12x01 Treehouse of Horror XI

[7.2/10 on a post-classic Simpsons scale] This is a tough one to grade, given that there’s widely varying quality among the different segments, but at least they improve as you go along!

The opening with the Munsters spoof is an amusing enough little intro.

The first segment, with Homer dying and needing to do one good deed to get into Heaven, is easily the worst of the three. It’s a solid premise, and the opening horoscope gags have a few chuckles, but this is peak “Homer gets hurt, and that’s all we need to do to try to make it funny.” The whole thing is rushed, and the segment doesn't really take great advantage of Homer being a ghost, with weird and inconsistent gags. Definitely the weakest material here.

The Brothers Grimm segment is a bit better. It’s basically just aimless riffs on old fairytales with a vaguely Simpson-y twist, but that suits a Halloween episode just fine. Lisa line about “face it, they’re not great parents” is a laugh, and the solution to the family’s starvation problem being that Homer is still chicken from the waist down is just weird enough to work. I’ll also cop to laughing at the payoff to the “George Cauldron” gag.

But the third segment, featuring a dolphin uprising, is by far the best. It’s absurd, but in a really fun way, and the show gets super inventive with all the dolphin-based kills and attacks. There’s some crackling dialogue gags “Yes, it was her! Take the one who wronged you!” and the right balance of scariness and comedy, with the patent absurdity of the dolphins staging a coup. It’s full of laughs and the cartoony blood and guts and dark humor that make up the Halloween spirit on this show.

Overall, the dolphin segment is worth the price of admission, and the other two segments are okay at best.