Editing Treehouse of Horror II (section)

==Production==
[[File:Al Jean by Gage Skidmore.jpg|right|thumb|The episode was executive-produced and co-written by [[Al Jean]], who also [[Pitch (filmmaking)|pitched]] the idea of having "scary names" in the opening credits.]]

"Treehouse of Horror II", the second edition of the ''[[Treehouse of Horror]]'' series of episodes, was written by [[Al Jean]], [[Mike Reiss]], [[Jeff Martin (writer)|Jeff Martin]], [[George Meyer]], Sam Simon and [[John Swartzwelder]]. [[Jim Reardon]] was the director.<ref name="John">{{cite book |last=Alberti |first=John |title=Leaving Springfield: the Simpsons and the possibility of oppositional culture Contemporary approaches to film and television series Contemporary film and television series |editor=John Alberti |publisher=Wayne State University Press, 2003 |year=2003 |pages=313 |isbn=9780814328491 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=n6vZJnxK1XYC&q=Treehouse+of+Horror+II |access-date=2009-08-31}}</ref><ref name="Groening">Groening, Matt. (2003). Commentary for "Treehouse of Horror II", in ''The Simpsons: The Complete Third Season'' [DVD]. 20th Century Fox.</ref> The episode is presented in a similar format to the previous season's "[[Treehouse of Horror (The Simpsons episode)|Treehouse of Horror]]", and contains several similarities to the previous episode, such as Marge's opening warning, the tombstones in the opening credits and the appearance of the alien characters [[Kang and Kodos]]. "Treehouse of Horror II" was the first episode that employed the "scary names" idea, in which many of the names in the opening and closing credits have unusual nicknames. The idea came from Al Jean, who was inspired by old issues of [[EC Comics]].<ref name="Jean3">Jean, Al. (2004). Commentary for "[[Treehouse of Horror III]]", in ''The Simpsons: The Complete Fourth Season'' [DVD]. 20th Century Fox.</ref> Although the names quickly became more silly than scary, there has been a wide variety of special credits. For example, the director's name is given as Jim "Rondo" Reardon, a reference to his idol, [[Rondo Hatton]].<ref name="Reardon">Reardon, Jim. (2003). Commentary for "Treehouse of Horror II", in ''The Simpsons: The Complete Third Season'' [DVD]. 20th Century Fox.</ref> The "scary names" became such a burden to write that they were cut for "Treehouse of Horror XII" and "Treehouse of Horror XIII", but after hearing complaints from the fans, Jean decided to bring them back.<ref name="Jean3"/> The alien characters Kang and Kodos had been introduced in the previous year. There was a debate about whether to include them in all Halloween specials after the episode; eventually, the writers agreed to make it a tradition.<ref name="Jean">Jean, Al. (2003). Commentary for "Treehouse of Horror II", in ''The Simpsons: The Complete Third Season'' [DVD]. 20th Century Fox.</ref>

During the beginning of Lisa's dream, [[Hank Azaria]] faked some Arabic. Usually, the writers get inspiration for the Halloween specials from old horror stories, but recently, the writers tried to conceive of their own stories instead of creating more parodies.<ref name="Reiss">Reiss, Mike. (2003). Commentary for "Treehouse of Horror II", in ''The Simpsons: The Complete Third Season'' [DVD]. 20th Century Fox.</ref> Also, when the Moroccan salesman tries to warn Homer Simpson, saying "You'll be sorry", the animators forgot to move his lips. They realized their error only after the broadcast.<ref name="Martin">Martin, Jeff. (2003). Commentary for "Treehouse of Horror II", in ''The Simpsons: The Complete Third Season'' [DVD]. 20th Century Fox.</ref> While writing the segment, Sam Simon, one of the writers, wanted the fingers to go down in such an order so they would eventually have the [[Finger (gesture)|middle finger sticking up]]. Once the animation would have been complete, however, they could not have gone through; Fox would have refused to air the episode. They had considered the alternative of deliberately blurring the middle finger themselves, but decided that Fox would have also refused.<ref name="Castellaneta">Castellaneta, Dan. (2003). Commentary for "Treehouse of Horror II", in ''The Simpsons: The Complete Third Season'' [DVD]. 20th Century Fox.</ref> For this episode, there were a lot of loop lines; for instance, the ending to Lisa's dream was added to the last second. As a result of the loop, they still retained Flanders's old house next to his newly created castle. In order to make the episode fill the time needed, the animators often extended the laughing time for Kang and Kodos.<ref name="Castellaneta"/>

The second segment is based on ''The Twilight Zone'' television series episode "It's a Good Life".{{sfn|Richmond & Coffman|1997|pp=68–69}} That episode had also inspired the third segment of ''[[Twilight Zone: The Movie]]'', which starred [[Nancy Cartwright]] in her debut feature film role.<ref>{{cite book |last=Cartwright |first=Nancy |title=My Life as a 10-Year-Old Boy |year=2000 |publisher=[[Hyperion (publisher)|Hyperion]] |location=New York City |isbn=0-7868-8600-5 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/mylifeastenyearo00nanc/page/26 26–27] |url=https://archive.org/details/mylifeastenyearo00nanc/page/26 }}</ref> The segment parodies the narration of ''The Twilight Zone'', and the producers were pleased with [[Harry Shearer]]'s portrayal of [[Rod Serling]]. (Shearer had previously impersonated Serling while he was a cast member on ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'') <ref name="Reiss"/> In addition, though it took a long time, the design of the monster version of [[Snowball (The Simpsons)|Snowball{{nbsp}}II]] by Dale Hendrickson was greatly enjoyed by the producers, who thought it looked "just hideous, just right".<ref name="Reardon"/> Bart's prank call to Moe was thought of by John Swartzwelder, one of the writers; however, Hank Azaria detested the line.<ref name="Jean"/> According to George Meyer, the animation for when Bart sits up screaming was extremely tough, especially to make the mouthlines natural.<ref name="Jean"/>

In the third segment, Burns and Smithers go down to the lab during Homer's nightmare. The animators decided to make the animation a bit more impressive, and decided to do the concave and convex images of Burns and Smithers. Even though it was tough and took up more time, the producers felt it was a necessary tour-de-force.<ref name="Groening"/> Originally, Homer's robotic voice was done post-animation in order to avoid stress on the voice actor. Then-head writer Jay Kogen, who created the Davy Crockett joke, thought it was so funny he actually mimicked the actions of Mr. Burns putting on Homer's brain in the writing room; the producers thought it was hilarious, so they decided to add it into the episode.<ref name="Groening"/>