Shrewd PR scam?
More like a JR (Ewing) scam.
No, bad headline writers. It’s the Halloween episode. Almost everybody dies in almost every Halloween episode, they aren’t “canon” (in as much as any Simpsons episode is canon). The big thing in this one is they’re finally going to let Sideshow Bob (who’s been trying to kill Bart for 20 years) finally win one, just not in the “real” story.