This The Simpsons review contains spoilers.
The Simpsons Season 34 Episode 5
Pennywise doesn’t do kids’ parties, so The Simpsons called on a local clown so desperate for laughs he’ll play any house. Krusto the Clown only gets bookings every 27 years. That’s just a slightly better average than Krusty the Clown, who was lucky to get cast by “Treehouse of Horror” for its tag team production of Stephen King’s It. “Not It,” the title claims, but there are no backsies.
“The Shinning” from season 6’s “Treehouse of Horror V,” an almost shot-for-shot parody of Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of The Shining, is a gold standard for “Treehouse of Horror” movie parodies. But it only had one setting, the hotel, and took up one segment. “Not It” benefits from the extended play, but is not up to the non-Treehouse full-episode parody episodes “Das Bus,” a spoof of Lord of the Flies, or last season’s two-parter, “A Serious Flanders,” which drew on Fargo. Neither of these, however, were exact replications.
“Not It” follows the beats of the original, right down to how scary It is. The opening scene with young Barney only has two real laugh lines, one by his mother, and then it’s chomp chomp chomp. But The Simpsons really bites down on Stephen King himself. Springfield is renamed Kingfield, “a great place to bury your kids,” and every store, restaurant, bar, and I believe a dry cleaner, pays him the horrific honor of being turned into New England clam chowder you can spit through your nose giggling at. It is truly a loving kiss of death.
“Not It” condenses all the individual revelations about Krusto’s origin into one creepy group hug. The ever-so-slight warp of Kent Brockman’s beloved voice announcing “The Yuk-Yuk Hour with Krusto” sets nerves on edge, where they teeter between titter and terror until the clown utters a truly scary punchline about his 27-year-interval feeding habits. It works very well on both levels, itchy and scratchy.
The scene captures a modicum of real peril because, as this is a “Treehouse of Horror” production, it doesn’t have to follow canon, and anyone can die. But the more frightening thing is how the trick to conquering the evil clown mirrors the real Krusty the Clown’s true nemesis: technical issues. On the way to the final first battle The Simpsons also encounter their own worst nightmare, besides football overtime: Fox Affiliates. The series loves to slap its broadcaster’s face now and then, and Moe’s unrelated facial lines about a new fetish are classic single-entendres.
The Simpsons’ “Treehouse of Horror” episodes are always season highlights, and the extra added clowning is a welcome treat (the official Treehouse of Horror: XXXIII is set to premiere next week). Written by Cesar Mazariegos, and directed by Steven Dean Moore, “Not It” is quite scary, at times, and every frame carries both thrills and spills. The clown motif provides a panorama of ways to make the audience choke on laugher, even before a school bully’s intestines get twisted into balloon animals. The parody works best because of the details, and some of the lines are individually hysterical. Not all, but it’s not It, which gives its clown all the last laughs, even when modified for a Gen Z audience.
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