TL;DR: The Simpsons 800th episode, “Irrational Treasure,” is a surprisingly heartfelt and consistently funny milestone that doesn’t feel like a trophy case. The Pitt parody is razor-sharp, the guest voices actually add texture, the Philly chaos is playful, and Marge’s pet-owner fear gives the madness a real emotional center. Also, no, they’re never killing Santa’s Little Helper, because that really would be the end of everything.
The Simpsons Season 37
I have a confession: I’ve been watching The Simpsons for so long that my brain measures time in “what season was that?” the way normal people use birthdays. So when I hit play on The Simpsons 800th episode, Season 37 Episode 14, “Irrational Treasure,” I expected one of two things. Either a victory-lap clip show that screams “look how legendary we are,” or a self-conscious, lore-heavy monument to its own history that collapses under the weight of 37 years of continuity it’s never actually cared about.
Instead, I got something weirder, smarter, and sneakier: an episode that uses milestone energy as misdirection. It’s not a museum exhibit. It’s a classic Simpsons escalation engine that starts with a painfully relatable pet-owner panic, takes a hard left into Philadelphia tourism chaos, and then barrels straight into a National Treasure parody where Santa’s Little Helper becomes the furry key to a historical conspiracy. It’s ridiculous in the way The Simpsons has always been ridiculous, but it’s also oddly sincere in the way the show can still pull off when it decides to stop memeing for two minutes and hit you right in the feelings.
And according to executive producer Mike Price, that wasn’t some boardroom directive to “make the 800th special.” The story came first, the number came later, which honestly explains why it works. You can feel the difference between “we must honor the legacy” and “we found a funny premise and then realized we accidentally built a milestone episode around it.”
The result is one of the more confident modern Simpsons episodes I’ve seen in a while: not because it’s trying to outdo Season 8, but because it remembers what the best Simpsons episodes actually are. Big swings. Emotional truth. One perfectly timed, deeply stupid gag that makes you snort-laugh in public like a broken sprinkler.
“Irrational Treasure” is anchored by something shockingly grounded: Marge trying to get Santa’s Little Helper healthier. If you’ve ever owned a dog, this is the exact flavor of guilt you recognize in your bones. The “I love you, so I will protect you” instinct that immediately collides with “I also express love with snacks and table scraps and baby-talk,” which is basically the pet-owner version of trying to optimize a PC build while refusing to stop installing bloatware.
From there, the episode does what The Simpsons does best when it’s feeling frisky: it treats plausibility like an optional DLC. The family ends up in Philadelphia for a dog competition, and the city becomes a playground for jokes, cameos, and culture-specific chaos. This is also where the episode starts feeling like a love letter written by someone who actually knows Philly rather than a writers’ room pulling “Rocky steps” out of a hat. That tracks with what Price says about the episode’s origin: a Philly idea pitched with real hometown energy baked in.
Then comes the swerve: the National Treasure parody, complete with Hank Azaria going full Nicolas Cage impression in a way that feels like the show remembered it has one of the most absurdly talented voice casts in television history. The treasure-hunt third act is the kind of tonal gear shift that would kill a lesser sitcom. Here, it feels like the showrunner giving the writers permission to take a big, dumb leap because the emotional spine is already locked in place.
That emotional spine is Marge and the dog, and it’s not just “aww, pets are cute.” It’s the brutal math every pet owner does in the back of their head: you are signing up for heartbreak, and you do it anyway because the love is worth the eventual gut-punch. Entertainment Weekly highlights Marge’s tender monologue as one of the episode’s big emotional beats, and yeah, it lands because it’s the most human thing in an episode that also contains pee-based treasure logic.
Here’s where I started cackling like an idiot: the veterinary ER sequence that parodies The Pitt, right down to the vibe and the energy, and then goes even further by pulling in actual The Pitt cast as guest voices, including Noah Wyle and Katherine LaNasa.
This is the specific kind of comedy flex that modern Simpsons still does better than almost anyone. It’s not just “we referenced a popular show.” It’s “we recreated the tone and pacing and character tics so precisely that if you’ve watched The Pitt you can feel the writers’ room obsession leaking through the animation.” It’s fanfic, but made by professionals with a budget and the audacity to call your bluff.
There’s a meta-joke buried in this too: The Simpsons is old enough to parody not just genre staples, but the latest prestige-TV obsession while it’s still hot. The show has always been a pop culture mirror, but it’s rare to see it feel this current without sounding like an uncle using TikTok slang.
And honestly, the cameo casting in this episode feels unusually purposeful. Quinta Brunson shows up and immediately feels like she belongs, not because “celebrity voice,” but because the character is written with her rhythm in mind. Entertainment Weekly also calls out how stacked the guest list is, including Kevin Bacon. The episode doesn’t feel like it’s collecting famous people like Funko Pops; it feels like it’s building a very specific episode texture, and the guest voices are part of that soundscape.
One of the slyest structural choices in “Irrational Treasure” is how it plays hopscotch through the show’s own history. It acknowledges the dog’s relationship with the family stretching back to the earliest days, without getting trapped in timeline logic. That’s the Simpsons sweet spot: it’s not a lore show, it’s a feelings show that occasionally wears lore as a costume for Halloween.
This is also why milestone episodes are hard. The internet wants a “definitive” statement. The show itself refuses to be definitive about almost anything. Matt Selman has said The Simpsons will likely never have a traditional series finale, and that the show already did a parody “finale” with “Bart’s Birthday” as a meta-jab at finale tropes. That mentality bleeds into the 800th: it doesn’t wrap up anything. It doesn’t pretend it’s closing a chapter. It just tells a story that happens to have a lot of echoes.
It’s like digging through an old box of cables and finding a perfectly preserved Game Boy Advance link cable. Does it matter where it fits in your modern setup? Not really. Does it flood you with instant memory-chemicals? Absolutely.
The headline hook from Price’s interview is blunt and kind of hilarious: kill Santa’s Little Helper, and that’s “the end of everything.” That’s not just a cute soundbite. It’s a real read on audience psychology. The show can kill side characters, mess with continuity, even do a fake finale. But the dog is sacred.
It’s the same reason people can watch fictional humans get vaporized in sci-fi battles and feel nothing, but if a golden retriever looks mildly sad in a trailer, the entire internet turns into a crisis hotline. Price even points to that exact phenomenon through a Sopranos anecdote: you can’t kill the dog.
And “Irrational Treasure” toys with that line in a way that feels fair. It flirts with the idea of loss without being cruel. It lets Marge express fear without turning the milestone into trauma porn. That balance is what The Simpsons used to nail constantly in its prime: heart that doesn’t feel manipulative, paired with comedy that doesn’t feel mean.
So, is The Simpsons 800th episode actually good, or am I being nostalgic?
Both can be true, but here’s my honest take: “Irrational Treasure” works because it’s not trying to be The Simpsons at its peak. It’s trying to be The Simpsons right now, with the tools it still has: a deep bench of characters, an ability to parody anything instantly, and the willingness to get emotionally real for one well-earned moment.
It’s also a reminder that modern Simpsons can still surprise me when it stops doomscrolling its own legacy and just commits to a solid premise. This episode has a clean emotional hook, a fun travel structure, a sharp pop-culture parody in the The Pitt segment, and a third-act swing into National Treasure nonsense that somehow feels like the most Simpsons thing imaginable.
If you’re the type of fan who only rewatches Seasons 3 through 9 like they’re sacred texts, “Irrational Treasure” won’t convert you into a Season 37 evangelist. But if you’re willing to meet the show where it is in 2026, this is a legitimately satisfying milestone episode that feels more like a confident chapter than a desperate anniversary special.
