Parallax Scrolling

Abstract

There is a wonderful Halloween episode of The Simpsons that parodies a classic Twilight Zone episode in which a young girl passes through a wall and is trapped in the fourth dimension. In the The Simpsons variant (episode 706, “Treehouse of Horror VI,” for all you The Simpsons fans), Homer stumbles into a dimensional portal and ends up in a reality that has three dimensions (amusingly rendered with 3D software by Pacific Data Images). His two-dimensional family and friends are shocked to discover the existence of such a place, while Homer is surprised to discover how his body bulges out in front and behind him. What makes this idea even more amusing is the fact that we as an audience never really thought of Homer’s Springfield as a two-dimensional place and consequently never thought that Springfield inhabitants were conscious of being two-dimensional. Of course, in the back of our minds we knew that what we were watching on our television screens consisted of two-dimensional drawings, but the animators always succeeded in making those drawings seem three-dimensional.