The Simpsons TV series is popular because they’ve predicted many real-life events that later actually became true. I’m sure most of us have heard about these predictions. For example, the Trump presidency, the COVID-19 pandemic, the implosion of the Titanic-viewing submarine, and many more events have been predicted by the show. The Simpsons is also one of the longest-running animated TV series, it has a total of 750 episodes and 35 seasons!
The Trump Presidency
One of the most famous predictions The Simpsons has made was Donald Trump becoming president of the United States. This was predicted in 2000 in the episode “Bart to the Future” (S11; E17). In this episode, Bart travels to the future to see what he and his family will be doing. He finds out his sister Lisa is running for president after Trump’s time in office. In this episode, Lisa says “As you know, we’ve inherited quite a budget crunch from President Trump.” In 2015 there was another episode with another prediction that Trump would run for president in 2024. In the episode, Homer is behind Donald Trump and he “jumps“ into his hair and sees the future. As Homer is floating around in his hair in the background there is a campaign sign saying “Trump 2024.” This wasn’t a complete prediction from them since Donald Trump had already talked about running for president before.
The Pandemic
Another prediction that The Simpsons made was the COVID-19 pandemic. In 1993 in the episode “Marge in Chains” (S4; E21), there was a flu called the “Osaka Flu” going around to all the people living in Springfield. In the episode, it was mentioned that a shipment from Japan caused this flu to spread all over the town of Springfield. Once March 2020 hit and the pandemic began, many people on social media started to connect this episode with the real-life situation. People mentioned that the way it spread fast and the way it had no developed vaccine to cure all these sick patients was the reason The Simpsons predicted the event of COVID-19. Although those connections were true, the writer Bill Oakley of the show mentioned that the episode was based on other events that had already happened.
Titanic Submarine
One of the most recently discovered predictions from The Simpsons is the disappearance of the submarine looking for the Titanic. In a 2006 episode, Homer goes in an underwater capsule with his father looking for treasure and ends up finding treasure but also a broken ship just like the Titanic. Homer then gets the treasure and on his way back he gets caught in a reef. On the capsule, there is a “low oxygen“ sign that popped up, which was very similar to the OceanGate submarine disappearance event in June 2023. There is a connection that we can all see here but there are over 700 episodes of this show and many little scenes can be cherry-picked by people to connect to real-life events.
So are all these events predicted or just a coincidence that The Simpsons come up with? This has been a very controversial topic that people continue to talk about to this day and their conspiracy theories on it. The Simpsons has become more than just a TV show on social media. Although it’s a well-known show for the humor, their “predictions” will top the reason this show has become more popular over the years.
