The Simpsons are not only the world's most famous TV family; they are also the protagonists of one of the longest-lasting animation programs in US television. Over the course of the past thirty years, the yellow five from Springfield have become an indispensable part of American popular culture which still turns academics into fans and inspires fans to research the objects of their fascination. This book focuses on the Halloween Special TREEHOUSE OF HORROR, a part of THE SIMPSONS which research has largely left unnoticed. If THE SIMPSONS revolutionized how we look through television at US-American culture and society, TREEHOUSE OF HORROR has changed the way we re-member popular-culture history by way of horror traditions. This study demonstrates how Matt Groening's cartoon shows have painted a yellow archive of the digital age.

Sandra Danneil has a master's degree in Cinema and Television Studies from Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany, and a Bachelor's degree in education. In 2020, she successfully defended her dissertation project entitled "Trick, Treat, Transgress: The Simpsons' Treehouse of Horror as Popular-Culture History of the Digital Age" and was awarded with summa cum laude. Sandra Danneil works as a Postdoc in the British and American Studies Department at TU Dortmund University where she teaches courses in Cultural and Media Studies. She worked in the film- and television industry for several years, is currently producing her own horror-film podcast and spends much of her time working in the field of horror media studies, and doing research in genre studies with a focus on female serial killers and the new final girl, contemporary horror fiction, cinematic (un)pleasure, complex seriality, and new media culture. SANDRA DANNEIL hat einen Magisterabschluss in Film- und Fernsehwissenschaften von der Ruhr-Universität Bochum und einen Bachelorabschluss der TU Dortmund in Berufschulpädagogik. 2020 schloss sie erfolgreich ihr Dissertationsprojekt "Trick, Treat, Transgress: The Simpsons' Treehouse of Horror as Popular-Culture History of the Digital Age" mit Summa cum Laude ab. Sandra Danneil arbeitet als Postdoc in der Anglistik / Amerikanistik im neugegründeten Institut für Sprache, Literatur und Kultur an der TU Dortmund. Hier unterrichtet sie Kurse in den Kultur- und Medienwissenschaften. Sie arbeitete mehrere Jahre in der deutschen Film- und Fernsehlandschaft, produziert ihren eigenen Podcast und widmet ihre Forschung den Horror-Medienwissenschaften mit Fokus auf Gender, weiblichen Serienkillern und dem New Final Girl, auf zeitgenössischen Horror Narrativen und filmischem (Un)vergnügen, Formen komplexer Serialität und auf neuen Medien.