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YMMV / The Simpsons S11 E9 "Grift of the Magi"

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  • Aluminum Christmas Trees:
    • Krusty wishes his audience "a Merry Christmas, a happy Hanukkah, a 'kwazy' Kwanzaa, a tip-top Tet, and a solemn, dignified Ramadan." Because Islam runs on a lunar calendar, it is possible for Ramadan to coincide with the other December holidays, and it actually did in 1999 when this episode aired.
    • Many fans see Gary Coleman's job as a security guard as another aspect of his Cloudcuckoolander character. In reality, Gary Coleman did work as a security guard, which was brought to the public eye the previous year when he assaulted a fan that kept pestering him.
  • Harsher in Hindsight:
    • Gary Coleman's Cloudcuckoolander portrayal becomes quite unsettling when thinking of the actor's increasingly strange behavior in the years before his death in 2010.
    • Moe went through an It's a Wonderful Plot offscreen, gave up his suicide attempt, and joined the Simpsons in their Christmas celebration. Unfortunately, not only would later episodes show that Moe is still suicidal, but the next Christmas episode featuring Moe would reveal that attempting suicide at Christmas has become an annual tradition for him.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: In this episode, Moe is shown as so poor that he can't even afford proper shoes, wearing bread bags instead. While presenting the Republican Party's rebuttal to the January 2015 State of the Union Address, Iowa Congresswoman Joni Ernst shared a story of her humble beginnings, saying "Growing up, I had only one good pair of shoes. So on rainy school days, my mom would slip plastic bread bags over them to keep them dry.", prompting much confusion and ridicule since the way she said it made it sound like she only wore the bread bags instead of wearing shoes covered with bags.
  • Surprisingly Improved Sequel: While the episode isn't considered the best Simpsons Christmas Episode or even the best episode of the season, it's considered to be much better than season nine's "Miracle on Evergreen Terrace" due to the funnier plot and having a truly happy ending.

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