Short on cash, Homer does some extra “work” for money. By “work” this means being used as a prank slave by his evil leader, Mr. Burns.

Mike Scully accused the critics of being hostile toward the episode only because they never saw a panned 60s movie called the Magic Christian (inspiration for this episode). Fun fact: It isn’t.

Contrary to Scully’s accusation, the animosity is due to reusing too many plot elements and the panda attack scene, which has often been noted as one of the most despised moments in Simpsons history, ranking up with the toenail scene from SpongeBob (House Fancy) and the beached whale from Family Guy (Peter Problems).

This one takes place during the holidays, as evident by the parade at the end.

Okay seriously that Lenny eye joke ran its’ course – Lenny is not Queen Gohma from Ocarina of Time or Wart (that mini boss from Great Bay Temple not the villain from Super Mario Bros. 2 USA.) from Majora’s Mask. To me it’s not as stale as the cool whip joke from Family Guy which was already dead on arrival when it was first done in 2006 but lay off.

I don’t think I can watch this episode without having the Witchyworld Big Top theme from Banjo-Tooie. The unbelievably idiotic nature of this episode suits the theme especially the Mr. Patch theme with the panda.

Because this is in season 12, I will not deduct points off for plot recycling. That’s somewhat unreasonable since there are only so many plot types you can work with. However going around and reusing plot elements and doing nothing different gets nowhere with me.