Schedule of Horror

In November 1996, the BBC took ownership of the first four seasons of The Simpsons, including the first three Treehouses of Horror. Even back in the 90s, broadcasters didn't always make a special effort for Halloween... but now the Beeb have three Halloween specials it would take minimal effort to schedule around that time of the year, didn't they? Well, the show started its terrestrial airings too late for Halloween 1996, so what do we find if we jump forward to 1997?

1997

This is a good start: At this point the show was broadcast on BBC Two on Mondays and Fridays, and Monday was the first BBC outing for the first Treehouse, and on Friday (Halloween itself!) they showed the second. Both are referred to in the Radio Times as "The Simpsons Halloween Special", which isn't unreasonable given they're the onscreen titles, but they would surely have known the official titles of the episodes are "Treehouse of Horror". No other special Halloween programming appears on the day itself, although at 9.30pm there's a repeat of the Red Dwarf episode "Epideme", which is a pretty scary prospect.

1998

"Treehouse of Horror III" ended up premiering in early September, in an odd 9pm slot, but the fourth did so on Monday 19th October (which may be happenstance, given it was part of their premiere run of the fifth season, the first time they'd shown a season in order having shown the first four all higgledy-piggledy). I does, however, receive a repeat on the 26th, II follows suit on the 27th, and III on the 30th, with no other concessions to the witching hour in sight. Note that a March 2000 repeat of IV is listed as "Treehouse of Horror IV (The Simpsons Halloween Special IV)", the first time the 'official' production title was used by the RT.

1999

A double-bill of repeats on Friday 29th, specifically IV and V (which had premiered in an out-of-season slot some months earlier). Later in the evening is a repeat of the Red Dwarf episode "Pete (Part Two)", which allows me to reuse the exact same joke from before.

2001

Nothing was done for 2000 (it happens "Homer vs. Patty & Selma" was repeated on 30 October, but that seems more likely to be a coincidence rather than someone being clever), but 2 November 2001 sees the BBC premiere of THOH VIII (V to VII having all premiered in out-of-season slots; in VII's case, this is because it was skipped during the late 2000 premiere of Season 8 to avoid "Citizen Kang" airing in the week of the 2000 election!)

2002

The BBC are premiering Season 10 around this time, and specifically move THOH IX around in the schedule so it can make it debut on Halloween itself. It's part of a surprisingly extensive night of spooky shows, as just before is, of all things, a Halloween special of Weakest Link USA, and twenty minutes afterwards is the terrestrial premiere of the sixth season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (and for that season I could bring out the same joke for the third time), and later in the night comes the last in the present series of The League of Gentlemen.

2003

The very last Halloween for which the BBC will have the rights to the show, and they do pretty well with a double-bill of repeats, specifically THOHs II and VIII. (They begin their premiere of Season 11 a few weeks later, and end up debuting THOH X only a week before Christmas!)