A cheating scandal at Bart and Lisa Simpson's school leads Kent Brockman, the newsreader character in the long-running cartoon, to describe it as "more corrupt than the Italian parliament."
He shows the principal of the school, Seymour Skinner, undercover footage of students cheating at their exams.
"If these children are our future then I for one do not want to live," the news anchor says in the episode, which was broadcast in the United States this week.
The episode sparked a debate among Italians on social media, with some seeing the funny side but others expressing disgust that the venality of politicians had led to Italy being held up as a synonym for corruption.
"We've really hit rock bottom," said one Twitter user.
"It's official – we are now the laughing stock of even the Simpsons," tweeted another.
"If even the Simpsons are taking the mickey, isn't it time to start asking ourselves a few questions?" wrote an Italian woman.
Others were more defiant, saying the United States had more than enough graft of its own.
"This comes from the country that has the largest number of banking scandals in the world," said one Twitter user.
Italy was ranked 72 out of 174 states and territories in Transparency International's most recent Corruption Perceptions Index, which lists countries based on how corrupt their public sector is perceived to be.
The least corrupt countries, jointly at number one, were Finland, New Zealand and Denmark, while the most graft-ridden was Somalia.
Silvio Berlusconi, the three-times prime minister, has faced a wide range of corruption allegations during his 20 years in politics, from tax fraud on a massive scale to abusing his office by having an under age prostitute released from police custody and bribing a Left-wing senator three million euros to join his centre-Right party.
《辛普森一家》新剧集嘲笑意大利是“腐败窝”，意大利人心情复杂，既感到愤怒，又不得不进行自我批评。
在《辛普森一家》新剧集中，巴特和丽萨·辛普森的学校爆发作弊丑闻，动画片里的新闻播报员肯特·布罗克曼称“这比意大利国会更腐败”。
他指出，学校校长西摩·斯金纳默许学生在考试中作弊。
“如果这些孩子是我们的未来，那我宁愿不活了。”动画片中的新闻主播这样说道。这集动画片于本周在美国播出。
这集动画片在意大利社交媒体上引发了争论。许多人认为它很搞笑，但另外一些人感到反感，政治家们的贪赃枉法让意大利成为腐败国家代名词。
一名推特用户写道：“我们真的触底了。”
另一名用户写道：“因为意大利官员，我们现在成了《辛普森一家》的笑料。”
一名意大利女子写道：“即便《辛普森一家》拿我们开玩笑，难道我们不应该开始反思一些问题吗？”
还有人对此感到愤怒，称美国腐败现象更严重。
一名推特用户写道：“这些嘲弄来自拥有世界上银行腐败丑闻最多的国家。”
据了解，在“透明国际”公布的全球清廉指数报告中，意大利在174个国家和地区中排名第72位。
并列排行第一的全球最清廉国家是芬兰、新西兰和丹麦，排行末尾的则是索马里。
曾三次当选意大利总理的贝卢斯科尼在其20年政治生涯中，面临许多腐败指控，包括大规模税务欺诈、滥用职权（保释了一名被拘留的未成年妓女）、用300万欧元贿赂左翼参议员让其参与他的中右政党等。