How 3D Homer Simpson Came to Haunt One of the Most Terrifying ‘Treehouse of Horror’ Episodes

All October long, Cracked is catching up with some of the greatest writers in Simpsons history to discuss the most beloved segments from the “Treehouse of Horror” series. From the cursed monkey’s paw to Krusto the Clown, we’re digging into the making of some real fan-favorites.

Here’s one more “The Simpsons did it first” moment for the pile: A month before Toy Story hit theaters, “Treehouse of Horror VI” featured a 3D Homer in the segment “Homer³,” an utterly mind-blowing feat back in 1995 and possibly the boldest thing the show had done up until that point.

Maybe more impressively, it was a feat pulled off by a couple of newbie showrunners, Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein. They’d written on The Simpsons for several seasons already, but “Treehouse of Horror VI” was just their third episode at the helm — an episode that went on to be a classic. In addition to “Homer³,” in which Homer is sucked into the third dimension, there was “Attack of the 50-Foot Eyesores,” where Springfield comes under attack by giant mascots come to life, and “Nightmare on Evergreen Terrace,” a parody of A Nightmare on Elm Street with Groundskeeper Willy perfectly filling the shoes of Freddy Krueger. 

I recently caught up with Oakley and Weinstein to discuss what it was like to make The Simpsons before the internet, the origins of Lard Lad and how a book about The Twilight Zone served as the ultimate inspiration.

Was this episode intimidating at all because the first five Treehouses were so beloved?

Oakley: No. Nobody had any idea what the public liked and didn’t like back then. We didn’t know which “Treehouses” people liked and didn’t like, so it wasn’t like we were intimidated by the previous ones because they’d already been forgotten. 

During that time, nobody gave a shit whether or not people liked the show, it was all about the ratings, and the ratings weren’t that good. We were usually getting beat by Matlock, Touched By an Angel and Mad About You. The show was always a little bit on the bubble. If Fox had had something better, they might have canceled it, but they didn’t. I remember people being like, “The show isn’t going to last much longer.”

Weinstein: We really thought we had free rein, because we didn’t know how much longer it would go. We’re so grateful for the love these episodes get now, but back then it felt like we were on our own. The only thing intimidating about this episode was having to direct Paul Anka, who was our first guest star we recorded. But then he came in, and he was so nice. 

Oakley: And it took about eight minutes.

How did the idea for “Attack of the 50-Foot Eyesores” develop?

Weinstein: It was a combination of things. A) We really like advertising mascots; B) John Swartzwelder had been in advertising; and C) I collect little tins, and I had this tin of Red Devil Cleanser, which had a giant Red Devil looming over a city, and I thought it’d be really cool to see all these mascots really large and attacking Springfield. I don’t remember, though, if I pitched the idea or if it came from Swartzwelder. 

Oakley: I think it was a room thing. As I recall, with the Halloween episodes prior to this and the two that we did, it wasn’t a story retreat thing, it was a thing where people sat in the room. We had that Twilight Zone episode guide and we had another one that was an encyclopedia of horror movies and people would just leaf through these things and say, “What if we did a parody of The Exorcist?”

That said, I don’t remember who came up with this specific idea. Obviously, once the spark came together, there were a lot of chefs in that kitchen, putting little pieces in.

Weinstein: Right, like the realization that “Ooh! Lard Lad can come alive!”

Oakley: We invented Lard Lad for this!

Weinstein: Lard Lad didn’t exist?

Oakley: I believe I came up with the phrase “Lard Lad.” It was going to be Bob’s Big Boy, but then we thought we should have our own parody of Bob’s Big Boy. “What should it be?” “How about if it’s another guy who looks just like him that sells donuts?” That’s because Krispy Kreme was becoming a big thing at the time, and they were moving into L.A. That’s why there’s that joke in there where it says, “The chain that put the ‘fat’ in fat Southern sheriffs.”

How about “Nightmare on Evergreen Terrace”?

Oakley: This was one of things where we were like, “What horror movie can we parody that we haven’t yet parodied?” A Nightmare on Elm Street was a natural.

Weinstein: We liked it because it was more recent as opposed to a 1950s horror movie. At the time, it was more like the new horror. I remember saying, “Let’s make it genuinely scary.”

Oakley: People over the years have told me that this scared the shit out of them when they were kids. 

That segment has that Looney Tunes-type opening with Bart and Santa’s Little Helper. Where did that come from?

Oakley: We wanted to indicate visually that something was off. The standard trope of A Nightmare on Elm Street is that people don’t realize they’re dreaming and that’s what this was. We hint at it with those painted backgrounds like in Warner Bros. cartoons, but it seems normal at first. When the dog starts talking, it becomes clear that this isn’t really happening. Because things are so crazy in Halloween episodes to begin with, we had to indicate that this was an actual dream and not part of the “Treehouse” craziness.

Of course, the biggest segment of the episode is “Homer³.” Bill, this was your idea, correct?

Oakley: Yes. We had that Twilight Zone book in the writers room, and I was running through it and I remembered that one about the little girl who gets stuck in the fourth dimension. I thought, “Why doesn’t Homer get stuck in the third dimension? It makes perfect sense.” 

The initial idea was that Homer was going to go through more dimensions. They’d have different styles, like a cutout paper dimension and a claymation dimension. But then we were like, “Let’s just parody the Twilight Zone episode beat-for-beat.” 

Weinstein: It was already going to be expensive enough as it was.

Oakley: For the computer animation, we hooked up with Pacific Data Images (PDI), which basically did it for free to use it as a calling card. 

Weinstein: We had David Cohen write it because it was science-y and math-y. There are all these math jokes in there that we don’t even get.

Was there anything about that segment that didn’t make the cut?

Oakley: Early on, Flanders was going to be 3D too, but it was too much. We had to cut him.

Weinstein: Homer and Bart were hard enough to model that PDI said that was all they could handle.

There weren’t a lot of 3D representations of the characters back then, right?

Oakley: There were dolls. They had them at PDI. They had gotten old dolls from thrift shops — old Bart and Homer dolls and they scanned them and stuff.

What about the live-action ending?

Oakley: David Mirkin, who ran the show right before us, was still consulting. He had done a lot of live-action stuff so he volunteered to direct it. The funnest part was seeing that place made up as the erotic cake store. Overall, it wasn’t that exciting because there was no Homer. What they had was a ping-pong ball on a fishing rod and all the people walking by were told, “That ping pong ball is Homer, so keep your eyes on the ping pong ball.” 

So, really, the most exciting thing was seeing the erotic cake store and the fact that the writers got to take home the erotic cakes sign, which we then hung in the writers room. It stayed there for years.