The Great Money Caper

"The Great Money Caper" is the seventh episode of the twelfth season of the American animated television series The Simpsons.

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 the Russian space station Mir) onto the family car's hood, which is severely damaged.

They decide they can make money grifting; however, Marge and Lisa begin suspecting them after they "worked" without Bart's kit, which they both left behind at home.

After a close call during an attempt to grift Ned Flanders (during which he notices its similarity to the plot of Paper Moon), Grampa volunteers to help them, since he was a con-artist during the Great Depression.

The next morning they are surprised however to learn that Groundskeeper Willie was arrested for stealing the car, as he matched the description they gave of the carjacker as a "foreign loner with wild, bushy hair".

As Lisa is ready to explain why the town, media and police officials had "nothing better to do" than show them the consequences of their actions, Otto runs through the courtroom doors, shouting, 'Surf's Up!'.

The scene then cuts to Springfield at the beach, with characters from the episode surfing, including the waiter from the restaurant, the two astronauts from the Mir space station and the sturgeon swimming in the sea.

The other writers also prepared themselves by watching several heist films, including House of Games, Paper Moon and The Sting, the latter two of which are referenced in the episode.

They eventually decided that the trial was a scam staged by the townspeople, and Simpsons writer George Meyer pitched the surfing scene that closed the episode.

Krieger had been promised a guest role on The Simpsons after the staff were allowed to use the Doors song "The End" for the season 11 episode "Hello Gutter, Hello Fadder".

At the end of the episode, Bart exclaims “Cowabunga!”, a catch-phrase of the main characters in the animated television series Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

He wrote that, unlike other episodes in the season, "The Great Money Caper" did not "rely on too many gimmicks" and therefore felt more realistic, even though he does not consider grifting an "everyday activity."