Guillermo del Toro’s Simpsons Opening: Spot the Reference!

A handy gif guide to the characters and movies referenced in this sequence: from Alfred Hitchock to Zombies

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To celebrate the latest installment of their long-running Treehouse of Horror episodes —  the annual Halloween-themed celebrations of mayhem and gore — Simpsons producers turned to Guillermo del Toro to put his spin on the show’s title sequence.

The acclaimed director of such modern horror classics as Hellboy, Pan’s Labyrinth and The Devil’s Backbone — and a diehard Simpsons fan — was more than up to the task.  His wondrously entertaining “couch gag” is a densely packed celebration of horror- and sci-fi-cinema.

We went through the footage and put together this collection of movies, characters, and real-life persons referenced  in this nearly three-minute  clip.

Mutated Springfielders swarm the power plant walls like the zombie hordes of this summers World War Z.

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Chief Wiggum, it seems, has been transformed into the Cyclops from Ray Harryhausen’s The 7th Voyage of Sinbad.

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Poor Edna Krabappel has the misfortune of sitting next to Alfred Hitchcock and an avian army from The Birds

Simpsons Treehouse of Terror

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Del Toro sneaks in several references to his own movies, including this Hellboy bit, in which a slumbering Karl Kroenen does battle with Groundskeeper Willie’s horned demon scourge 

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Del Toro revisits another one of his movies — this time, Blade II: Homer is a Reaper and Carl is the vampire hunter

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More del Toro! Mr. Burns is the Pale Man from Pan’s LabyrinthWaylon Smithers is his midnight snack.

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Lisa jams with various Phantoms of the Opera and, behind the keyboard, the Phantom of Paradise

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Bart tangles with a multi-tentacled beast straight out of the Cthulhu Mythos … Simpsons Treehouse of Terror
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…before skating right past Cthulhu creator H.P. Lovecraft, and fellow horror/fantasy greats Edgar Allen PoeRay Bradbury (adding some touches to his Illustrated Man),  Richard Matheson (trying to ignore an albino mutant from The Omega Man) Simpsons Treehouse of Terror
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Bart is pursued by a gaggle of monsters and creatures from Universal Pictures’ heyday: FrankensteinDracula, the Wolfman, the Mummy, a Zagon from This Island Earth, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, the Bride of Frankenstein, and the Invisible ManSimpsons Treehouse of Terror
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Maggie is behind the wheel of the killer sedan from the 1977 movie The Car Simpsons Treehouse of Terror
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Way too many characters tossed in here, among them: Robbie the Robot from Forbidden PlanetNosferatu, the animated skeletons from Jason and the Argonauts, the Fly,  the Half Boy from Freaks, and Klaatu from The Day the Earth Stood Still  Simpsons Treehouse of Terror
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Lisa, dressed as Alice (of Wonderland fame), encounters Futurama‘s Hypnotoad Simpsons Treehouse of Terror
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Del Toro ends the sequence with a revisit to Pan’s Labyrinth, with Lisa as Ofelia and her parents as the King and Queen of the UnderworldSimpsons Treehouse of Terror
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See the full intro here:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtgYY7dhTyE&w=420&h=315]