How an Iconic Treehouse of Horror Episode Violates Every Rule of ‘The Simpsons’

One of The Simpsons’ very best “Treehouse of Horror” episodes also happened to be one of the most political — sorta.

After serving up a story about Bart’s secret evil twin, and a Twilight Zone riff involving a miniature civilization, “Treehouse of Horror VII” ended with “Citizen Kang,” in which everyone’s favorite Rigellians swap places with presidential candidates Bill Clinton and Bob Dole.

Airing less than two weeks before the 1996 presidential election, “Citizen Kang” was an unusually topical storyline for The Simpsons, so much so that it broke one of Matt Groening’s core dictums for the series up to that point. “This episode violates every rule of The Simpsons,” writer David X. Cohen noted during the episode’s DVD commentary, “but it’s a Halloween episode so maybe that’s okay, Matt can pass judgment.”

Cohen went on to explain that the segment is “so fixed at a certain time, which is kind of a general taboo on The Simpsons. By naming the specific candidates of that 1996 election, this is forever set in one time, and not as universally understandable as other episodes.”

While other Simpsons episodes obviously incorporated political figures and celebrities specific to the era in which they appeared, no episodes had specifically tethered their stories to real-world events the way that the ‘96 Halloween special did the ‘96 election. And the trend of “Treehouse of Horror” episodes receiving a pass for depicting chronological specificity would continue with 1999’s “Life’s a Glitch, Then You Die” which was set on New Year’s Eve ‘99, and dramatized the Y2K paranoia of the day.

Oddly enough, despite the fact that “Citizen Kang” is full of specific references to Clinton and Dole, it hasn’t become horribly dated. The show eschewed criticizing any one candidate, but it did ultimately send up the frustrating powerlessness of voting within the confines of America’s two-party system. Is there anything more laughably sad than Homer’s final line: “Don’t blame me, I voted for Kodos.” 

Thanks to this episode, Kang and Kodos have become a potent symbol of voter discontentment. And not just in the United States; in 2015, during Canada’s federal election, Kang and Kodos political signs were spotted in yards North of the border.

But even the Simpsons brass admit that their political message may have been more self-serving than profound. Cohen conceded that a lot of comedy shows that “take on elections” have the same moral: “The point is always the same. The point is it does not matter which of the awful candidates you vote for.” That way, “you’re able to feel like you’re making a commentary, without actually taking sides and alienating people,” Cohen added. 

“Which is a complete falsity,” producer Josh Weinstein pointed out, “the idiot criminal that we have in office is a lot worse…” 

This episode was recorded in the early 2000s, just in case you wondered which exact Idiot Criminal in Chief he was referring to. 

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