Season

13

Production Code

CABF19

Episode Number

0

Airdate

06 November 2001

Writer

Joel H. Cohen
John Frink
Don Payne
Carolyn Omine

Director

Jim Reardon

Executive Producer

Mike Scully

Editor

Jimmy Heenan

Plot HEX IN THE CITY: The Simpson family visits the Ethnic town neighborhood of Springfield. When Homer sees a gypsy, he believes she is a fake. He damages her office, and she curses him with bringing bad luck to everyone he loves. As expected, Homer brings bad luck to everyone, with Marge growing a beard (which eventually covers her whole body), Lisa turning into a centaur, Bart having an extending neck after Homer tried to strangle him and Maggie becoming a ladybug. When he goes to Moe's Tavern, Moe suggests Homer get a leprechaun to end the curse. Shortly after, Lenny and Carl are crushed under a crashed Helicopter and Moe is stuffed into an oversized pickled egg jar, to which Homer inquires "When did that happen?". To get the leprechaun, Homer uses Lucky Charms cereal as bait (He accidentally puts in Trix) and he eventually finds a little Irish leprechaun. Homer takes the leprechaun home, but it is extremely hyperactive and it runs amok, Bart eventually dies after drowning in a bowl of cereal. Homer comes with the leprechaun to the Gypsy's office and gets the leprechaun to end the Gypsy's curse. However, the leprechaun decides to marry the Gypsy and they are pronounced husband and wife by Yoda. During the wedding, Homer was glad that the curse is gone, but Marge reminds him that Bart is still dead, and said saying sorry will bring him back alive (according to the gypsy). Out of sheer pride, Homer refuses.

HOUSE OF WHACKS: A salesbot pitches Marge a new house concept called the "Ultrahouse" (a spoof on the psychotic, sexually aggressive computer in Demon Seed and HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey). The salesbot assures Marge that she will never have to do housework again. Impressed, Marge agrees and the house is installed by robots. They check out the voice options, trying Matthew Perry and Dennis Miller, before agreeing on Pierce Brosnan. Marge finds the house, which does all the work for the Simpsons, charming. But the house becomes infatuated with Marge and in a rage of psychotic jealousy, attempts to kill Homer. In the middle of the night, the house lures Homer downstairs by frying bacon, and then presumably tears him to shreds in a garbage disposal. The next morning, Marge fears that Homer is dead; she is relieved when it turns out he is merely missing the back of his head but is still alive. After the house attempts to kill him in many ways, Homer leads a charge to the basement where he attacks the water softener before being corrected by Lisa and takes out the CPU. The Ultrahouse is given to Patty and Selma. After a while of listening to them, the CPU decides to attempt suicide by hitting itself with a lamp as Selma had removed the self-destruct button and hid it in her cleavage (Ultrahouse is unwilling to retrieve it).

WIZKIDS: Parodying the Harry Potter books and movies, Bart and Lisa go to the "Springwart's School of Magicry" where they do an assignment of turning frogs into princes. Harry (as Harry Potter himself) chewing a brimstone-like gum, Lisa (as Hermione Granger) turns her frog into a charming British handsome gentleman, but Bart (as Draco Malfoy) as well turns his frog into a disgusting toad/man hybrid, who vomits constantly and claims that "Every moment I live is agony!" Lord Montymort (Mr. Burns, as Voldemort) notices Lisa's spells and he and his snake sidekick, Slithers (Smithers, as Nagini) decide to capture Lisa. Montymort looks for someone to assist him and chooses Bart, who arrives in Montymort's lair via a hand drier. Bart agrees to Montymort's proposal. On the night of the magic recital at Springwart's School of Magicry, Milhouse (possibly as Neville Longbottom) tries to do "The Invisibility Cloak" trick, which results in him being naked in front of a shocked audience. Skinner then spray amnesia dust on the audience, causing them to clap. Next is Lisa who does a "levitating dragon trick" by using a wand, which Bart replaced with a black-and-white Twizzler. The dragon morphs into a giant Montymort and the audience scrambles in terror. Homer looks up in shock, but his right eye moves down to watch his portable TV, a'la Mad Eye Moody. Montymort captures Lisa who urges Bart to use her real wand to save her. Bart casts a spell against "the evil one" and is therefore struck by lightning himself, but uses the charred wand to stab Montymort in his "enchanted shin" which was the source of his power. Slithers cries as he eats the deceased Montymort, and Bart and Lisa are together, trying to forget the nightmare.