Ty says Boo-Urns to Halloween

AHHHHHHH

Today is Halloween eve.

I don't care for Halloween as I mentioned in my blog yesterday. Today, I'm going to give specific reasons why I dislike this "holiday" but, I'm also going to tell you things that I do enjoy about this time of year.

Let's get to the annoying stuff. First of all, adults dressing up in costumes. This is fine if you have kids and you dress as a family, I get that. For example, my three year old is going as the Hulk this year, so my wife is going as Catwoman, she's wearing kitty ears and will have a bit of face makeup, our three week old is going as a mini Catwoman, she has a sleeper with cats on it, and I'm going as the Punisher, I'm wearing a Punisher t shirt. This is fine in my opinion because, this holiday is for kids, and more specifically, toddlers. Toddlers like dressing up, going house to house showing off their costumes and getting candy. That's what Halloween should be about and parents dressing up with their kids is totally acceptable. The problem I have is the people in their mid 20's and early 30's, kid free, using Halloween as an excuse to dress slutty, offensive or down right stupid. I'm sick of young kids dressing like "sexy kitty cats", or "nurses". Look at the movie "Mean Girls", and you'll know what I'm talking about. These teens use Halloween as an excuse to dress inappropriate. Or, take Julianne Hough last year thinking it was okay to dress in black face because she went as Crazy Eyes from "Orange is the New Black". That's so wrong and extremely offensive on so many levels. Don't use Halloween as your excuse for being a racist Ms.Hough. And guys with their dumbass " God's gift to women" costumes or their "sexy firefighter" bull shit, give it a rest. You're all a bunch of douchebag wannabe frat boys and you make me sick. Halloween is for kids and candy, not for dumbass Millenials that need another excuse to get drunk and act like morons. Grow up.

I also am completely fed up with the stupid Halloween puns. If I have to hear one more time about"spooktacular" savings or "prices so low they'll frighten you", I'm going to destroy my television. I don't understand the marketing for this. Do they want me to be afraid that I'm going to save money? I thought that was a good thing. I've also been watching a lot of Food Network with my wife who's on maternity leave. They have a show called "Chopped" and instead of sticking with this name, which is a pretty good name for a cooking show, they've been calling it "Choppedtober". That doesn't make any sense. Why add tober because it's October? Why don't they call it "Choppedgust" in August or "Choppedcember" in December? Why does October and Halloween only get this treatment? It's totally baffling and pretty god damn stupid.

I also don't enjoy being frightened and I hate scary movies. I've been to one haunted house in my entire life and I had to remove myself from the situation almost immediately because a worker dressed as a clown scared me so much, I thought I was going to have a panic attack. I'm terrified of clowns and during Halloween, people dressed as clowns, especially creepy clowns, scare me more than anything I've ever encountered in my life. I don't like that people prey on other people that are scared of certain things by dressing in a costume as someone's fear. That's the worst thing about haunted houses. They're designed to startle you, and who really likes being startled? It doesn't feel good. And scary movies, no thank you. This is pretty much the same thing as haunted houses. I know that they're fake, but it doesn't change the fact that they scare me. I saw the "Shining" once, at a sleep over when I was a teenager and that movie still haunts me to this day. My wife suggested we watch it during the day on Halloween and I immediately said no. There's no way I'm going to watch that movie because I know the consequences that will come afterward. I'd much rather watch something like "Cabin in the Woods" or "Evil Dead". Sure, those movies are scary, but they're also campy and hilarious. I don't like straight up horror movies. Never have and I never will.

Now there are some good things about this time of year. First of all, the candy. My god it's everywhere, and 90 percent of it is delicious. Give me a Reese's pumpkin or any kind of chocolate treat and I'm happy as a clam. I love all candy this time of year except for the most foul, grossest shit ever created, candy corn. I also really like pumpkin seeds and I love pumpkin pie. Those are two great things that come out this time of year. My wife loves the pumpkin spice latte at Starbucks and that's only available through November. I love the season. Leaves are falling, there's a nip in the air and it's a good time to be out doors. We get a new "Treehouse of Horror" this time of year, as I explained yesterday. We also get to turn back the clocks one hour, gain that extra sleep, and have shorter, colder days. I like this.

There's a lot of bad, but there's also some good. I may hate Halloween, but at least Thanksgiving, Christmas, cold weather and family gatherings are right around the corner. As a lady on a recent "Chopped" said, "my favorite part about Halloween is November 1st". I whole heartedly agree with her and I love this sentiment. Only two more days until this dumb "holiday" is over.

We've almost made it.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man podcast. His fear of clowns was reinforced by a bean bag toss board painted like a clown and a faulty laser tag gun. Ask him all about by following Ty on twitter @tykulik.

Treehouse of Horrors is one of the only good things about Halloween

No trick or treating for me. The Simpsons is on.

With Halloween only two days away, FXX has been showing all of the "Treehouse of Horrors" episodes of "The Simpsons".

It's been quite nice.

I wasn't a big fan of the first iterations of these Halloween themed episodes, but since I met my wife, I've grown to enjoy them quite a bit. She has always been a fan and she has turned me into one as well. When they first started to show up, around the second season I believe, they took them too seriously, in my opinion. The first "THOH" was and still is a classic, but the three stories were pretty dark, especially the "Raven" segment. They took Edgar Allan Poe's famous poem , made Homer the main guy from the story and had a raven that had Bart's head super imposed on it. He recited the poem as Homer went crazier and crazier. It was funny in some parts, but for a "Simpsons" episode, it was dark. Homer went insane. This became a tradition after the huge hit that was their first "THOH". They do one every year, usually airing them the week after or a week before Halloween. Today, I'm going to tell you about some of my personal favorites and some of my wife's favorites. I'll pick out mainly segments because sometimes the whole episode isn't great, but of the three segments, one is usually a home run.

I want to start with a recent "THOH". Season 26 had a great second segment with "A Clockwork Yellow". Barney, Homer and Moe played the cronies from "A Clockwork Orange", with Moe playing the Malcolm McDowell character, Alex. This was a fantastic spoof of a classic movie. Moe went through all the same things Alex did, but played it for laughs. For example, when Alex was being reprogrammed, they forced his eyes open and made him watch horrific videos of heinous crimes. In the "Simpsons" "THOH", they did a close up of Moe, eyes pried open like Alex's, but he says, "this is the only way I can sit through terrible Fox programming". It was genius. My favorite part of the segment was when Homer, playing the oafish thug, meets Marge and they play the scene where, in "A Clockwork Orange", it's very sexually graphic and pretty gross, "The Simpsons" played it with Homer eating massive amounts of food, sleeping and totally ignoring Marge. They pulled it off like only "The Simpsons" can.

Season 12 had a great opening segment to their "THOH". It was entitled "G-G-G-Ghost Dad" and it was about Homer's death being for told via a newspaper horoscope. Despite the family's hesitance to let Homer leave, he does anyway, not scared of death, and awaiting a comment from a "handsome" co worker, he presumes it will be Lenny. On his way to work, Homer gets hit by a pick axe, nearly misses being crushed by a metal structure, has an unexplained growth thing and gets bitten by a rattlesnake. He arrives at work and gets his compliment from Lenny, saying," if I may compliment you Homer, that's a mighty nice rattlesnake biting your arm". He arrives home and is fine, but then he eats one single piece of broccoli and immediately dies. He becomes a ghost, eats the broccoli again, dies again and becomes a ghost once more. He has to do one good deed before he can get into heaven, and all his attempts end in failure until he saves a crying baby from going into a busy intersection. Unfortunately, the angel doesn't see this and Homer is banished to hell where Satan gives him noogies and weggies while saying "ha ha" the whole time. It's hilarious.

One of my favorite "THOH" of all time is from season 10, titled "Hell Toupee". In this segment, Homer gets a hair transplant from newly dead convict Snake. At first everything is all peaches and cream and Homer looks great. But, prior to dying, Snake tells the three people that ratted him out that he was going to get them. After the hair transplant, at night, the hair takes over for Homer and controls his actions. He gets revenge on both Apu and Moe, two of the three guys that ratted him out. The third is Bart. This is where the conflict begins. Homer and his new hair do trap Bart is his room, and Bart does everything in his power to convince his dad to not hurt him. Homer finally rips the hair off, thus saving Bart, but the hair comes to life and tries to get him. They get the hair off Bart and while it's trying to escape one of the funniest moments on the "Simpsons" occurs. The hair, that has sideburns, lifts one of the sideburns, a la a fist, and wags it in anger before Chief Wiggum guns it down. It's a classic "THOH" segment.

My personal favorite "THOH" is from season 8 entitled "Citizen Kang". This one is great from top to bottom. We get Bob Dole and Bill Clinton impressions. Kang and Kodos become Dole and Clinton. While dressed like Dole and Clinton, Kang and Kodos hold hands to " give each other protein strains", speak in their typical monotone voice and are together constantly. We get great lines like, "abortions for none, BOO!, ok, abortions for all, BOO!, ok, abortions for some, miniature American flags for all, yeah!" or, " well, I guess I'll just vote for a third party candidate. Go ahead throw your vote away, ha ha ha" and, my favorite coming from Kent Brockman, " Clinton's contributors credited his attitude to an over tight neck tie" when talking about Kang disguised as Clinton saying something very wrong. This is, by far, the best segment of any "THOH" that "The Simpsons" has put out.

I know that my wife loves any "THOH" that has Kang and Kodos involved. She really liked the new one where Sideshow Bob finally gets Bart and keeps killing him over and over again, she's a big Sideshow Bob fan. I know she likes the segment where you find out Maggie is really Kang's daughter and they go on "Jerry Springer". Those three are just off the top of my head. She likes them all, but she talks to me about those more than others.

For all the flack that I give Halloween as a "holiday", I truly despise it, at least we do get a new "THOH" every year. I know that they will always be good because it's part of "The Simpsons" universe and pretty much everything they do is great. "THOH" may be one of the few things I like about Halloween. I still have to deal with the stupid puns and people in their 20's and 30's, with no kids, dressing up like it's a real holiday, but at least I get one thing that I know I'll enjoy and that I look forward to every Halloween.

I guess I'm trying to say, Halloween will always be lame, but "The Simpsons" will always deliver with a great new "Treehouse of Horror".

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man podcast. He likes people and thinks clown make-up is ok, but people wearing clown make-up are the worst. Follow Ty on twitter @tykulik.