“The Simpsons” showrunner breaks down “The Pitt” stars, Kevin Bacon, and other cameos in historic 800th episode
“The Simpsons” showrunner breaks down “The Pitt” stars, Kevin Bacon, and other cameos in historic 800th episode
Wesley StenzelMon, February 16, 2026 at 1:30 AM UTC
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Kevin Bacon in 'The Simpsons'
20th Television / FOX
Key points -
The Simpsons showrunner Matt Selman tells Entertainment Weekly about the guest stars in the show's 800th episode, "Irrational Treasure."
The showrunner explains how Kevin Bacon, Quinta Brunson, and The Pitt stars got involved in the episode.
Selman also shares how the episode pays tribute to the show's legacy and breaks down the Easter eggs throughout the ep.
The Simpsons is celebrating 800 episodes on Fox with a crew of very special guest stars.
In the show's milestone episode, "Irrational Treasure," Marge takes the family dog, Santa's Little Helper, to a national dog competition in Philadelphia as Homer reluctantly embarks on a National Treasure–esque treasure hunt with a group of eccentric historians.
Entertainment Weekly spoke with Simpsons co-showrunner Matt Selman to discuss the guest stars, Easter eggs, and key moments in the historic 800th episode.
'The Simpsons' episode 800, 'Irrational Treasure'
20th Television / FOX
Back to the beginning
The episode starts with a flashback to the first-ever episode of the animated sitcom, "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire," which saw the family welcome Santa's Little Helper into their home. To capture the look and feel of the first season of the show, Selman says that the animators adjusted the visual style for the opening sequence.
"It starts out as the actual Christmas scene where they get the dog from the first episode, and then we kind of take the scene further," he explains. "We matched the animation style. I love the old animation style. I wish we could do them all like that."
Immediately, the timeline begins to diverge from your memories of the family's trusty canine companion, as we see Homer, Lisa, and Bart feeding Santa's Little Helper excessive amounts of food, prompting the dog to gain significant weight.
In the opening moments, we see the ever-expanding Santa's Little Helper in other memorable moments throughout the Simpsons canon.
"It's embracing the history of the show," Selman says. "We have those flashes of Homer as a stone cutter and then the pie man and then he's in different outfits from famous Homer episodes as we do crazy time jumps over both the one year and 40 years that the show has existed at the same time. Like, the characters are always the same age yet they've had almost 40 years of adventures. So did it all happen in one crazy year? Did it happen in 40 years? Neither? Both?"
Selman reiterates his position that The Simpsons shouldn't be beholden to one singular timeline with strict canonical boundaries.
"The real paradox of this is that the dog becomes fat, and yet, in none of those subsequent episodes is the dog fat," Selman reflects. "So if you love strict adherence to the rules of consistency in canon, it might be inflammatory to you. And I'm sort of on the record as being a little bit cavalier with that stuff. So obviously the dog has not been a fat dog the whole time they've had the dog, but we wanted to do a fat dog story and a story about how Marge is the only one who is the tough parent with the dog. She forms a deeper connection to the dog in trying to keep it healthy."
Noah Wyle, Taylor Dearden, and Katherine LaNasa in 'The Simpsons'
20th Television / FOX
Diving into The Pitt
Santa's Little Helper reaches a breaking point after eating several grapes out of Marge's ambrosia salad, prompting an intense visit to the veterinary hospital — where Noah Wyle, Katherine LaNasa, and Taylor Dearden portray animated versions of their characters from HBO Max's The Pitt.
"Mike Price, the co-runner, co-producer of this episode, is a huge The Pitt fan, and we thought it'd be a fun way to spice up the veterinary scene by giving it the intensity and melodrama of this terrific show," Selman says. "And then we convinced Noah and some of the other actors to play intense vet cartoon versions of themself. But I think it came from Mike, because I know he was just the hugest fan of that show from the get-go and how crazy and intense it was."
Selman notes that The Simpsons was quicker to jump on the Pitt train than it has been to incorporate other pop cultural phenomena. "Usually we're like five years late or 13 years too late to something, but we're actually not super late to The Pitt, since season 2 is just coming out right now," he says. "Though I always think it's funny when people ding the show for being late to make fun of something, because at the very best, it was only on time once. And then every time after that, it was late."
The showrunner says that Price was instrumental in "putting the guest cast at ease" when it came time to record their cameos. "They were all pretty much on board because it's like a love letter to the show, and it was pretty easy," Selman says. "But even when it's someone huge like Noah Wyle, when they get here, it's kind of a big deal. They're like, 'Oh my God, this is The Simpsons. This is a huge part of culture. This has been on for my whole life.' It can be a lot for them to take in once they're actually here. And Mike is so good at directing them and keeping them chill."
Quinta Brunson in 'The Simpsons'
20th Television / FOX
Abbott Elementary, my dear
Once Santa's Little Helper is safe and sound, Marge is approached by a dog trainer named Adrienne, who is voiced by Quinta Brunson. Adrienne urges Marge to whip the pooch into shape. "He'll need to lose a lot of weight. He's what we in the canine wellness field call, 'Damn that dog's fat!'" Brunson's character says early in the episode.
"We wanted Quinta really early because Abbott Elementary is a Philly show," Selman says. "She's from Philly, that's her world. So that gave the show good Philly bonafides. And we're now at Disney, and Abbott Elementary is on ABC, which is Disney. So she's definitely in the Disney family, and she's a big fan."
Adrienne helps Marge get Santa's Little Helper fit as a fiddle — so fit, in fact, that he qualifies to participate in a national competition in Philadelphia. Adrienne accompanies Marge (and Homer, who stowed away in the trunk of the family car) to the City of Brotherly Love, where she eventually reveals that she's using Santa's Little Helper as a pawn to locate Benjamin Franklin's hidden treasure. At the end of the episode, she falls to her death in a massive cavern underneath Betsy Ross' house as she tries to kill the Simpsons' pooch.
"It's a really fun, juicy, surprising part for her, I think," Selman says. "She certainly meets a not-great end."
'The Simpsons' episode 800, 'Irrational Treasure'
20th Television / FOX
Hitting the streets of Philadelphia
Christine Nangle, the episode's primary writer, is a Philadelphia native, and began working on "Irrational Treasure" as a tribute to her hometown. "She was excited about doing a Philly travel show."
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Neither Nangle nor the rest of the Simpsons team knew that the ep would be a milestone when production began.
"When we wrote it, we originally didn't know it was going to be the 800th episode to air on Fox," Selman remembers. "We started writing it late last winter or early spring because we have to work so far ahead for animation, and we knew we wanted to do a Philadelphia episode."
The team quickly realized that the episode's scope and emotional hook would make "Irrational Treasure" a nice fit to commemorate the show's landmark achievement. "By the time we started building it and adding all the satire and the parody and the emotion and and the travel stuff, it did feel like kind of an epic movie-type episode with a big sprawling plot," Selman says.
"I love telling a story using the specifics of both famous and non-famous parts of a place like Philadelphia to tell both a crazy adventure story that is a nonsense plot about this conspiracy, but also a deep emotional story about Marge's connection to the dog and what it means to give your love to a pet," he continues.
Selman and Nangle also made sure to include a shoutout to their alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania. "The UPenn logo is on screen when Homer's rowing on the Schuylkill River," he says. "It was a little indulgent, but it's part of the UPenn mafia that doesn't exist. We tried to put a subtle reference to it, and it turned out to be much less subtle than we wanted."
Kevin Bacon in New York City on Feb. 1, 2020
Dominik Bindl/WireImage
Bringing home the Bacon
When she arrives in Philadelphia, Marge meets a hotel concierge who greets her with the most stereotypically Philly line imaginable. "Yo, welcome to the Hotel Philadelphia," he says in a thick Philly accent. "We offer 24-hour room service from our full Boyz II Men-u. And if you need a wuter or any other jawn, just ring the Patti LaBell and we'll send a jabroni right up."
The concierge, who later asks Marge if she'd prefer "the Silver Linings Playbook room or the Fresh Prince Suite," was voiced by Kevin Bacon, whom Selman says was the last guest actor to join the party.
"He just has that one scene," the showrunner says. "And we're like, 'Who's from Philly who has a great Philly accent? Oh, Kevin Bacon does. Let's see if he wants to do that.'"
Selman explains that Bacon's late father, Edmund Bacon, was a prominent urban planning academic whom he'd heard give a guest lecture during his time at UPenn. "Kevin Bacon is from an old, classy Philly family, but he's never done the Philly local accent," the screenwriter says. "But he really was able to bring it, and we've jammed that insane speech with so many different Phillyisms and weird puns. He really threw himself into it."
'The Simpsons' episode 800, 'Irrational Treasure'
20th Television / FOX
Streaming bonuses
"Irrational Treasure" boasts a vocal cameo by Boyz II Men, who sing "The Simpsons" in the ep's opening seconds (and also provide additional music during the closing credits). But the ep doesn't include the entire Simpsons theme song due to time constraints, which means that it lacks two of the show's signature traditions: the couch gag and Bart's chalkboard message.
However, a longer version of the episode will soon premiere on Hulu with at least one of those details intact.
"The shows have to be so short because of the needs of network television," Selman says. "We did create a couch gag for it. It's kind of a dark couch gag. We'll air it on Hulu a week after the show airs on Fox."
Additionally, the streaming edition may feature a chalkboard gag as well. "We haven't written it yet, but that we might put a Bart chalkboard message on the streaming version," he says. "It may reference the 800th milestone in a clever way."
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'The Simpsons' episode 800, 'Irrational Treasure'
20th Television / FOX
Pulling the heartstrings
The episode culminates in a heartfelt monologue from Marge after she thinks Santa's Little Helper has died alongside Brunson's character. "Having any pet is stupid," she says mournfully. "When we got Santa's Little Helper, we didn't just say, 'Yes, I'd like to rescue this dog,' we said, 'Hi, I volunteer to have my heart ripped out of my chest someday.' Because no matter how much time we get to have together, it will never be enough."
The dog lives, of course, but Selman says that the moment where Marge confronts her pet's mortality is the entire point of the episode.
"Everything in this episode, to me, is in service of Marge's speech at the end," he says. "We all wrote it together. It's based on our own feelings of pet ownership, of how your love is so intense for the pet, but you know that when it ends, there's this gonna be this horrible feeling of super sadness that it was never enough, you know? And for one of our goofier episodes, that's a real human, truthful, universal, elegant, touching speech. So to me, that's the magic. You do a crazy episode about cheese steaks and a Fresh Prince hotel room and Rocky statues that don't exist, and then you bring it home with something that you would see in a Jim Brooks movie."
He continues, "I want pet owners to be crying when they hear that speech, you know, and feel that, 'Wow, this is a universal emotional truth.' To me, that's the most exciting part. And that we, all the writers, were able to bring our own feelings into this makes it a great form of creative collaboration, which is always special."
The Simpsons airs on Sundays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Fox.
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