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The Trouble with Trillions

episode of The Simpsons (S9 E20)

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 4, 2026
Entity authorityQ629954 ↗
Source-derived summary

"The Trouble with Trillions" is the twentieth episode in the ninth season of the American animated television series The Simpsons. It originally aired on Fox in the United States on April 5, 1998. It was written by Ian Maxtone-Graham and directed by Swinton O. Scott III. The episode sees Homer being sent by the Federal Bureau of Investigation to try to obtain a trillion dollar bill that Mr. Burns failed to deliver to Europe during the post-war era.

Plot

All of Springfield celebrates the arrival of the New Year except for Ned Flanders, who instead focuses on filing his tax returns. A few months later, as all of Springfield rushes to send out their returns just before midnight on April 15, Homer realizes he did not file his, believing he didn't need to do it every year. He rushes and provides false information before delivering it to the post office. However, at the IRS the somewhat spherical package containing Homer's tax returns bounces into a "Severe Audit" bin, and the government arrests him for tax fraud. To avoid prison, Homer agrees to help Agent Johnson of the FBI. With a hidden microphone under his shirt, Homer uncovers that his coworker Charlie is leading a militia planning to assault all government officials, and has him arrested by the FBI for conspiracy.

Impressed, Johnson reveals to Homer that in 1945, President Harry S. Truman printed a one trillion-dollar bill to help reconstruct post-war Western Europe and enlisted Montgomery Burns to transport the bill.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “The Trouble with Trillions” as episode of The Simpsons (S9 E20). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1998, 1945—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1998-04-05. The account is most persuasive where Trouble, Trillions and episode can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as episode of The Simpsons (S9 E20). Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q629954. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1998 and 1945.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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  2. Expand the search: follow The Trouble with Trillions primary sources, The Trouble with Trillions archive and Trouble research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “The Trouble with Trillions” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.