About this Simpsons episode:

The Simpsons - Homer and Lisa Exchange Cross Words is the 6th episode of season 20 and number 426 overall in the series.

In the episode, Lisa discovers that she has a talent for solving crossword puzzles, and she enters a crossword tournament. Lisa's feelings are hurt when she discovers that Homer bet against her in the championship match.
The episode was inspired by the 2006 documentary Wordplay, and was written by Tim Long, and directed by Nancy Kruse. Crossword puzzle creators Merl Reagle and Will Shortz guest star as themselves in the episode while Scott Thompson has a cameo as Grady, a character he first voiced in "Three Gays of the Condo". Reagle created all of the crossword puzzles that appear in the episode and as promotion for the episode, a special Simpsons-related message (dedicated to this episode) that appeared in The New York Times Sunday crossword on November 16, 2008. The episode received generally positive reviews from critics, and finished fourth in its time slot during its initial airing on Fox, with a 3.9 Nielsen rating.