. “The Simpsons” lost here last year to the then-new Netflix series “Arcane” and, of course, was beaten by a one-off special rather than a series the last time it was nominated for a “Treehouse of Horror” episode. However, 78% of Gold Derby’s 2023 Emmy predictors favor it to win, and its submission has the sixth highest IMDb rating of any “Treehouse of Horror” installment (8.3/10). It seems like there’s no better time than now to finally give one of these spooky specials this top honor.
PREDICT the 2023 Emmy nominees through July 12
Make your predictions at Gold Derby now. Download our free and easy app for Apple/iPhone devices or Android (Google Play) to compete against legions of other fans plus our experts and editors for best prediction accuracy scores. See our latest prediction champs. Can you top our esteemed leaderboards next? Always remember to keep your predictions updated because they impact our latest racetrack odds, which terrify Hollywood chiefs and stars. Don’t miss the fun. Speak up and share your huffy opinions in our famous forums where 5,000 showbiz leaders lurk every day to track latest awards buzz. Everybody wants to know: What do you think? Who do you predict and why?
SIGN UP for Gold Derby’s free newsletter with latest predictions