In common with all other episodes in the Treehouse of Horror series, it is made up of three different self-contained stories. The first story, "Oh, the Places You'll D'oh!", is a parody of the 1957 children's book The Cat in the Hat, other children's books by Dr. Seuss and the films and TV specials which were based on them. The central idea for the second story, "Dead and Shoulders", comes from the 1972 horror movie The Thing with Two Heads. The final story, "Freaks No Geeks" is a spoof of Tod Browning's 1932 horror film Freaks.