The Simpsons Take a Dig at NFTs, Crypto in ‘Treehouse of Horror’ Episode

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and the blockchain made a special appearance on The Simpsons, Sunday night U.S. time.

During Treehouse of Horror 34, the Halloween special episode of the iconic animated series, the show made numerous references to the overvaluation of on-chain NFTs in the first chapter of the episode titled “Wild Barts Can’t Be Token.”

NFTs are a special type of crypto asset that allows holders to prove their ownership of real or digital items.

In the episode, Marge battles through the blockchain to rescue Bart, now a living NFT, while the city’s mayor declares that Springfield’s art gallery will be digitized. There are also plenty of appearances by blue chip NFTs, like the Beeple, the Bored Ape Yacht Club, and second-tier PFPs being shown as nearly worthless.

On X, Noah Bolanowski, an NFT collector and adviser to Crypt Gallery, an IRL NFT gallery, analyzed how the show portrayed NFTs.

“I loved how the episode had an incredible art emphasis – the PFPs were painted largely as the bottom of the barrel, whereas art was positioned at a level of prestige. They even had BAYC holders cleaning their feet,” he posted on the social networking platform.

The episode, which has plenty of references to the NFT crash of last year, isn’t the first time that crypto – or NFTs – has appeared on the show.

In 2020, the episode “Frinkcoin” features Jim Parsons educating viewers on cryptocurrency, complete with a singing ledger book and teases to the identity of Satoshi.

“For cryptocurrencies to work, we need a record of every transaction that occurs. These are recorded in what’s called a distributed ledger,” Parsons explains during the episode, which aired just before the Covid crypto crash of March 2020. “When you use the currency, the transaction is recorded in the ledger, and when one ledger book gets filled up, we add to a chain of previous books – that’s the blockchain.”

Last year’s “The King of Nice” had a gag where Krusty the clown is forced onto the celebrity-for-hire app Cameo because he blew all his money on NFTs. “Non-funny TV shows” is how the clown describes it.

This isn’t the first time Simpsons creator Matt Groening’ has snubbed crypto and blockchain. Earlier this year, Futurama, another popular animated series by Groening, mocked crypto miners in an episode titled “How the West Was 101001.”

The latest episode appeared to have a minor impact on the floor prices of the Bored Ape Yacht Club, up 0.3% in the last 24 hours, according to CoinGecko data, and the Mutant Ape Yacht Club, with its floor prices up 2.9%. In comparison, the cost of ether is down 0.14%.