Oct 11, 2010 11:17 GMT  ·  By

British guerrilla artist Banksy has officially become the first artist ever to be allowed to alter the intro to the most successful television show of all times: and he made sure it was one to remember.

The episode in question “MoneyBart,” premiered in the US the other night, and has managed to cause quite a stir because of the modified intro, which is now just as popular as the show itself.

“The Simpsons” got a brand new, 1-minute long intro, which starts off just like the regular, un-Banksy-ed intro, except for a few hints here and there that something may be different.

These are, as The Guardian points out, a few “Banksy” inscriptions on walls, and Bart writing “I must not write all over the walls,” well, all over the walls of his classroom.

However, it’s after the regular intro ends that the guerrilla artist finally shows viewers into a sordid world where kittens are ground to pieces to stuff Simpson dolls and unicorns are chained to walls.

“It then pans to a dark, dilapidated factory where dozens of workers animate sketches of the family,” The Guardian says. It is, actually, a sweatshop.

“Cats are shown being thrown into a wood chipper to create stuffing for merchandise such as Bart Simpson dolls. A unicorn, chained to the factory wall, is used to punch holes in DVDs,” the same media outlet says.

A man tapes boxes labeled “Simpsons” using what looks like a head of a dead dog with its tongue sticking out. Children drip photos in tanks filled with green slime and labeled biohazard.

The titles end with the altered logo of 20th Century Fox, where the bright font has been replaced by the same depressing shade of blue-ish gray.

The logo also includes now a watchtower, searchlights and a barbed wire fence, to render the message that whoever is unlucky enough to land in the Simpsons sweatshop doesn’t stand a chance of walking out alive.

“It is not the first time the show has taken a swipe at Fox: the cartoon has parodied Fox News, while the network’s owner, Rupert Murdoch, has appeared in the show as a ‘billionaire tyrant’,” The Guardian says.

“Al Jean, The Simpsons executive producer, joked: ‘This is what you get when you outsource’,” says the same publication.

Word in the industry has it that, to create this new intro, Banksy was inspired by rumors that the characters on the show are animated in Seoul, South Korea.

His collaboration is believed to be one of the best guarded secrets in the history of television – which probably explains why everybody online is now talking about it.

Below is Banksy’s intro for “The Simpsons.” Enjoy.