By Rowan Vale Fact-checked by Fiona Dalrymple Updated
CONFIRMED
The Simpsons has released its stop-motion Nightmare Before Christmas parody opening for Treehouse of Horror XXXVII, along with behind-the-scenes footage of how it was made. Co-executive producer Tim Long walked Dread Central through how Springfield ended up in Halloween Town, and his answer starts with 25 spare seconds.
What we know
Dread Central’s Brad Miska interviewed Tim Long, and the casting is exactly as delightful as you’d hope. Bart plays Jack Skellington, Homer is the two-faced Mayor, and Ned Flanders takes on Oogie Boogie. Dread Central’s image gallery also shows Santa’s Little Helper as Zero, which might be the most natural casting in Treehouse history.
According to Dread Central, Long said the opening came about partly because the episode had 25 extra seconds to fill at the top. He joked that Fox doesn’t like a blank screen for almost half a minute. He also told the outlet the mash-up seemed like it was “begging to happen,” and honestly, any fan who has watched both properties every October would agree.
This wasn’t a total surprise. Back in September, Polygon reported that co-producer Mike Price said this year’s Treehouse would include a stop-motion opening in the style of The Nightmare Before Christmas. MickeyBlog covered the news on September 29, 2026, relaying reporting from Polygon and from Variety, which spoke with executive producer Matt Selman.
Treehouse of Horror XXXVII airs Sunday, October 25, 2026 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Fox, per Dread Central. The outlet’s image gallery also shows a Hereditary nod in the episode, so keep an eye out for that.
Per Animation World Network and Dread Central coverage, the episode was written by Joel H. Cohen, Jessica Conrad and Tim Long, and directed by David Silverman, with Long co-running it under showrunner Matt Selman.
What we don’t know yet
The big open question is how long this thing took to make. Dread Central reports Long said the sequence took roughly six months. Animation World Network, meanwhile, says it was built in three months, crediting that figure to a co-founder of the animation studio and to Long. Those numbers don’t line up, and until Fox or the show clarifies, we’re treating the timeframe as unverified.
We also don’t have a full rundown of the episode’s segments from an official source. Pirates & Princesses reports that when Variety spoke to Selman on September 26, Fox had not yet released official segment titles.
What it means
For horror fans, this is a lovely bit of symmetry. The Nightmare Before Christmas, directed by Henry Selick and produced by Tim Burton, came out in 1993, just three years after the Treehouse tradition began. Both have spent decades as seasonal comfort viewing, and seeing one rendered in the handmade style of the other feels like a gift to anyone who grew up with them side by side.
The timing is a nice touch too. Pirates & Princesses, citing Disney+, notes that this year’s episode lands 36 years to the day after the first Treehouse of Horror aired on October 25, 1990.
It also caps a busy spooky season for the show. CBR reports that a separate Halloween episode, “Treehouse of Horror Presents: The Revengening,” aired earlier this month and spoofed I Know What You Did Last Summer. Between a slasher riff and a stop-motion Burton-Selick tribute, the writers clearly know their genre history.
And if a 25-second gap in the schedule can produce Ned Flanders as a sack full of bugs, we’d happily see Fox leave a little more blank space every year.
Behind this article
- Fact-checked by Fiona Dalrymple before publication.
- Published · Updated
How we checked it
- Every claim is checked by Fiona Dalrymple; anything we cannot confirm is corrected, labelled or removed.