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"The Great Money Caper" is the seventh episode of The Simpsons' twelfth season. It originally aired in the United States on December 10, 2000. Homer needs money to pay for damage to his car, so he and Bart decided to con people out of their money to pay for the car repairs. Homer and Bart get conned and end up losing their car. The episode was written by Carolyn Omine and directed by Michael Polcino.

Plot

The family goes to a magic-themed restaurant. While there, Marge gets drunk on Long Island Iced Teas and Bart becomes so fascinated with magic that he buys a magician's kit from the gift shop. On the way home, a sturgeon falls from the sky (implicitly from Mir) onto the family car's hood, which is severely damaged. Homer and Bart start their magic show as a way to make money, but the act becomes a failure, and Homer leaves Bart to do the rest of the act on his own. Bart is left out on the street, and people begin giving him money so he can get a home on public transportation.

As Homer drives home, he sees Bart in a taxi, and when he gets home he sees him eating a steak dinner. They decide they can make money grifting. Grampa says he can help them make a lot of money, but grifting the residents at the Springfield Retirement Castle. While performing the grift, they are "arrested" by an "FBI" agent. When Homer and Bart get to jail, the realize the FBI agent is a con man, and conned them out of their money and the car.

Homer and Bart say the car was stolen. Marge deduces that it was Groundskeeper Willie who stole the car, and he is arrested. Not wanting to admit they were conned, Homer and Bart go along with Marge's theory. At the trial, the Blue Haired Lawyer leads Homer to say that it was Willie who stole the car. Just as Willie is found guilty, the townspeople tell Homer and Bart that they set up the trial to teach them a lesson.

Reception

Cultural references

• The title is a spoof on the movie The Great Muppet Caper.
• The plot is similar to the 1973 film Paper Moon. This reference is indicated when Homer and Bart attempt to fool Ned Flanders with a presumably false Bible from the recently deceased Maude Flanders, Flanders begins to realize it is a scam and says "Wait a minute, this sounds an awful lot like that movie Paper Moon".
• Grandpa's line about being able to afford a "young, crazy stripper wife" now that he's "won" the Publisher's Clearinghouse check is a reference to Anna Nicole Smith (who started out as a stripper) and her marriage to J. Howard Marshall.
• Grandpa explains that the con they attempt at the old folks' home was from The Sting II "so nobody knows about it!"
• Kent Brockman's farewell "good night and have a pleasant tomorrow" is the same as Chevy Chase's sendoff when he hosted the Weekend Update portion of Saturday Night Live.

Censorship

On the British channel Sky 1, all the scenes with the street performer dressed as Michael Jackson (with four other puppets dressed as members of the Jackson 5 attached to him) were cut, as the episode aired days after Michael Jackson's death.

This episode was aired again on 19 August, again with the scene in question cut.

External links

• "The Great Money Caper episode capsule". The Simpsons Archive.
• "The Great Money Caper" at IMDb

• The Simpsons episodes, season 12
• 2000 television episodes