The Simpsons Season 38, Episode 4, titled “Treehouse of Horror XXXVII,” aired on Fox on Sunday, October 25, 2026. This year’s Halloween special follows the classic three-story format, but it opens with something the show has never done before: a full stop-motion animated intro. The episode brings back the show’s tradition of non-canon horror stories, meaning none of the events in these segments carry over into the regular season . The three shorts are “Bride’s Shed Revisited,” “Dog Boy Afternoon,” and “Vehicular Dad Slaughter” . Each one puts a different member of the Simpson family through a strange and often violent situation.
A Stop-Motion Nightmare Before Christmas Opening
Before the stories begin, Stoopid Buddy Stoodios turns Springfield into a claymation version of The Nightmare Before Christmas . Bart appears with Jack Skellington’s thin body and striped suit, while Homer looks like the Mayor with a tall hat and a large round body . The sculpted faces and handmade details reward close attention. The intro is not just a visual gag; it sets the tone for an episode that leans harder into horror imagery than some recent Halloween specials .
Marge’s Shed Swaps Out Husbands in Bride’s Shed Revisited
The first segment, “Bride’s Shed Revisited,” takes place before Homer and Marge have children. It is their first wedding anniversary, and the shed they received as a gift still has not been built . Marge builds it herself, but Homer tightens the final screw and takes the credit . When Homer steps into the shed, he vanishes, and Lenny walks out as Marge’s husband . The wedding photo changes. The rest of her life changes. Every time a man goes into the shed, a different husband comes out, and Marge remembers each life while everyone around her treats the newest one as normal .
The segment is a loose parody of Holly Gramazio’s novel The Husbands, in which a woman discovers an endless supply of replacement partners in her attic . Tiffany Haddish voices Tiffany, a best friend who appears in Marge’s new life and encourages her to keep swapping husbands until she finds the right one . Marge cycles through several of Springfield’s men before Survivor host Jeff Probst arrives as an unusually handsome animated husband, voicing himself . Probst is credited as Jeff “The Tribe Has Spookin’” Probst, continuing the show’s tradition of giving Halloween guest stars creepy credit names .
Marge is impressed by Probst, but seeing Homer with another woman makes her miss her real husband. She finds Homer and points a gun at him, and they enter the shed together. The two return to their usual selves . Critics noted that the segment gives Marge a believable reason to be angry before anything supernatural happens, but the return to Homer comes too easily after so much time spent on the replacement husbands .
Bart and Santa’s Little Helper Trade Bodies in Dog Boy Afternoon
The second segment, “Dog Boy Afternoon,” blends Freaky Friday with Pet Sematary . Homer takes Bart and Santa’s Little Helper out for food after they are unimpressed with Marge’s cooking. A meatball tossed into the street leads to the dog being hit by a car. While digging a grave, Homer accidentally kills Bart with his shovel and buries them together . The next morning, Bart and Santa’s Little Helper return to the breakfast table with their minds in the wrong bodies. Bart’s body behaves like a dog, while Santa’s Little Helper uses Bart’s skateboard and tries to get Lisa’s attention .
Lisa uses a Ouija board to learn what happened. Marge thinks it is an act. Homer gets bitten by Santa’s Little Helper, who now has Bart’s soul, and puts the dog in a cage. Lisa and Bart hurry to save the dog, and Homer is attacked by a pack of street dogs . The segment ends with a grave-digging scene and a lightning strike that swaps the bodies again . The violence in this short goes further than a normal Simpsons family fight, with Homer’s attempts to hide the deaths coming across as more unsettling than the later bloodshed .
Patty and Selma Trap Homer in a Deadly Driving Film
The third segment, “Vehicular Dad Slaughter,” jumps forward in time. Homer has been missing for seven years, and teenage Bart and Lisa discover that their aunts, Patty and Selma, trapped him inside a dangerous driving-instruction film . The siblings enter the film, titled Death Driver with Daddy, to bring him back . Lisa calculates how to avoid a head-on crash and tells Homer how to control a skid on ice. When a gang of bikers surrounds the car, Bart and Lisa use the doors to knock them away .
Patty and Selma appear as witches in traffic-cone hats, running the motor-vehicle department as a place where passing the test means staying alive . The segment is the funniest part of the special, according to IGN, which praised the recurring gag of Homer drinking his way through morning and afternoon-themed liquor in the previous segment but called the driving lesson the standout . Pixel Twelve gave the episode a 7/10 score, noting that Patty and Selma’s driving challenges keep changing the jokes and that Bart’s final parallel parking attempt is especially funny .
A Decades-Old Marge Theory Comes Back to the Surface
The Lenny husband swap in “Bride’s Shed Revisited” ties back to a fan theory that has circulated for years. The theory claims Marge has deep feelings for Lenny, one of Homer’s friends, and it was inspired by the Season 11 episode “Hello Gutter, Hello Fadder” . The Simpsons has never confirmed the theory in canon, but the Halloween special uses the non-canon format to play with the idea directly. Marge does not choose Lenny in the end, but the segment gives the theory a brief moment in the spotlight.
“If there’s no one particular standout segment in this year’s ‘Treehouse,’ at least there aren’t any weak links, either.” — IGN review of “Treehouse of Horror XXXVII”
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Cast and Release Details
Dan Castellaneta voices Homer, Julie Kavner voices Marge, Patty, and Selma, Nancy Cartwright voices Bart, and Yeardley Smith voices Lisa . Jeff Probst and Tiffany Haddish guest star as themselves. The episode was written by Joel H. Cohen, Jessica Conrad, and Tim Long, and directed by David Silverman . “Treehouse of Horror XXXVII” aired on Fox at 8 PM ET/PT on October 25, 2026 . For viewers in the United States, the episode streams on Hulu the day after broadcast. International audiences can watch through Disney+ in regions where the service carries The Simpsons, with release timing varying by country. The episode runs 21 minutes .
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