1001 toons you need to watch before you die

Doughnut Hell

In Treehouse of Horror IV (1993), Homer sells his soul to the Devil (played by Ned Flanders) for a single doughnut, and, true to form, he can’t resist eating it despite knowing the consequences. This gluttonous gag echoes the same moral humor and theme of irresistible appetite seen in Pigs Is Pigs (1937).

Both cartoons turn gluttony into a moral punishment story: the greedy pig in Pigs Is Pigs literally suffers for overindulging, while Homer ends up in Hell’s ironic “Ironic Punishment Division,” force-fed endless doughnuts.

While separated by more than 50 years, both shorts use comedy to explore human weakness, the inability to stop eating, proving that classic cartoon morality never really goes out of style!

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