 In its original broadcast , " Treehouse of Horror " finished 25th in ratings for the week of October 22 – 28 , 1990 , with a Nielsen rating of 15 @.@ 7 , equivalent to approximately 14 @.@ 6 million viewing households . It was the highest @-@ rated show on the Fox network that week , beating Married ... with Children . Since airing , the episode has received mostly positive reviews from television critics . The authors of the book I Can 't Believe It 's a Bigger and Better Updated Unofficial Simpsons Guide , Warren Martyn and Adrian Wood , said the first two segments worked better than the third , " but this is a marvelous episode , and set a high standard for the Halloween specials to come . " In 2008 , Canwest News Service chose " Treehouse of Horror " as one of the top five scariest episodes from the television 's past . They singled out Marge saying " This family has had its differences and we 've squabbled , but we 've never had knife fights before , and I blame this house " as a memorable line from the episode . Two of the episode 's segments were singled out by critics as exemplary parts of the Treehouse of Horror series . " The Raven " was selected as the second best Treehouse of Horror segment by Ryan J. Budke of TV Squad in 2005 . Budke described the segment as " one of the most refined Simpsons pop references ever " and knows " people that consider this the point that they realized The Simpsons could be both highly hilarious and highly intelligent . " " Hungry are the Damned " was selected as the fifth best Treehouse of Horror segment by Eric Goldman , Dan Iverson and Brian Zoromski of IGN in 2008 . The IGN reviewers singled out the How to Cook for Forty Humans section of the segment as its funniest moment . 
