8. Who Shot Mr. Burns? The Simpsons ('Who Shot Mr Burns? Part 1')
Not all great cut-to-black moments involve high stakes drama, and not all cut-to-black moments appear to be cut-to-blacks. In fact, you might be forgiven for thinking that this particular example is a fade-to-black, and you would be right. I'm sticking it in on a technicality though because this is another one of those genius moves by Fox where they place an artificial fade over the footage to prevent the auto-commercial prompt. So instead of a carefully timed cut on the punch line of the gag, you get a slightly premature fade out. It's still a great Simpson's moment though, because pretty much every character on the show has a good enough reason to shoot Mr. Burns, and this cut broke up a very memorable two-parter. Although why they would care who shot him after he tried to block out the sun is still up for debate... The episode is a parody of the famous season three finale of 'Dallas,' where the similarly malicious J.R. is shot, and pretty much everybody is a suspect.