The Simpsons has long since cemented itself into pop culture’s history books, but that’s never prevented it from adding parodies of its contemporaries to its long list of jabs at American culture and society.
And there’s perhaps no better example of this than the sitcom’s Treehouse of Horror segments, in which the creative team plunges our beloved yellow buffoons into satirized storylines ripped straight from some of the greats, including Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, David Cronenberg’s The Fly, Netflix’s crown jewel Stranger Things, and, apparently, the 1996 United States presidential election.
But the latest installment of Treehouse of Horror brought Death Note into the mix, complete with anime art stylings that the animation team no doubt had the time of their life with.
With Lisa in the role of Light Yagami, she quickly stumbles upon the “Death Tome,” a mysterious book that can kill anyone that gets their name written in the pages.
But one fan noticed something peculiar about the list of names that Lisa was collecting for her purge.
It appears as though the writing team ripped the names of some of these victims straight from MLBPA Baseball, a Japanese-developed baseball game released in the mid-90s for the Super Nintendo. The game’s rosters of American players, all of them with hilarious, hastily made-up names such as “Sleve McDichael” and “Bobson Dugnutt,” has been immortalized in meme form for some time now, and it seems like they’ve found another perennial home in Treehouse of Horror.
Twitter instantly fell in love with the revelation, with some posting full player lists and mourning Lisa’s victims, while others went a step further and pointed out just how well the names fit with a Death Note parody.
Bobson Dugnutt might be the best name ever:
The Simpsons’ Treehouse of Horror is currently streaming on Disney Plus.