‘Simpsons’ showrunner on Cruz: ‘Go ahead, throw your vote away’

A prominent creative force behind “The Simpsons” on Thursday mocked 2016 GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz’s love of his show.

Al Jean, the showrunner for the popular TV series, implied Cruz was not a serious contender for the Oval Office. His takedown was delivered via a quip from one of the cartoon’s beloved Halloween episodes.

{mosads}“To paraphrase Kang, ‘Ted Cruz?’ Go ahead, throw your vote away,’ Jean said of the Texas senator’s candidacy, according to The Daily Beast.

Jean’s criticism came in response to Cruz’s praise of the animated sitcom Thursday. The long-time Simpsons fan told Daily Beast Washington bureau chief Will Rahn that “Treehouse of Horror VII” was his second favorite episode.

Jean’s insult references “Treehouse of Horror VII,” which first aired in 1996. In it, two aliens named Kang and Kodos impersonate then-presidential candidates Bill Clinton and Bob Dole. When their plot is discovered, the pair taunts voters as having no chance of electing a third party candidate to the White House.

“It’s a two-party system,” Kodos jeers. “You have to vote for one of us.”

“Go ahead, throw your vote away,” Kang adds as the two monsters erupt in laugher and third-party candidate Ross Perot, watching from the audience, angrily thrusts his fist through his straw hat.

Cruz picked 1995’s “Round Springfield” as his most cherished moment featuring the Simpson family. In that adventure, a character utters the phrase “cheese-eating surrender monkeys” to lampoon the French. Cruz described the one-liner as his favorite from the series.

The 2016 hopeful additionally used “The Simpsons” to slam the IRS on Twitter earlier this week. Logging in on Tuesday for Tax Day, he posted a video where protagonist Homer Simpson heckles the agency.

“Anyone else feel like this today?” Cruz tweeted. Homer boos the IRS mercilessly in the clip.

“Imagine instead, we #AbolishtheIRS & have a simple flat tax,” he added.