The Simpsons - 23x06 - The Book Job

    Lisa discovers that young-adult fiction is written by committee, and the books are driven by market research and ghostwritten by teams.  After she tells Homer about this, he decides that it's a good idea to try doing this.  He recruits Bart, and they assemble a team to come up with a book, write it, and sell it.
    This is probably one of my favorite episodes of the past  five seasons or so.  It's handled in the style of the Oceans movies, which have such a satisfying structure that it would be hard to dislike it.  Everything moves fast, and it feels great.  When Homer recruits Bart, the back-and-forth between them is just brilliant.
    The story is reasonably complex, and there's just enough double-crossing going on to make things interesting.  But none of it sounds like they just needed a quick way out.
    While I was watching this, I mentioned how great it is when they adopt a format from another movie or show.  I brought up the episode 24 Minutes, which I still find wildly fun (even though I've never watched an episode of 24.  Go figure.)  Cathy pointed out the episode Behind the Laughter, which I hadn't considered.