The Simpsons Parodies the Presidential Election in New Treehouse of Horror Clip

Ahead of the annual 'Treehouse of Horror' episode of The Simpsons, FOX has released a new clip [...]

By Spencer Perry

Ahead of the annual "Treehouse of Horror" episode of The Simpsons, FOX has released a new clip from the episode which puts a real horrorshow in its sights: the 2020 presidential election. In the clip, Homer enters a voting booth but finds himself stumped about how to choose for commander-in-chief. After a brief chastising from Lisa about "everything that's happened over the last four years," a non-stop list of complaints against incumbent President Trump begins to scroll across the screen including: Put children in cages, Looks lousy in a tennis outfit, Can't get wife to hold hand, Refused to release tax returns, Destroyed democracy, Destroyed post office, Paid $750 in taxes, and concluding with "and we haven't even said the worst one." Watch the clip for yourself below.

Treehouse of Horror XXXI is scheduled to air on Sunday, October 18 at 8 P.M. ET on FOX (provided there's no NLCS Game 7). The new episode is described as follows: "Don't miss the annual terror-themed trilogy, including a frightening look at the 2020 election, parodies of Pixar and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and a ninth birthday Lisa just can't get over in the all-new Halloween-themed episode." Film Critic Ben Mankiewicz guest-voices as himself.

The new season of The Simpsons, its 32nd overall, initially nabbed huge ratings for Fox when it premiered last month. The first episode, "Undercover Burns," garnered 5.5 million total viewers, with a 2.0 rating among the adults 18-49 demographic. These ratings were more than double what the Season 31 premiere earned, with "The Winter of Our Monetized Content" getting 2.33 million viewers in 2019. Episodes following the season 32 premiere dropped back to the averages of the series.

Some of the headlines surrounding The Simpsons leading into the new episodes this year were primarily about the major changes to the voice cast of the long running series, including a new voice actor for the long-running supporting character Carl Carlson. The Flash and Becker star Alex Désert voiced Carl in the premiere episode, taking over the role from Hank Azaria for at least that episode.

This switch by the creative team of the series came after they promised to no longer have white actors voice non-white characters, a change that was announced earlier this summer amid conversations of social justice and Black representation in media. Furthermore it was confirmed earlier this year that it would also be scaling back appearances of Apu (who was also voiced by Azaria), after years of backlash from fans and the documentary The Problem With Apu.

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