This one continues Season 12’s depressing insistence on nonsense plots and radical twist endings at the expense of, you know, humor or a story. Once again the emphasis is directed more at faithfully reproducing a pop culture concept rather than at satirizing it. In this case they’re trying to send up “con artist” movies like The Sting (which is mentioned in the commentary), but the episode ends up consisting of little more than plot twists followed by explanations and exposition.
Now, I don’t recommend anyone watching these episodes, much less listening to all these commentaries. But if you want to see just how little the people behind the show care about how shitty it’s become fast forward this commentary to about the 17:00 mark (it’s on Disc 2). The discussion basically degenerates into them a) tacitly acknowledging that it sucks and b) declaring that they don’t care. They actually use the term “jump the shark” and laugh about it. If that’s not an admission of total failure, I don’t know what is.
Eight people in this one, and one of them’s a woman! Unusual!
1:20: This was originally going to be a pool hustling story (that’s a different Paul Newman movie). I’m not sure if it would’ve been worse, but it’s hard to imagine something dumber than this.
2:20: “Studying grifters is an endlessly fascinating story, but not a lot of it got in here.” Hmmmm.
3:15: Al Jean (I think): “I remember the first episode that we wrote, ‘No Disgrace Like Home’ Homer was worried about Marge getting drunk and embarrassing him. So, the show has changed a little bit since then.” Oh, we know.
5:25: Laughing at people “on the internet” for being upset that the plot hinges on a fish falling from space. On behalf “of the internet” I have nothing to add.
5:45: “But all the Russian on the space station is accurate.” That’s the kind of attention to detail that’s really indicative of a high quality show. Thinking out a coherent plot? Can’t be bothered. Making sure some throwaway dialogue in a foreign language is technically accurate? Spare no effort.
6:30: Long, boring discussion about the weak creation of the title.
7:40: As usual, laughing at the nonsensical conceits.
8:45: Long discussion about “The Sting” and a book about grifting. Once again, ignoring the tedious pace of what’s actually happening on screen.
10:45: You guys cut a celebrity cameo because it was too out of place? I do not believe you.
12:35: Laughing at the weirdness of Grandpa showing up for no reason.
13:30: Long, long silence as the story grinds along.
14:40: More talk about grifting movies followed by more long silence.
16:00: Yet more the long silence, this time broken by pointing out a homeless guy in the background, followed by more long silence. Once again, I can’t help but get the impression that they’re as bored with this episode as I am.
17:20: “This show’s lost me”, followed by laughter. Urge to kill, rising.
17:35: “Do you remember where this came in?” “No.” Rising.
17:45: Long discussion about how, once again, the ending was added on ad-hoc.
18:25: Extremely long discussion about this being their “chloroform phase”. They’re just as uninterested with this ending as their audience.
19:10: Still on chloroform trivia.
19:45: They forgot their own ending! A bunch of them are commenting on how Judge Snyder doesn’t look like himself as though it was some animation decision until one of them points out that it’s a fake trial and isn’t Judge Snyder.
20:30: Another long silence as the lunacy is revealed, broken by laughter at Marge’s exploding hair, followed by more long silence.
21:40: Talking about the “surfing” ending: “Now I had completely forgotten this ending and last night I’m watching and I actually thought it like skipped a chapter.” That’s followed by laughter and someone pointing out that this also “aggravated the internet”.
21:50: Seeing the sturgeon (the fish from space) one last time, they laugh about the show having jumped the shark. The destruction of this show was not an overnight process, but it’s clearly been competed by this point.
Dead Homer Society 
3 responses to ““The Great Money Caper” Makes Baby Jesus Cry”
Pretty much the only part of this episode I remember is Lisa explaining the dénouement: “I know it seems farfetched, even insulting to your intelligence…” One of the Zombie Simpsons’ least tacit admissions of its own crapitude. In fact, that’s one of the (many) grating things about Zombie Simpsons: its conceited belief that if it points out how bad its plots are, then that means they’re metacognitive/ironic and thus forgiveable.
Exactly. They lost their ability to tell the difference between what’s stupid and what’s clever, and when people started pointing it out they started doing really stupid things and mistaking them for really clever things.
I’d completely forgotten about the surfing bit at the end. And to think that subsequent episodes have repeated the same gag (if one could refer to it as such), everyone breaking into a zany spontaneous display of nonsense (to cover up throwaway writing). There was a season 20 episode that built up to a climactic point in the classroom at the end, then for no good reason, everyone started dancing (including Skinner and Chalmers!) in lieu of a genuinely clever plot resolution.