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XII (Season 13, Episode 1, Aired November 6th, 2001)
Another November airing, though this at least was apparently because Fox was airing the World Series the week prior, pushing this episode a week after Halloween.
Anyways, good opening with Smithers dying in a hilarious and insanely brutal way (with Burns not caring)and the Simpsons family being sliced by the bars of the Burns estate, but they continue running in different direction. (good bit of animation, btw).
“Hex and the City” has a pretty good start poking fun at ethnic enclaves (“where hard working immigrants dream of becoming lazy, overfed Americans”), and a kinda good bunch of gags with Homer’s standard idiocy causing the fortune teller to curse Homer. I like the way the curses have distinct look to them (Marge getting a beard, Bart getting a long neck, and Lisa becoming a centaur), and some other gags, like Lenny asking to die before Carl or Homer pouring Trix instead of Lucky Charms, attracting rabbits (including a reference to Matt Groening’s comic strip Life in Hell). The ending is kind of funny where the leprechaun and the fortune teller marrying, and Homer being obstinate about apologizing even after Bart died from his curse. Operative word here being “kinda”. There aren’t a lot of really funny or memorable gags here except for the last one. It just sort of goes for the easy gags, and those are just “meh” at most.
“House of Wacks” (which I thought for a while was a parody of the 1999 Disney Channel movie Smart House, but…
