Inside inside joke shirt: The Simpsons’ meta product placement for JeShirt

A few months ago, comedy director Jason Woliner decided to launch his own novelty T-shirt business, selling a parody of the red Che Guevara T-shirts that replaced Che’s face with that of Jay Leno.

But he quickly backtracked from his “Che Leno” shirt, replacing it with a “Jay Guevara” shirt, and then detailing  one setback after another on his Je Shirt company Tumblr, that all seems really traumatic if it only seemed real.

What is real? People buying the shirts from JeShirt.com for $18.99. They may not be spending the $155,000 for the “cool, collectible JeShirt mug!” But they have bought the shirts.

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On Sunday night, The Simpsons put a “Jay Guevara” shirt on a character. Sure, not one of the Simpsons family, per se, but a character all the same — a guy modeled after those cable shows that rummage through and bid on abandoned storage lockers.

Upon seeing this, Woliner went to Twitter: “I just collapsed dead on the ground. Thank you my hero @mattselman

Selman, an executive producer on The Simpsons, replied: “It comes from character. CJ the pro auction bidder would love @JeShirt

And this is a photo of a guy (@MNTimBuktu) wearing his JeShirt while watching the JeShirt.

And that’s a story of one of the more insidery-baseball references used for humor within a classic comedy franchise.

Sean L. McCarthy

Editor and publisher since 2007, when he was named New York's Funniest Reporter. Former newspaper reporter at the New York Daily News, Boston Herald and smaller dailies and community papers across America. Loves comedy so much he founded this site.

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