Original air date: 10/27/1996

Production code: 4F02

Treehouse of Horror VII is a Treehouse of Horror Halloween episode of The Simpsons and the first episode of the eighth season.

This year's tales of terror include Bart meeting his long-lost Conjoined Twin who lives in the attic and has gone insane, Lisa becoming a goddess to a small civilization she created out of a tooth, some cola, and Bart zapping her with static electricity, and Homer trying to stop Kang and Kodos from posing as Bill Clinton and Bob Dole and running for U.S. President.

This episode includes examples of:

• Added Alliterative Appeal: In the "Genesis Tub" segment. An ironic example as Bart is using it as a threat to commit a form of omnicide:
  Bart: Sooner or later you'll let your guard down, and then – flush! – it's toilet time for tiny town.
• Adults Are Useless: From the parents to Dr. Hibbert in "The Thing and I". Poor Bart is ultimately shunned by his parents and Dr. Hibbert from beginning to end. To say nothing of Hugo, who was mistaken to be evil and locked up in the attic by his parents thanks to a goof from Dr. Hibbert.
• Alien Abduction: Kang and Kodos abduct Homer while he's out fishing. Though instead of eating Homer or rectally probing him as he initially feared, the two aliens simply ask to know who the leader of Earth is. Homer replies that it's US President Bill Clinton, though he may be replaced by Senator Bob Dole in the then-current 1996 presidential election. So Kang and Kodos abduct Clinton and Dole in order to impersonate both of them, and they run in the election. They successfully take over America (and the Earth).
• Alien Invasion: Kang and Kodos kidnap Clinton and Dole and take their places (infiltration method). In the end, they are discovered but still win and subsequently take over America and presumably the world.
• Aliens Never Invented Democracy: Kang and Kodos kidnap Homer and ask him to Take Me to Your Leader. Homer hesitates, because they are about to have an election between President Bill Clinton and Senator Bob Dole, so Homer doesn't know what to tell them. The aliens Kang and Kodos are apparently familiar with the concept of an election, having monitored human activity for years, but when they kidnap Clinton and Dole and impersonate them, their campaign styles make it clear that they have no direct experience with elections. Once Kang is elected, he enslaves the human population and converts the United States into a dictatorial monarchy.
• Amazing Technicolour Population: The miniature people of the tub are a grey-ish blue.
• Anal Probing: Homer assumes Kang and Kodos want to do this, and starts to take his pants off before they make it clear they really don't.
  Kang: STOP! We have reached the limits of what rectal probing can teach us!
• Ass Pull: Lampshaded by Bart in "The Thing and I." He doesn't believe the story about having a conjoined twin at first, since that would mean he would have to have a big hideous scar on his side. Then he pulls up his shirt to emphasize his point and is shocked to see a big hideous scar underneath for seemingly the first time in his life. invoked
• Artistic License – Politics:
  • Kang and Kodos' plan should have gone out the window the moment they were revealed as alien imposters. Even if the people genuinely believed that Dole and Clinton were always Kang and Kodos, they wouldn't be eligible to run for President due to the fact that they were not only not native born U.S. citizens but from another planet, and Kodos would be impeached upon the revelation of their true identities.
  • If both candidates, one being the sitting President, died on the campaign trail (as Homer accidentally causes), the incumbent Vice President, in this case Al Gore, would ascend to President under the 25th Amendment and the challenging candidate's party would select a new nominee, which could simply be the late candidate's running mate (if the sitting President was not running, both parties would select new candidates). Thus Kang and Kodos' plan would fail once Homer reveals them as alien imposters.
  • Additionally, even if Kang successfully won the election, it's pretty hard to imagine that Congress would stand by without removing him from power once he attempted to enslave the entire nation.
• At Least I Admit It: When Bart tells Hugo that he's crazy, the crazy twin admits that he is while claiming that everyone is a bit crazy.
• The Bad Guy Wins:
  • Subverted in "The Thing and I". While his main plan to force Bart into a deadly recojoin operation may have been foiled and he wasn't the evil twin all along, Hugo still caused trouble to the Simpsons family by scaring the kids when they sneak up, escaping his imprisonment and almost forcing Bart into beign recojoined, and ended up winning in the long run by being allowed by Homer, Marge and Hibbert to take over Bart's life while Bart is forced to take Hugo's former place.
  • "Citizen Kang" ends with Kang winning the election and the Rigelian alien race enslaving the Earth. But don't blame Homer. He voted for Kodos.
  • "Genesis Tub": Bart was a massive Jerkass the entire episode, causes a crapload of damage to the innocent civilization Lisa created, threatens to destroy them after their retaliation against him, and steals credit from Lisa for her science experiment.
• Bait-and-Switch:
  • "The Thing and I":
    • When Bart, Lisa and Maggie escape from Hugo, there are three vases shown which match the kids' heights, implying they somehow managed to hide inside them. It turns that they're actually hiding inside a nearby closet.
    • Dr. Hibbert presents Hugo with a mirror so he can see himself for the first time, but it's just an empty frame so Hibbert can deliver a knockout punch instead.
  • "The Genesis Tub" - After Lisa is shrunk down into the micro-city, with the citizens having done so to ask her to help defend them against Bart (despite not having a way to undo the shrinking), Bart enters her room, and discovers the tub. Lisa screams in horror as Bart motions toward it as we cut to black. The implication is that he followed through on his threat to flush it... when we then cut to Skinner opening the tub, revealing that Bart instead decided to submit it as his project for the science fair.
  • "Citizen Kane" - After taking the form of Dole and Clinton, Kodos declares they'll have to dispose of Homer, and seemingly activates a massive laser cannon. Homer finds himself staring down the barrel...which promptly sprays him with rum so that no one would believe his story. He is then spared and promptly kicked out of the spaceship.
• Big "NO!": After Lisa is shrinked and sent to her micro world, she and the citizens become scared when seeing Bart approaching and taking the tub with the micro-city and Liss tries to yell to stop him, but he doesn't hear her due to her microscopic size.
• Bittersweet Ending: "The Thing and I" qualifies. On one hand, Bart is saved from being recojoined and Hugo finally gets freed from imprisonment in the attic after Dr. Hibbert's mistake that he was the Evil Twin has been cleared up. On the other, the Simpsons parents force Bart to take Hugo's former place since he's the real evil one, depriving him of his freedom for good.
• Bottle Episode: With the exception of the flashback to Bart and Hugo's birth at the hospital, "The Thing and I" segment primarily takes place within the Simpsons household.
• Breaking Old Trends: It's the first "Treehouse of Horror" episode to be the season premiere, unlike the previous ones where they air sometime after the season started.
• Brother–Sister Team: Kang and Kodos, as it turns out. When they impersonate Bill Clinton and Bob Dole through "bioduplication," the public is confused by the then-presidential candidates' new habit of "constantly holding hands."
• Brutal Honesty: Kang and Kodos bluntly describe their intentions.
  Kodos/Clinton: As overlord, all will kneel trembling before me and obey my brutal commands.
  Kang/Dole: It makes no matter which one of us you vote for! Either way, your planet is doomed! DOOMED!
• Calling Your Nausea: Homer in “Citizen Kang”:
  Homer: These candidates make me want to vomit in terror!
• Cassandra Truth: Homer is abducted by Kang and Kodos, who glean the identities of presidential candidates Bill Clinton and Senator Bob Dole from him, abduct them, and take their place in order to Take Over the World during the 1996 Presidential campaign. Homer tells the aliens that he is going to tell everyone and put a stop to their evil plan. They spray him with rum and then send him back to Earth, saying that no one will believe him. When he gets home and tells the family, as predicted by the aliens, no one believes him because they think he got drunk at Moe's again.
• Celebrity Casualty: Homer accidentally sends incumbent president Bill Clinton and his Republican presidential opponent Bob Dole out of an airlock into space.
• Conjoined Twins: Bart's Evil Twin, Hugo, who had been separated from Bart at birth and kept in the attic. Hugo, having gone insane after being locked up in the attic his entire life, plans to sew the two of them together again.
• Contrived Clumsiness: Bart teases Lisa like this while jamming his finger into her miniature petri dish world.
  Bart: Oops, my finger slipped! Oops, my finger slipped! Oops, my finger slipped!
• Couch Gag: The Grim Reaper is on the couch. The family runs in and one by one drops dead. The Reaper puts his feet up on their corpses.
• Creating Life Is Unforeseen: Lisa accidentally creates miniature life-forms by putting one of her teeth into a glass of cola and then zapping it with static electricity passed onto her by Bart.
• Darker and Edgier: Probably the bleakest and most cynical out of the Treehouse of Horror episodes. Taking more advantage of the Negative Continuity than previous specials, the characterisations are meaner or stupider and each story has a Black Comedy Downer Ending.
• Dark Is Evil: Hugo's clothes are notably a shade darker than Bart's clothes.
• Decoy Hiding Place: Bart, Lisa and Maggie appear to be hiding from Hugo in three conveniently sized vases, only for them to tumble out of the adjacent closet instead.
• Didn't Think This Through: The tub people shrink Lisa in order to speak with their "God"... and have no way to unshrink her again (in fact it seems they had no intention to), rendering her powerless to protect them from Bart.
• Disappointed in You: One of Marge's feelings towards Bart and Lisa (the other being terror) when she discovers that they went up into the attic after being told not to.
• Divine–Infernal Family: The micro-city Lisa unknowingly created regard her as their god and Bart as the devil for messing around with it. When she points out Bart's her brother they are rather perplexed.
• The Dog Bites Back: After Bart crushes several parts of the micro-city with his finger, the micro people sends several spaceships which attack Bart in the face in response (albeit he only feels the laser attacks as stings due to their size).
• Downer Ending:
  • "Genesis Tub" - Lisa is stuck in the micro-city with no way of being changed back to her normal size, with the implication that she’ll become a tyrant over the micro-city (what's more, Bart steals her project for his own and wins the science fair). And Bart also threatened that he would flush the tub into the toilet.
  • "Citizen Kang" - The U.S. (and possibly the entire world) is enslaved by Kang and Kodos.
• Dramatic Thunder: The night that Hugo escapes the Simpsons’ attic also happens to be when a thunderstorm is taking place, providing several instances of this.
• The Dreaded: The people of Lisa’s city flinch and cover their ears just at the sound of Bart’s name.
• Election Day Episode: In "Citizen Kang", Kang and Kodos capture Bill Clinton and Bob Dole and disguise themselves as them to trick the Earthlings into voting for either of them so they can take over the Earth.
• Evil All Along: Hugo was not the evil twin, Bart was.
• Evil Twin: Bart and Lisa discover an evil twin of Bart, named Hugo, living in the attic and obsessed with "reuniting". Their parents and Dr. Hibbert admit that the boys were born conjoined, but were separated at birth and Hugo was locked away after they realized he was evil. However, it's subverted when Hibbert looks at their scars and realizes that Bart is, and always has been, the evil one ("Oh, don't look so shocked"). The segment ends with their situation reversed, Hugo being accepted into the family while Bart is locked in the attic and fed nothing but fish heads.
• Failed a Spot Check:
  • Bart apparently never noticed that large surgical scar on his side.
  • Homer kicks a bush in a rage. It's only after he hurts his foot that he realizes there's a giant spaceship parked right there.
• Flirtatious Smack on the Ass: After Kang becomes president and enslaves the United States, a Rigellian seemingly does this to Marge with a whip.
• Foreshadowing: Dr. Hibbert's flashback to when Bart and Hugo were born shows that the twin on the left was the evil one (as he kept biting the twin on the right). When Bart discovers his scar, it's on his right side.
• Freudian Slip: Homer does this when he and Marge are trying to avoid talking to the kids about Bart’s monstrous twin.
  Homer: I work my butt off to feed you four kids and all you do…what?
  Marge: Three! We have three kids, Homer.
• Funny Afro: Dr. Hibbert has one in his Flashback to Bart and Hugo’s birth.
• Gender Reveal: Despite having a deep voice and being physically indistinguishable from Kang, Kodos is apparently female.
• Go Mad from the Isolation: Due to a mix-up at the hospital, Homer and Marge locked Hugo up in the attic thinking he was the evil one. The Evil Twin is actually Bart, but all his time locked away has caused Hugo to lose his mind.
• Good All Along: Hugo turned out to have been the good twin. He's still insane, though.
• He Was Right There All Along: After the family (except Bart) and Dr. Hibbert leave the house to look for Hugo, Bart immediately locks all the doors, but then hears some chain rustling and realizes that Hugo never left the house and he arrives behind Bart.
• Hilariously Abusive Childhood: Homer and Marge's solution to Hugo being "evil" is to lock him up in the attic and feed him fish heads once a week. Once Bart turns out to be evil, they free Hugo and exonerate him before forcing Bart to take his place.
• Hereditary Twinhood: Bart is the conjoined twin of an apparently Evil Twin called Hugo, following his identical twin maternal aunts Patty and Selma.
• Hope Spot: In "Citizen Kang", Homer discovers where the real Bill Clinton and Bob Dole are being held and manages to reawaken them. Once he does, they decide to put aside their differences and work together. Unfortunately, when he tries getting them out of their tubes, he instead winds up shooting them up into outer space to their deaths.
• Hurt Foot Hop: Homer does this after he accidentally kicks the corner of Kang and Kodos’s spaceship which was hidden behind some bushes.
• I Have a Family: Subverted.
  Homer: [to Kang and Kodos] Don't eat me! I have a wife and kids! Eat them!
• Immediate Self-Contradiction: In “Citizen Kang”, Homer is relaxing in his fishing boat and says that it doesn’t even matter if he catches anything. Then immediately after, he jumps up and leans off the side of the boat, yelling at the fish and threatening to go in after them if they don’t start biting.
• In One Ear, Out The Other: While the miniature spaceships from the "The Genesis Tub" are attacking Bart, one of them flies into his left ear and exits his right.
• Insistent Terminology: Lisa tries to correct Dr. Hibbert's use of the term "Siamese twins", but Hibbert’s having none of it.
  Lisa: I believe they prefer to be called "Conjoined Twins".
  Dr. Hibbert: And hillbillies prefer to be called "sons of the soil", but it ain’t gonna happen.
• Jabba Table Manners: Well, what do you expect from someone who’s been locked up in an attic and only allowed to eat fish heads out of a bucket his whole life?
  Lisa: Mom, Hugo’s eating his napkin!
• Lady Looks Like a Dude: The male-sounding Kodos is female, according to this episode.
• Latex Perfection: Thanks to their alien technology, Kang and Kodos are able to create disguises that look identical to the appearance of the real Clinton and Dole.
• Madwoman in the Attic: Parodied with Bart's Evil Twin, Hugo, locked up in the attic. The Twist Ending was that Bart was the Evil Twin, so Hugo was allowed to go free (even though he was clearly insane - then again, you'd be insane too, if in his shoes) and Bart is locked up in his place.
• Man on Fire: During the opening segment, Homer lights a "Jack O' Lantern" pumpkin and accidentally lights himself on fire.
• Mike Nelson, Destroyer of Worlds: Played rather seriously, as Bart's playful poking at Lisa's petrie dish ends up wrecking much of the micro-world. When the little people strike back at him, Lisa even lampshades it.
  Bart: Your micro-jerks attacked me!
  Lisa: Well, you practically destroyed their whole world!
• Mistaken for Drunk: Instead of killing Homer after he witnesses them clone themselves into Clinton and Dole, Kang & Kodos spray him with rum so that anyone who he tries to reveal their plan to will dismiss him as a drunken fool.
  Bart: [fanning his nose] Sure ya were, Rummy.
• Mistaken for Gay: Kang and Kodos (in Bill Clinton and Bob Dole's bodies) are mistaken for this when they're spotted holding hands together. Even though they're just siblings.
• Monster Delay: Hugo’s appearance is kept in the shadows until he reveals himself to Bart.
• Morton's Fork:
  Kang/Dole: It makes no difference which one of us you vote for! Either way, your planet is doomed! DOOMED!
• Mundane Solution: To ensure Homer won't reveal their plot to the world, Kang and Kodos spray him down with rum so he'd be completely discredited.
• My Country 'Tis of Thee That I Sting: Homer crashes the spaceship into the Capitol and successfully reveals the candidates' real identities. However, despite being exposed, Kang and Kodos declare to the people that they have to choose between one of them because "it's a two-party system" since it's too late to get new candidates. One man in the crowd announces that he will vote for a third-party candidate, but Kang and Kodos tell him: "Go ahead, throw your vote away."
• My God, What Have I Done?: Homer’s reaction to accidentally shooting the real presidential candidates out of the airlock of Kang and Kodos’s ship, followed by “What am I doing?!” and “What will I do?!”.
• Nature Versus Nurture: While not addressed, the sub episode The Thing and I makes an interesting case for the nurture part. Bart, despite being the "evil" twin, manages to come out relatively normal, while Hugo's abusive and traumatic upbringing leads him to perform some really nasty actions out of desperation.
• Never My Fault: When the citizens of Lisa's microscopic world attack Bart, he becomes angry and tries to attack them back, despite the fact that he brought it on himself by destroying their world, which Lisa points out.
• Odd Reaction Out: When Kodos (as Clinton) delivers a nonsensical speech about being a baseball, the audience cheers, except for Lisa who looks confused.
• Offering Another in Your Stead: When Homer first sees Kang and Kodos aboard their ship, he fearfully pleads, "Don't eat me! I have a wife and kids! Eat them!"
• Off-Limits Room: “The Thing and I” has Homer and Marge telling Bart and Lisa to never go into the attic. Naturally, curiosity gets the better of them, and they enter, to discover Bart’s Evil Twin Hugo.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • In "The Thing and I", Homer becomes worried when he goes to the attic and sees that Hugo somehow escaped from there.
  • In "Citizen Kang", Homer has this when he realizes that he just launched Bill Clinton and Bob Dole out of the UFO tubes and into space, killing them and dooming the Earth to vote between their alien impersonators.
  Homer: Oh no.
• Politicians Kiss Babies: Discussed by Kang and Kodos
  Kodos/Clinton: All they want to hear is bland pleasantries, embellished by an occasional saxophone solo or infant kiss.
• Pragmatic Villainy: Instead of flushing Lisa's micro universe down the toilet like he threatened to, Bart takes it to the School Science Fair, and wins.
• Pun-Based Title: "The Thing and I" references The King and I, while "Citizen Kang" references Citizen Kane.
• Reptilian Conspiracy: Kang and Kodos are Octopoid Aliens, but their plan to infiltrate the US Government and enslave humanity (or at least Americans) otherwise fits this trope perfectly.
• Rhetorical Question Blunder: Homer tries to scare Bart and Lisa off from trying to figure out what’s in the attic by asking them if they know what happens to nosy kids who ask too many questions. Unfortunately, this backfires and they just start asking more questions.
• Scenery Censor: The bio-duplication fields neatly cover Dole and Clinton's nethers.
• Science Fair: The events of “Genesis Tub” occur because of Lisa’s experiment for the upcoming Science Fair. The segment later ends with Bart stealing her project and passing it off on his own, winning first prize at the fair.
• Shout-Out:
  • While bringing fish heads to Hugo, Homer sings "Fish Heads", the biggest hit of Barnes & Barnes.
  • Citizen Kang is yet another Simpsons reference to Citizen Kane.
  • Homer’s quote, “Don’t blame me, I voted for Kodos” was a nod to the slogan, “Don’t blame me, I voted for McGovern”; George McGovern lost in a Landslide Election to then-President Richard Nixon in 1972.
  • When the little people Lisa created are nailing commandments to the wall of a church, Lisa says: "I created Lutherans". Martin Luther started the Lutheran/Protestant movement when he nailed commandments and statements, famously known as the Ninety-Five Theses, to the wall of a church, criticizing the Roman Catholic Church.
  • Homer crashing the UFO into the US Capitol Dome references Earth vs. the Flying Saucers.
• Shown Their Work: Bobe Dole, in real life, had extremely limited motion in his right arm as a result of his war injuries. His cartoon counterpart's right arm basically never moves throughout the whole short.
• Shrink Ray: The citizens of Lisa’s tooth city shoot her with one, which they call the De-Big-ulator, to shrink her down to size so she can visit them.
• Skewed Priorities: In the second segment, Lisa doesn't really seem to understand the importance of managing to create miniscule sentient life - she peels away from the initial discovery at the prospect of waffles, simply calls Bart "rude" for causing destruction on the tiny people and is more concerned with Bart winning the science fair's prize of a gift certificate before lamenting her inability to return to normal; speaking of, all she wants to use her creation of life for is to win said science fair, rather than reveal it to the more important scientific community.
• Slave Race: After Kang is inaugurated as president, he and the rest of his species turn humans into this; forcing them into manual labor, slave collars and all.
• Soapbox Sadie: Lisa kickstarts the Genesis Tub because she wants to "ruin soda for everybody!"
• Stab the Salad: Right after Dr. Hibbert says the conjoined twins have to be separated at once, he uses a giant paper cutter - implying that this is the tool he used to cut them apart. However, he then holds up cut copies of authorization papers for Homer and Marge to sign.
  • Then, when Dr. Hibbert says he knows a way to solve everything, the scene fades to him laughing ominously as he holds a knife and cuts something. It’s revealed that he’s just cutting turkey for the family dinner instead.
• Strapped to an Operating Table: Hugo ties Bart to a table in order to perform an operation that will conjoin them once again.
• Stupidest Thing I've Ever Heard: The Frink look-alike laughs at Lisa's idea of unshrinking her...and then quickly grovels when he realizes his "god" is giving him a Death Glare.
• Take a Third Option: Two in "Citizen Kang":
  • When Kang as Dole tries to tell the crowd what they want to hear, "Abortions for all!" gets booed, and "No abortions for anyone!" also gets booed. He settles on abortions for some and miniature American flags for others, which he’s cheered for.
  • The voters consider voting for a third candidate when Kang and Kodos are revealed, but get mocked for it, with Kang-as-Dole telling them "Go ahead, throw your vote away!" Ross Perot^note Reform Party candidate in the 1996 presidential election, had previously run as an independent in the 1992 election (where he won 18.9% of the popular vote, the best performance for a third-party candidate in 80 years) is then seen punching his straw hat open.
• Take Me to Your Leader: Kang and Kodos to Homer, who explains there's about to be an election.
• The Grim Reaper: During the opening sequence, the Grim Reaper sits on the family's couch. The family runs in as usual but Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and even Maggie collapse and die upon catching a glance of the Grim Reaper. The Reaper then puts his feet up on the corpses of the dead family.
• They Look Like Us Now: Kang and Kodos use a machine which disguises them as Clinton and Dole, allowing them to run in the election and take over the USA (and soon the whole world). For some strange reason, nobody really notices how "Clinton" and "Dole" are behaving so weirdly and unearthly, and it's only until when Homer rips off their disguises in public does everyone see that they're actually aliens. Though this doesn't stop Kang and Kodos from telling the voters that they still had to pick one of them.
• Thrown Out the Airlock: Homer accidentally does this to the real Clinton and Dole in the midst of trying to bring them back to Washington D.C.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Bart deliberately destroys large parts of Lisa's micro universe, then when he gets mad at Lisa for her people taking revenge against him, he's essentially admitting that he knew that the world in the dish had actual living people in it rather than a model, and not only did he destroy a lot of it regardless, he's going to throw the dish into the toilet and kill all of them when Lisa isn't watching.
• Turn the Other Cheek: Hugo doesn't seem to hold a grudge over the family's horrific treatment of him once the mix-up is resolved and it's Bart who's chained up in the attic eating fish-heads.
• Unbuilt Trope: invoked Word of God admitted on the DVD Commentary that many works seem to operate on the particular aesop of "both parties are equally awful", in a message that seems biting, but also keeps from alienating anyone and does nothing to call out the specific faults in groups, almost as if to imply that their respective faults hold equal weight. To wit, the humans at the end of "Citizen Kang" were given the option to choose a third-party candidate, but didn't, because they decided any third-party would be just as bad as the Obviously Evil aliens trying to Take Over the World.
  Cohen: The point is it does not matter which of the awful candidates you vote for…
  Greaney: Which is a complete falsity. When you have somebody who is clearly an aggressor, then… evenhandedness is actually favoring the aggressor.
• Uranus Is Showing: Kang and Kodos tell Homer that they come from "A nearby ringed planet whose name we'd prefer not to mention".
• Weirdness Censor: Nobody in America seems to notice the drastic overnight shift in Bill Clinton and Bob Dole's personalities, including their openly talking about conquering the world and enslaving all of humanity. At one point "Clinton" delivers a nonsensical speech where he starts spinning in place ("twirling towards freedom"), and the crowd cheers (except for Lisa).
  Kodos/Clinton: I am Clin-ton! As overlord, all will kneel trembling before me and obey my brutal commands! (crosses arms over chest) End communication!
  Marge: Hrrm, that's Slick Willie for you. Always with the smooth talk.
• Whole-Plot Reference: The Genesis Tub segment is a reference to the The Twilight Zone (1959) episode "The Little People". This plot would be referenced too in the South Park episode "Simpsons Already Did It" where the characters point out that Cartman bringing a bunch of "sea men" alive in an aquarium is similar to the plot of this Simpsons Halloween episode.
• Windbag Politician: Taken to extremes when Kang and Kodos disguise themselves as Bob Dole and Bill Clinton. Nobody seems to notice that nothing they say makes much sense though.
• You Have to Believe Me!: Lampshaded when Kang and Kodos abduct Homer and spray him with rum before releasing him so that his warnings will be dismissed as drunken ravings.
  Homer: Why won't anyone believe my crazy story?
• You're Insane!: Bart tells his conjoined twin Hugo, "You're crazy!", to which Hugo replies, "Am I? Well, perhaps we're all a little crazy. I know I am."