Over two decades ago, The Simpsons predicted Donald Trump would one day become the president of the United States.
The animation was bang on the money (even though it seemed absurd at the time) but it wasn’t to be the only time the writers have managed to “predict the future”.
This time, a scene featuring Lisa Simpson as US president is eerily similar to the inauguration of president Joe Biden and the newly appointed vice president, Kamala Harris.
In the episode, Bart to the Future (from over two decades ago), we see the middle Simpson sibling become President of the United States which incredibly follows the leadership of Trump.
But what is even more iconic, is what Lisa is wearing. In the episode, Lisa dons a purple pantsuit, white pearl earrings and a pearl necklace. Minus the face mask, it is almost an exact replica of what Harris wore as she took office. Unbelievable.
Kamala Harris really is Lisa Simpson and I’m all for it 😁 pic.twitter.com/82yTgsu09o
— the barefoot bandit (@Darth_Tsunami) January 20, 2021
#KamalaHarris reminds me with Lisa Simpson… almost same outfit pic.twitter.com/wTySY9Eibl
— ₘₑₘₒᵣᵢₑₛ🦋 (@butterflymem0ry) January 20, 2021
On January 8, fans found another eerily accurately portrayed event surrounding the election, this time involving the riots on the US Capitol.
The Treehouse of Horror episode (number 31 if you can believe it) follows the fallout of Homer’s missed vote which ultimately decides the election. While this would never be the case (the fate of the US in one man’s hand…or would it…?), it seems that Homer has incited a riot.
Found by eagle-eyed fans of the show, the episode is captioned “January 20th 2021” and even shows Homer (in a fur hat no less) sitting on top of a roof, surrounded by fire, robots and destruction. If you don’t believe us, watch the clip in the Tweet below…
Another predictive programming by the Simpsons! We live a in Truman show 😅
You decide 👇🏾 pic.twitter.com/qkQd8kAzQp— Dj ListenDaT ❤️ (@djlistendat) January 7, 2021
It’s happening. THE SIMPSONS ARE NEVER WRONG pic.twitter.com/TuUVdbgZGJ
— Antre (@_antre__) January 6, 2021
In 1996, another Treehouse of Horror episode predicted people storming the Capitol building after an amendment was passed saying that flags could no longer be burned. A coincidence? We think not.
Back in May 2020, a popular theory began doing the rounds on Twitter that the show had predicted the global coronavirus pandemic and murder hornet swarms (which the US saw earlier that same year) in a 1993 episode.
The Simpsons have been on the air since 1989, with a host of very smart writers on rotation. While it might feel like the series is consistently predicting the future, one former staff writer Bill Oakley has a theory as to why this might seem to be the case.
When Eddie D’ohgrou tweeted about the show predicting the events of 2020 (so far), Oakley responded jokingly confirming the claim.
“OK, fine I guess we did (predict 2020)”, he said.
In an earlier interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the writer said that he didn’t “specifically remember which viruses had been in the news in the decade before” but that “there were probably a few”.
“The story was assigned to us by the showrunners Mike Reiss and Al Jean and they told us to read ‘The Plague’ by Albert Camus, which is what the entire first act is based on,” he said.
“I would say in general when people say The Simpsons has predicted something it is just that we were satirising real-life events from years before and because history keeps repeating it just SEEMS like we were predicting things.”
Although, when it comes to the coronavirus, Oakley says it was a “stretch” because it was based on past events.
In the episode about the virus, everyone in Springfield is desperate to get their hands on a blender due to a juicing craze. However, the blenders have been compromised by a factory worker who coughs on the blenders before they are shipped out — thus spreading a virus.
“It was meant to be absurd that someone could cough into a box and the virus would survive for six to eight weeks in the box. It is cartoonish,” Oakley told the outlet.
“We intentionally made it cartoonish because we wanted it to be silly and not scary, and not carry any of these bad associations along with it, which is why the virus itself was acting like a cartoon character and behaving in extremely unrealistic ways.”
According to Oakley, The Simpsons gets “too much credit” for the predictions.
“There are very few cases where The Simpsons predicted something,” he said during the same interview.
“It’s mainly just coincidence because the episodes are so old that history repeats itself. Most of these episodes are based on things that happened in the ’60s, ’70s or ’80s that we knew about.”
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