Yes, the sign is real. In Treehouse of Horror XXXVII, the 2026 Halloween special from The Simpsons, there is a shot of the Springfield DMV with a sign outside that reads: "VISIT OUR WEBSITE AT our-website-is-broken.org". No punchline added. No winking follow-up. The joke is just a government office so confident its website does not work that it prints the failure on the sign outside.
The episode aired on Fox on Sunday, October 25, 2026, as part of season 38. The sign shows up in the third and final segment, "Vehicular Dadslaughter", where Bart and Lisa break into the DMV after hours. Screenshots of the sign spread across 9gag and social media on October 26 and 27, and most of the captions said some version of the same thing: don't visit it, and whatever you do, don't double click.
This page is a fan-made guide to that gag: which episode it is in, what happens around it, why it blew up, and what the real our-website-is-broken.org address actually does when you type it in. If you want the short version first, here it is.
Quick facts
- Episode: Treehouse of Horror XXXVII (season 38 Halloween special)
- Air date: Sunday, October 25, 2026, on Fox
- Segment: "Vehicular Dadslaughter", the third of three stories
- The sign: "VISIT OUR WEBSITE AT our-website-is-broken.org"
- The setting: the Springfield DMV, run in this story by witch versions of Patty and Selma
- The DMV's Halloween name: "Department of Magical Vexation", also joked as "Damnation Most Vile"
- Guest stars: Jeff Probst and Tiffany Haddish
- Intro: a stop-motion homage to The Nightmare Before Christmas
What happens in "Vehicular Dadslaughter"
The segment sends Bart and Lisa into the Springfield DMV at night. This is not the normal DMV, which is scary enough for most people. In the Treehouse of Horror version, the office is run by witch versions of Patty and Selma, Marge's chain-smoking sisters, and the department gets renamed the Department of Magical Vexation, with "Damnation Most Vile" as the other reading of the initials.
Inside, the kids find Homer. He has been trapped there, stuck starring in driver-education films, the kind of grainy safety videos that feel like they were made to punish the audience. It is a good setup for a Halloween segment because the DMV already has a reputation as a place where time stops and nobody leaves happy. The episode just makes that literal.
The website sign sits outside the building as a background gag, easy to miss if you blink. Background gags are a long Simpsons habit: signs, posters and labels that reward anyone who pauses. This one rewarded pausing more than most, which is why we wrote a full breakdown of the DMV sign gag and the moment it appears in.
Why the gag blew up online
Photos of the sign started circulating the day after the episode aired, and they kept spreading through October 27. The captions wrote themselves. People joked that you should not visit the address, that you should definitely not double click, and that this was the most honest government website notice ever published.
The reason it landed is simple. Almost everyone has fought a broken government website at some point: a form that resets, a payment page that spins forever, a login that insists your password is wrong five minutes after you reset it. Real offices respond with cheerful "we are experiencing technical difficulties" banners. Springfield's DMV just admits it on a wooden sign. The honesty is the joke, and it is why the screenshot works even if you have never seen a single episode.
It also helps that the address looks real. A fake URL like "dmv dot example" would have died as a throwaway line. A plausible .org address sends thousands of people straight to their browser to check, which takes us to the question everyone asked next.
So what does our-website-is-broken.org actually do?
We checked the real address so you do not have to guess. The domain is live, and it is clearly part of the joke. The page title is "D'oh". The page itself is a black screen showing "D'oh" next to a donut emoji, plus an email link, over a full-screen background animation. Its description line, the one search engines read, says: "We're working on it."
That is the whole site. No forms, no queues, no services, nothing to renew and nothing to book. It is a holding page with its tongue in its cheek, and honestly it loads faster than most real DMV websites.
One thing worth saying clearly: that .org page is not this page. You are reading ourwebsiteisbroken.online, an unofficial fan guide about the episode. We are not the show, we are not Fox, and we are definitely not a DMV. If your actual license needs renewing, this site can do nothing for you except sympathise.
The other two segments
"Vehicular Dadslaughter" is the final story of the night. The episode opens with a stop-motion intro that pays homage to The Nightmare Before Christmas, and then the first segment, "Bride's Shed Revisited", in which a magical shed swaps Marge's husbands. The second segment, "Dog Boy Afternoon", switches Bart and Santa's Little Helper into each other's bodies, which goes about as well as you would expect for both of them. Jeff Probst and Tiffany Haddish appear as guest stars across the episode.
If you want the whole night walked through story by story, we have a guide to all three Treehouse of Horror XXXVII segments that covers each plot in order.
Where to watch the episode
The episode premiered on Fox in the United States. In general terms, new Simpsons episodes turn up on the usual streaming services that carry the show in each country shortly after broadcast, and the full back catalogue lives on Disney+ in most regions. Listings change often, so check your local Fox schedule or your streaming app of choice and search for "Treehouse of Horror XXXVII".
Frequently asked questions
Is the "our website is broken" sign real in the episode?
Yes. It appears outside the Springfield DMV in "Vehicular Dadslaughter", the third segment of Treehouse of Horror XXXVII, and reads "VISIT OUR WEBSITE AT our-website-is-broken.org".
Is our-website-is-broken.org a real website?
Yes, the address is real and live. It shows a joke page: a black screen, "D'oh", a donut emoji and the line "We're working on it." It offers no services.
When did Treehouse of Horror XXXVII air?
Sunday, October 25, 2026, on Fox, as part of season 38.
Is this site the official episode site?
No. This is an unofficial fan guide. It has no connection to The Simpsons, Fox or 20th Television, and it is not a government or DMV website.
Why did people say "don't double click"?
That was the running joke in the viral captions. The sign reads like a warning label, so people played along and treated the address like something dangerous and forbidden, which of course made everyone more curious.
One last thing
Springfield has been making jokes about the internet for a very long time, from Homer's "Mr. X" gossip site back in season 12 to a DMV that prints its broken website on a sign. We rounded up that history, and why jokes about government websites never seem to get old, in our piece on the Simpsons and the great tradition of website gags. And if a tiny background sign in a Halloween episode can send this many people to a search engine, it probably deserves it. The DMV's website is broken. At least they told us.
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