NUMBER FIVE - Who Shot Mr. Burns? (Season 6 & 7 )

Yes, it’s a cop-out to treat two episodes as one, but you can’t really separate the famous Simpsons’ cliff-hanger from its resolution. ‘Who Shot Mr. Burns’ truly represents the Simpsons at the height of its popularity, when the series transcended the traditional limits of a cartoon show.

Part one actually had an intricate web of hidden clues (ie. numerous ‘MS’ references and hints that rule out certain suspects), and was arguably the best season finale of any show at the time. Indeed, you can’t really appreciate how clever the episode was structured unless you get all the details from the DVD commentary.

Part two was also well written, although the finale probably wasn’t as thrilling as most had hoped. Still, part two has, in my opinion, the funniest scene of the entire series – the Moe lie detector test. All in all, it’s a classic Simpsons episode that showed the talent of its creative staff and solidly established the series as a cultural phenomenon.