About

Screaming Friends is a parody of the animated series Smiling Friends that appears briefly in The Simpsons season 36, episode 18, Estranger Things. In the scene, Bart shows Marge the cartoon on his tablet, which features several characters screaming, then says, "Obviously the jokes are great, but what I love is the storytelling." The scene went viral on social media shortly after it aired on May 18th, 2025, inspiring discourse, memes, comparisons to other show parodies within other shows and fan art of the Screaming Friends.

Origin

On May 18th, 2025, The Simpsons season 36, episode 18 aired on TV. At one point in the episode, Bart Simpson shows his mother, Marge, a cartoon on his tablet called "Screaming Friends," a parody of the cartoon Smiling Friends. After watching a scene of the lead characters screaming in a room resembling Smiling Friends HQ, Bart quips, "Obviosuly the jokes are great, but what I love is the storytelling."

The scene was posted by X^[1] user @DanManShow that night, writing, "Oh," garnering over 93,000 likes and 4,300 reposts in two days.

Spread

The scene garnered viral spread online over the following days, inspiring discourse, memes and other related content. On May 18th, 2025, the scene was posted to the /r/SmilingFriends^[2] subreddit, garnering over 5,800 upvotes in two days.

Shortly after, X^[3] user @NopeSignal posted a meme referencing a scene from the Smiling Friends episode "Frowning Friends," garnering over 47,000 likes in two days.

On May 19th, TikToker^[4] @ladbotz reposted the scene, garnering over 720,000 views in a day. That same day, X^[5] user @JoelyMoleyy posted fan art of the characters from Screaming Friends, garnering over 23,000 likes and 1,100 reposts in a day.

Later that day, X^[6] user @thatdaffyduck posted a screenshot from The Simpsons episode "The Italian Bob" in which the show jokingly calls out Family Guy and American Dad for plagiarizing them, writing, "Smiling Friends got off pretty easy, lol," garnering over 75,000 likes in a day.

Also on May 19th, 2025, X^[7] user @Neo_Oswelt started a thread based on the scene asking for other examples of "'legally distinct' cartoon parodies of existing cartoons," garnering over 1,100 likes in a day.

On May 20th, Redditor u/ILikeDrawingGuys made a post to the /r/SmilingFriends^[8] subreddit, titled "The Simpsons has been doing this forever," sharing other examples of The Simpsons parodying and joking about other cartoons, garnering over 320 upvotes in under a day.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References