“The Simpsons” took a jab at former Patriots star Rob Gronkowski during its latest “Treehouse of Horror” special Sunday night.
The 35th edition of the animated series’ annual Halloween episode poked fun at the now-retired tight end and other celebrities involved in promoting cryptocurrency and non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
Sunday’s episode opened with Homer (voiced by Dan Castellaneta) and Bart (voiced by Nancy Cartwright) looking to get into the world of crypto so they could turn their “crappy art into computer money.” However, in true “Treehouse of Horror” fashion, their dream becomes a nightmare, with Bart getting digitized into an NFT on the blockchain.
In order to save their son, Homer and Marge (voiced by Julie Kavner) get some help from a trio of “enlightened intellects who safeguard the cryptoverse”: Gronk, Jimmy Fallon, and Kylie Jenner. While “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” star Jenner did lend her voice to the special, an uncredited actor portrayed Gronk, who briefly appears in the episode to grunt and spike a football, while Fallon was voiced by Matthew Friend.
“We would never promote a technology if we didn’t understand the distributed ledger underpinning it,” Jenner says in the episode, responding to Homer’s remark about the stars being “celebrity shills.”
In 2021, Gronkowski partnered with digital marketplace OpenSea to sell NFTs of his best Super Bowl moments. He also served as a brand ambassador for Voyager Digital, a now-bankrupt crypto brokerage, which was embroiled in a class-action lawsuit that earned Gronkowski a subpoena earlier this year, according to The Athletic.
Sunday’s episode wasn’t the first time “The Simpsons” had a laugh at Gronk’s expense. In 2016, Fox’s long-running animated series featured an episode set in Boston (appropriately titled “The Town”), which included a not-so-subtle dig at the former Patriots star, whom they called “Bonkowski.”
Matt Juul can be reached at matt.juul@globe.com.