All these painstaking men, considered together, may be said to have completed another species of criticism.

In time The Simpsons would, indeed, resort to spoofing such decidedly non-spooktacular fare like E.T and Mr. And Mrs. Smith (both in “Treehouse Of Horror XVIII”) but in 1992 the field was wide-open and the show could cherry-pick the most iconic and beloved fright fare of all time.

Briefly, NCM (25 μl/rat), heat-inactivated (70°C, 10 min) NCM (hNCM) or normal culture medium (DMEM) was freshly prepared from the neuronal culture with or without GOSD treatment (6 h), and injected intracisternally into the rat brain, using a Hamilton syringe with a 27G needle, at the end of 90 min of CCAO/MCAO and then followed by 24h reperfusion.

It was a quarter well stocked with deformed, leering, unkempt and uncombed idiots, who held out hands or caps and begged piteously.