The Simpsons' most unbelievable predictions: From Donald Trump’s Presidency to the COVID-19 Pandemic

Here are a few of the most talked-about instances where The Simpsons seemed to foresee the future before the rest of the world did.

Since its 1989 debut, The Simpsons has been one of the most beloved and significant television programmes for more than thirty years. But more than its witty banter and cultural parody, the show is famous for something genuinely uncanny: its strange capacity to seem to foretell the future.

The show's ability to mimic real-world events, from predicting Donald Trump's presidency long before it happened to ominously hinting at a worldwide pandemic, has sparked a plethora of online discussions and conspiracy theories. Every rewatch becomes a quest for the next prediction as audiences are captivated by its seemingly prophetic storytelling.

Here are a few of the most talked-about instances where The Simpsons seemed to foresee the future before the rest of the world did.

Donald Trump becomes President of US

In the year 2000, The Simpsons aired an episode titled Bart to the Future, where Lisa becomes president and casually mentions inheriting office from “President Trump.” What was meant as a tongue-in-cheek jab at Trump’s political flirtations—he had dabbled with a Reform Party run at the time—turned into one of pop culture’s most talked-about predictions. Sixteen years later, Donald Trump was elected as the 45th President of the United States in 2016. When he announced his candidacy for the 2024 elections, fans once again turned to The Simpsons, marveling at its uncanny foresight.

Disney buying 20th Century Fox 

The Simpsons used a blink-and-you'll-miss-it visual gag in the 1998 episode When You Dish Upon a Star, which was a sign outside the 20th Century Fox studio that said, "a division of Walt Disney Co." It was merely light-hearted satire at the time. But when Disney revealed its historic $52 billion acquisition of 21st Century Fox in 2017, almost 20 years later, the joke took on a prophetic quality.

 The submarine that sank

The 2006 episode, Homer's Paternity Coot, shows Homer going on a submarine dive with a man who says he is his biological father, in yet another unsettling example of a Simpsons episode mirroring real life. In separate submersibles, the two set out to investigate a sunken ship. A tense and unnerving moment occurs during the dive when Homer gets separated and trapped in his vessel, his oxygen supply rapidly running out. A remarkably similar tragedy occurred in real life on June 18, 2023. To visit the Titanic wreck, five people boarded Ocean Gate's Titan submersible and ventured out into the Atlantic. All communication was lost in a matter of hours. Later, it was verified that everyone on board had perished when the sub imploded during its descent.

Lady Gaga's entrance at Super Bowl

The Simpsons seems to have depicted Lady Gaga flying over a crowd while hanging from cables in the 2012 episode Lisa Goes Gaga. At the time, this was a purely imaginative theatrical moment. However, five years later, during her 2017 Super Bowl halftime performance, the pop icon recreated a nearly identical scene, descending from the stadium roof on cables in a startling example of art mirroring life. Fans immediately remembered the animated prediction, demonstrating how strikingly similar the two were.

A pandemic and deadly bees

When the fictional "Osaka Flu" strikes Springfield in the 1993 episode Marge in Chains, brought in by imported juicers from Japan, it is one of the most terrifying coincidences between The Simpsons and real life. A desperate crowd opens a delivery truck in an attempt to find a remedy as panic spreads, only to let loose a swarm of deadly bees. In 2020, the world had to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic, which was also caused by a virus that originated in Asia.

At about the same time, news organisations in the United States reported seeing deadly Asian giant hornets, also known as "murder hornets." Despite the fact that the 1968 Hong Kong Flu served as the episode's original inspiration, the disturbing similarities between the real world and fiction generated a lot of conjecture about yet another Simpsons prophecy coming true.

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Tiger on stage incident

The Simpsons included a scene in the 1993-episode Springfield (Or, How I Learnt to Stop Worrying and Love Legalised Gambling) where a pair of magicians, obviously modelled after Siegfried and Roy, are attacked by their white tiger while performing on stage. When Roy Horn was severely attacked by a white Bengal tiger during a live Las Vegas performance in 2003, what appeared to be exaggerated satire became a sobering reality. In retrospect, the animated scene seems uncannily prophetic because, despite his survival, the incident left him partially paralysed and effectively ended the legendary duo's career.