‘Treehouse of Horror’: Tim Long Talks Turning Springfield Into ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’ [Watch]

Homer as the Mayor. Bart as Jack Skellington. Ned Flanders as Oogie Boogie. This year’s The Simpsons Halloween opening is having a whole lot of fun with The Nightmare Before Christmas, and we caught up with co-executive producer Tim Long to talk about bringing the two worlds together.

As we shared in our first look at “Treehouse of Horror XXXVII”, Stoopid Buddy Stoodios, the team behind Robot Chicken, created the opening. The episode airs Sunday, October 25, at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Fox, with streaming the following day on Hulu.

Long tells us the sequence took roughly six months to create. As for why this was finally the year to pay tribute to Henry Selick’s Halloween classic? Well, apparently Fox had some airtime to fill. Read our full exchange below.

Dread Central: How did the idea to turn The Simpsons into The Nightmare Before Christmas come about, and why was this the perfect year to do it?

Tim Long: It seemed like a mash-up that was just sitting there, begging to happen, and we were finally smart enough to do it. And this was the perfect year to do it because we had 25 extra seconds at the top of the show and Fox doesn’t like it when we broadcast a blank screen for almost half a minute.

DC: How did you decide which Simpsons characters would play which Nightmare Before Christmas characters? Were there any particularly funny choices or characters that didn’t make the cut?