Cutouts of "The Simpsons" characters Bart Simpson (R) and his best friend Milhouse Van Houten are displayed atop a 7-Eleven convenience store in Burbank, California, July 2, 2007. The store was converted into a "Kwik-E- Mart", made fam
Cutouts of "The Simpsons" characters Bart Simpson (R) and his best friend Milhouse Van Houten are displayed atop a 7-Eleven convenience store in Burbank, California, July 2, 2007. The store was converted into a "Kwik-E- Mart", made famous by the popular animated television program. Specially themed products from the show, such as cans of Buzz cola and Krusty-O's cereal, were on sale. REUTERS/Fred Prouser

“The Simpsons” thinks New Zealand is just “The Milhouse of Australia.” The U.S. animated series has poked fun at the Pacific nation.

In the most recent episode of the series, Bart Simpson and his friend Milhouse Van Houten are discussing “The Hobbit” and its Kiwi filmmaker Sir Peter Jackson when their discussion turns to tax credits of making a film in the country.

“The Hobbit taught us every dragon has a chink in it armour,” Bart said.

“It also taught us that New Zealand’s beautiful landscapes and attractive tax credits add up to a filmmaker’s paradise. For more information visit www.nzfilmhere.nz,” Milhouse said as a caption that reads, “New Zealand (The Milhouse of Australia) www.nzfilmhere.nz,” appears.

The Web site redirects to a Fox.com page that sees Milhouse taunting the visitors, “Made ya look!”

The faux site isn’t the issue, but the description of New Zealand. As some NZ sites pointed out, being likened to Milhouse is far from complimentary. Milhouse is Bart’s gullible best friend. He lives in the shadow of Bart’s popularity, and is often described as sickly and highly allergic to almost everything. So in calling New Zealand the “Milhouse of Australia,” the show’s producers were perhaps describing the country as the less popular and naive version of its neighbour. And that’s hardly a compliment.

As for the mention of tax credits, it was in reference to the tax breaks Jackson received in 2010 after he threatened to move the production of “The Hobbit” trilogy to Europe.

In 2013, “The Simpsons” paid tribute to the second instalment of “The Hobbit” trilogy, “The Desolation of Smaug,” with an elaborate couch gag. In the episode “Four Regrettings and a Funeral,” the opening gag saw the Simpsons family trekking to their living room couch in “Hobbit”-style, with some characters acting as characters from the J.R.R. Tolkien novels.