Have you ever been in deja vu, a moment in your life where you feel you have been through this all over again, and it is impossible to shake off the feeling? Fans of The Simpsons poorly know what we are talking about. It’s one of those cartoons that started in 1989, but it has incredible skills in predicting the future, which later quite come true. This must make you think, “Well, it’s just a cartoon!” But once you hear these predictions, you will change your mind.
Get yourself some coffee and sit back, as we discuss five moments when The Simpsons knew the future as though it were a fortune-teller in a fair.
Donald Trump Becomes President
Let’s start with something that should be easy on everyone’s mind. In 2000, The Simpsons made the shocking episode Bart to the Future. Here, Lisa becomes the president of the U.S. and takes over after none other than who? Donald Trump. It was funny then because everyone knew Trump from business, but the thought that he could be president was just in the air. Fast-forward through the years to 2016, when he was making his speech and standing as the 45th president of the United States.
The manner of the economy that Lisa took after coming into the presidency from Trump is even done to perfection by the show. Coincidence? It might be, but then it’s incredible how they threw the idea 16 years before it happened.
Smartwatches
Are you going to remember The Jetsons and all those video calls and flying cars they gave me when everyone thought, “This future is going to be great?” Well, The Simpsons had predicted their kind of gadget: smartwatches.
There was an episode from (1995) in The Simpsons when it was called Lisa’s Wedding. Her, you see the fiancé of Lisa talking into his watch one day. That’s not an ordinary wristwatch; it receives calls and makes communication, which in those days when one felt into the future.
Fast-forward to the present era, where smartwatches are almost omnipresent as mobile devices. Take, for instance, making or accepting phone calls, tracking your footsteps, and telling you to get up: it’s all happening on the wrist of your timepiece. Maybe it was not a great stretch of the imagination to see something like this coming. However, once the first smartwatch hit the market, the show nailed the concept long before that.
Disney Buys 20th Century
Fox That’s about as on-the-nose as you can get about predicting the future. In the 1998 When You Dish Upon a Star episode, an off-hand joke was made about Disney buying 20th Century Fox. On this episode, pause the action for a close look at a sign that reads “A Division of Walt Disney Co.”
Guess what? Disney did buy 20th Century Fox in 2019 at a cost worth billions of dollars. When the episode aired, it was just a joke targeting Disney’s massive empire. However, that joke materializes today—Disney is streaming The Simpsons on Disney+.
The FIFA Corruption Scandal
Now, this one might not be on your radar unless you’re a soccer fan, but trust me, it’s wild. Also, in 2014, the TV show No Don’t Have to Live Like a Referee. Aired an episode from The Simpsons. This time, it saw Homer, ever the dreamer, as a referee for the World Cup, investigating corruption in the organization.
A year later, in 2015, FIFA was hit by a massive corruption scandal. Several top officials were arrested for accepting bribes, money laundering, and fraud. The parallels between the show’s storyline and reality are uncanny. The writers knew exactly what was being cooked behind closed doors.
Video Calls
Yes, it might not seem as striking now, but remember how cool a video call was when it first came out? In 1995, the same Lisa’s Wedding episode where the show featured smartwatches also showed video calls. It showed Lisa talking to her mom on a screen where both faces could be seen. It was mind-boggling back then, with all the ideas of video communication floating in the air, but accomplishing as much from your couch was just a fantasy. It has become a new phenomenon in daily life, where people utter names such as Zoom, FaceTime, and WhatsApp as video calls. Amazingly, the invisible cartoon predicted such an ordinary thing many years before it achieved currency. Are you also a fan of the Simpsons? Try Simpsons-themed slots at Slotsgem now and win real money.
