Spooky, I know. How do The Simpsons writers do it? A pact with the devils? Do they all share that same eyeball the Fates do in Hercules ?
I guess we’ll never know.
But for now, we can take pleasure in looking at all the things they have predicted!
Siegfried and Roy’s tiger attack
Season 5, Episode 10: “Springfield (Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Legalized Gambling)”
Predicted: 1993
Came true: 2003
In the episode, German-American Tiger trainers Gunter and Ernst get attacked by their white tiger. Years later , Roy Horn from Seigfried and Roy was attacked.
Broken voting machines
Season 20, Episode 4: “Treehouse of Horror XIX”
Predicted: 2008
Came true: 2012
In one spooky episode of The Simpsons , Homer tries to vote for Obama but the machine switches his vote to John McCain.
This came true in Pennsylvania , where a machine would switch Obama votes to Romney votes.
The God particle
Season 10, Episode 2: “The Wizard of Evergreen Terrace”
Predicted: 1998
Came true: 2012
You wouldn’t think of Homer as a genius, but apparently, his equation in this episode wasn’t far off from the one that eventually explained the mass of the elementary particle.
FIFA’s corruption
Season 25, Episode 16: “You Don’t Have to Live Like a Referee”
Predicted: 2014
Came true: 2015
It’s widely known that FIFA is corrupt nowadays, but back in 2014 it sure wasn’t… unless you were one of the writers on The Simpsons .
Bengt Holmström wins a Nobel Prize
Season 22, Episode 1: “Elementary School Musical”
Predicted: 2010
Came true: 2016
Six years before he actually won it , Milhouse was betting on Bengt Holmström to win the Nobel Prize for Economics . He was right.
Team USA wins the curling gold
Season 21, Episode 12: “Boy Meets Curl”
Predicted: 2010
Came true: 2018
Oh yes, only The Simpsons saw America’s comeback curling victory during the Winter Games in PyeongChang coming.
Smartwatches
Season 6, Episode 19: “Lisa’s Wedding”
Predicted: 1995
Came true: 2014
“Lisa’s Wedding” actually predicted a few things. One of them being that smartwatches, as shown above, would eventually be invented.
Lady Gaga’s halftime show
Season 23, Episode 22: “Lisa Goes Gaga”
Predicted: 2012
Came true: 2017
Five years before she was flying around during the halftime show, she was doing it on The Simpsons . Maybe she got the idea from that episode?
The Presidency of Donald Trump
Season 11, Episode 17: “Bart to the Future”
Predicted: 2000
Came true: 2016
This may be the spookiest of them all. During one scene set in the future, Lisa as President , says: “As you know, we’ve inherited quite a budget crunch from President Trump”.
Greece defaults on debt
Season 23, Episode 10: “Politically Inept, with Homer Simpson”
Predicted: 2012
Came true: 2015
While Homer was making an appearance on the show Head Butt , the ticker reads “Europe Puts Greece on eBay”.
Three years later, Greece defaulted on its debt.
Ebola
Season 9, Episode 3: “Lisa’s Sax”
Predicted: 1997
Came true: 2014
In 1997, Marge offered to read a book to a depressed Bart about Curious George and the Ebola virus.
17 years later , America had an Ebola outbreak.
NSA spying
The Simpsons Movie
Predicted: 2007
Came true: 2013
The Simpsons Movie called out The NSA listening to people’s conversations six years before Edward Snowden blew the whistle on them.
Disney buying Fox
Season 10, Episode 5: “When You Dish Upon A Star”
Predicted: 1998
Came true: 2017
During one scene, Ron Howard pitches a script Homer wrote to an executive. But before, we see this sign outside the building .
FaceTime
Season 6, Episode 19: “Lisa’s Wedding”
Predicted: 1995
Came true: 2010
During the episode “Lisa’s Wedding”, we see glimpses into the future! During this episode, we see people talking to each other via video.
Autocorrect
Season 6, Episode 8: “Lisa on Ice”
Predicted: 1994
Came True: 2005
There’s a gag where Dolph writes the memo “Beat up Martin” on his Apple Newton, and it autocorrects to “Eat up, Martha”.
Ten odd years later, we would be dealing with our own ducking autocorrect issues.
Stealing cooking grease
Season 10, Episode 1: “Lard of the Dance”
Predicted: 1998
Came True: 2013
In the episode, Homer steals grease from businesses and resells it. People in New York were caught doing the same thing in 2013.
Beatles replying to old fan mail
Season 2, Episode 18: “Brush with Greatness”
Predicted: 1991
Came True: 2013
Marge sends Ringo Starr a painting, and years later he gets back to her. In real life, two women sent Paul McCartney a mixtape and got a reply in 2013.
Random guy gets to go to space
Season 5, Episode 15: “Deep Space Homer”
Predicted: 1994
Came True: 2013
We all remember the episode where Homer went into space. It’s a classic. But they actually sent a random guy to space in 2013 (after training him, of course).
Covering up “David”
Season 2, Episode 9: “Itchy & Scratchy & Marge”
Predicted: 1990
Came True: 2016
Marge wants to censor Itchy and Scratchy , but then realizes the error of her ways when people want to censor Michelangelo’s David .
However, the Russians didn’t learn from that episode, because they voted on whether or not to cover “David’ .
Mutant tomatoes
Season 11, Episode 5: “E-I-E-I-(Annoyed Grunt)”
Predicted: 1999
Came True: 2013
He failed at farming, but Homer found a mutant hybrid of tomatoes and tobacco in the process.
In 2013, vegetables near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant allegedly turned into mutant hybrids as well .
The Bloody Billboard
Season 4, Episode 6: “Itchy & Scratchy: The Movie”
Predicted: 1992
Came True: 2008
The Simpsons had a pretty bloody billboard to promote a cartoon’s first movie.
TVNZ did the same to promote Kill Bill Vol 1 in 2008 in Auckland.
Killing snakes day
Season 4, Episode 14: “Whacking Day”
Predicted: 1993
Came True: 2012
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In Springfield, they take a day to kill as many snakes as possible. So do the residents of Florida , who wade through the Everglades killing pythons.
Robotic librarians
Season 6, Episode 19: “Lisa’s Wedding”
Predicted: 1995
Came True: 2016
The first big prediction from the “Lisa’s Wedding” episode was the invention of librarian robots.
In 2016, such a robot was created at the University of Aberystwyth .
The baby translator
Season 3, Episode 24: “Brother, Can You Spare Two Dimes?”
Predicted: 1992
Came True: 2009
Homer’s brother Herb invented one back in the day, and it only took app developers a couple of years to catch up.
Suing an all-you-can-eat restaurant
Season 4, Episode 8: “New Kid on the Block”
Predicted: 1992
Came True: 2012, 2017
This happened not only in the Simpsons world but also in real life. Twice.
And they were both seafood restaurants. And one incident took place in Springfield, Massachusetts.
Horse meat in food
Season 5, Episode 19: “Sweet Seymour Skinner’s Baadasssss Song”
Predicted: 1994
Came True: 2013
We see Lunchlady Doris putting horsemeat in the school’s food back in ’94.
But in 2013, it actually happened.
Three-eyed fish
Season 2, Episode 4: “Two Cars in Every Garage and Three Eyes on Every Fish”
Predicted: 1990
Came True: 2011
The three-eyed fish is one of the most famous Simpsons icons, and it turns out he’s real.
Bart catches one, and so did a fisherman from Argentina in 2011.
Ferrets as toy poodles
Season 13, Episode 22: “Papa’s Got a Brand New Badge”
Predicted: 2002
Came True: 2013
One of Fat Tony’s schemes is to glue cotton balls to toy ferrets in order to make them look like toy poodles. Someone actually did a similar thing in 2013 .
The Shard
Season 6, Episode 19: “Lisa’s Wedding”
Predicted: 1995
Came True: 2012
This episode came out before London built “The Shard”, a building with a silhouette that looks suspiciously like the grey building in the background of the above photo.
It’s even in the same proximity to Big Ben!
The Albuquerque Isotopes
Season 12, Episode 15: “Hungry, Hungry Homer”
Predicted: 2001
Came True: 2003
In the episode, Homer desperately tries to make sure his town’s team, the Springfield Isotopes, don’t go to Albuquerque.
However, in real life, the Calgary Cannons minor league team did move to Albuquerque and became the Isotopes.
Doughnut-shaped universe
Season 10, Episode 22: “They Saved Lisa’s Brain”
Predicted: 1999
Came True: The new millennium
This was less of a prediction and more of a theory that became popular again thanks to the show.
The Doughnut-shaped universe existed before Stephen Hawking and Homer talked about it. But The Simpsons made it more popular.
