• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, October 27, 2023

Homer tries to capitalize on the skyrocketing value of his son after Bart morphs into an NFT on the “The Simpsons” annual “Treehouse Of Horror” Halloween anthology show.

But mom Marge tries to thwart Homer’s plans by rescuing Bart through the only possible pathway -- the blockchain!

“The Simpsons” Halloween blockchain story is the first of three stories in the half-hour “Treehouse of Horrors XXXIV,” which airs this year on Sunday, November 5, at 8 p.m. Eastern on Fox.

NFTs and the blockchain would seem like odd subjects for a mainstream TV show. The TV Blog suspects that most people have never heard of them or, if they have heard of them, they are not hip to what they mean.

The episode starts with a startling announcement from Springfield’s Mayor Quimby in which he too reveals that he has no understanding of NFTs and the blockchain.

“Art lovers of Springfield, good news. The art museum is closed forever!” he declares from a podium on the museum’s steps.

“Instead, our entire collection will be digitized and sold for a fortune on the blockchain as non-fungible tokens, or NFTs -- whatever the hell those are!”

In the wake of the announcement, Homer hatches a plan to digitize a piece of artwork hanging in his home. 

But he ends up accidentally digitizing Bart -- who is whisked away to NFT Land, where every digital object has a price, most of them less than a dollar.

However, Bart commands such a high price that Homer is tempted to leave him there, but Marge feels differently and embarks on her rescue mission.

She is assisted at the outset by three hooded figures -- Rob Gronkowski, Jimmy Fallon and Kylie Jenner, who is the only one of the three who provides her own voice on the show.

“I thought you were just celebrity shills!” Homer cries, when they mysteriously appear in the Simpsons’ kitchen.

“Ugh! We would never promote a technology if we didn’t understand the distributed ledger underpinning it!” answers Kylie.

She then gives Marge a special key. “This key is a backdoor through the blockchain’s cryptographic protocol,” Kylie tells her. “Once you’re inside, find Bart and use it to get both of you out.”

When Marge arrives in the blockchain, she encounters NFTs of every variety, most of which are priced under a dollar.

But as she travels through the blockchain, the NFTs increase in value, among them Itchy and Scratchy -- the cartoon mouse and cat of Springfield TV.

In the photo above, they are identified by their dollar values: Itchy, $427,000; Marge, $123,000; and Scratchy, $130,000.

Here, the description of the story ends so as not to spoil the rest of it. It is very much worth watching.

In the second story in the “Treehouse of Horrors” episode, grown-up Lisa is an expert in criminal profiling who crosses paths with Springfield’s most notorious psychopath, Sideshow Bob (voiced as usual by Kelsey Grammer).

The third story has the population of Springfield all turning into their own versions of lazy, slovenly, beer-guzzling Homer, resulting in serious, negative consequences for the town.