If you’ve ever wondered how pervasive Hollywood marketing efforts could get, then look no further than the merchandising wizards at Twentieth Century Fox. In order to hype the upcoming release of “The Simpsons Movie,” the studio has teamed with 7-Eleven to equip stores across the country with “Simpsons”-branded items, and to turn 11 hand-picked locations into full-blown, real-life Kwik-E-Mart’s, Springfeld’s ubiquitous convenience store.

Since one of the chosen shops was just a couple of blocks from the MTV offices, I hiked over there to witness the hubbub for myself. Whereas other stores have completely draped their building facades in the show’s Kwik-E-Mart theme, in this instance the limitations of residing in New York City forced the company to adapt a more toned-down approach. That said, all mentions of 7-Eleven on the storefront were gone, replaced by movie-advertising-safe Kwik-E-Mart branding and signs for the “First Bank of Springfield.” From a pure business standpoint, that takes some stones on 7-Eleven’s part. I realize “The Simpsons” are firmly entrenched in the American pop culture zeitgeist, but still…it’s a friggin’ cartoon. But whatever, in I went. After the jump, photos and commentary galore.

Inside, plastic versions of “Simpsons” characters like Homer, Ralph and Comic Book Guy were propped up across the store…

…while a few displays touted specially-produced items from the show like KrustyO’s cereal, Buzz Cola and a special edition “Radioactive Man #711” comic book.

Over in the pastry section, a tray for Homer’s staple pink donut sat empty; the store had sold out in just a few hours. I’m told the bakeries are working at full capacity to meet the surging demand, which is good, because if American industry can’t churn out enough promotional baked goods to satisfy this hungry nation then we might as well go back to the Stone Age, people.

Lest they be overlooked, even the fabled Slurpee machines found themselves re-branded to fit the theme, and were now spitting out WooHoo Blue Vanilla Squishees. Yum.

But it’s behind the cash register that I found the biggest attraction of them all. In a move that strikes me as vaguely disturbing, 7-Eleven has equipped every employee with an official Kwik-E-Mart uniform.

Granted, perhaps I’m over-analyzing this, but here we have an army of Indian and Pakistani workers who, for years, have attempted to beat down the “Thank you, come again” stereotype, and who are now being forced against their will to dress as Apu, the most blatant of all convenience store clichés. In a store, no less, that features stickers of Apu proudly proclaiming that “our hot dogs are rich in bunly goodness.” Again, maybe they’re fine with this, but I couldn’t help but detect a thick cloud of depression emanating from the employee who rang up my bean burrito.

For their part, the customers seemed to love every minute of this “Simpsons” mini-utopia, grabbing every branded item in sight, from hot dogs to mini-coolers.

The very nice PR woman told me one guy even drove from Staten Island to spend over 100 dollars at the store, and that users were already flooding eBay with the promotional merchandise.

In that sense, I guess this is a win-win for everyone. For my part, I was slightly underwhelmed by the entire experience. To be fair, I’m not sure what my expectations were — I was admittedly hoping to see people in yellow body-paint — but I ended up simply being surrounded by the largest bombardment of Hollywood marketing that I’ve ever been exposed to outside of a theme park. For a “Simpsons” fan, I suppose it’s a thrill, like when I visited Quark’s Bar at Las Vegas’ “Star Trek: The Experience,” but at some point it gets a bit much. Props to Fox and 7-Eleven for getting a program like this off the ground, but excuse me if I don’t look forward to “Employee of the Month 2”-branded Home Depots, or whatever else the studios have in the wings.