10 times the show predicted the future

Across 37 seasons and now almost 800 episodes, “The Simpsons” has continued to surprise viewers by seeming to predict the future.

Gags that start as nothing more than jokes ultimately manifest into reality years later, including global pandemics, US presidencies and international sports scandals.

Although some of the hit animation’s writers have downplayed the show’s uncanny ability to predict the future as “educated guesses,” loyal fans consider the iconic cartoon a modern-day Nostradamus.

“It’s unnerving,” showrunner Matt Selman told Page Six ahead of the show’s 800th episode. “It sort of makes you think maybe we live in a simulation or something like that.”

“But, I always say that the more unlikely thing would be that we never predicted anything,” he clarified. “Because I consider these to be coincidences. And if there’s no coincidences, that’s very unlikely and statistically almost impossible.”

Selman, however, did acknowledge that “the coincidences we did happen to predict are pretty freaky.”

As the beloved series celebrates its 800th episode on Sunday, here are the top 10 times “The Simpsons” predicted the future.

“Marge in Chains” (Season 4, Episode 21)

Nearly 30 years before COVID-19 forced the world into a lengthy lockdown, “The Simpsons” teased a pandemic in the 1993 episode “Marge in Chains” when an illness dubbed the “Osaka Flu” made its way from Japan all the way to Springfield.

The episode received renewed attention when COVID-19 actually hit in 2020, forcing co-writer Bill Oakley to speak out against the “gross” comparisons.

“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,” he told the Hollywood Reporter in March 2020.

“It is cartoonish,” Oakley added. “We intentionally made it cartoonish because we wanted it to be silly and not scary.” 

“$pringfield” (Season 5, Episode 10)

When local billionaire Mr. Burns decided to build a casino in Springfield in the 1993 episode “$pringfield,” he hired the entertainment duo Gunter and Ernst and their white tiger, Anastasia, to perform.

The performance, however, turned tragic when Anastasia attacked the pair and left them in tatters.

A similar incident would unfold in real life a decade later, when Roy Horn of the famous magic duo Siegfried & Roy (whom Gunter and Ernst were clearly based on) was almost mauled to death by their white tiger Mantacore at the Mirage Resort and Casino in Las Vegas in October 2003.

Horn suffered severe injuries during the attack, including extensive blood loss that led to a stroke. The incident ended Horn’s performing career, and he later died from complications of COVID-19 in 2020 at the age of 75.

“Lisa’s Wedding” (Season 6, Episode 19)

The first time “The Simpsons” ever explored a future setting was in the 1995 episode “Lisa’s Wedding” when Lisa visited a psychic at a local carnival, and the fortune teller showed the eldest Simpson daughter her future husband.

One scene showed Lisa and her future love lying together in a college dorm with a Rolling Stones poster on the wall from the band’s “Rolling Stones Steel Wheelchair Tour 2010.”

Not only were Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood still touring in 2010, but they were still performing together as the Rolling Stones as late as 2024.

Jagger, meanwhile, went on to guest star in the Season 14 episode “How I Spent My Strummer Vacation,” which aired in 2002.

“When You Dish Upon a Star” (Season 10, Episode 5)

One of the most surprising predictions made by “The Simpsons” came during the show’s 1998 episode “When You Dish Upon a Star.”

After Homer forms (and later ruins) a close friendship with Kim Basinger, Alec Baldwin and Ron Howard, the “Apollo 13” director is seen pitching a movie idea that Homer came up with earlier in the episode to 20th Century Fox.

But when a shot of the 20th Century Fox logo is cast across the screen, it’s revealed that the studio was owned by the Walt Disney Co.

In 2019, 21 years after the episode aired, Disney purchased the entertainment assets of 21st Century Fox for $71 billion.

“Bart to the Future” (Season 11, Episode 17)

While Disney’s purchase of 21st Century Fox was one of the most surprising predictions made by “The Simpsons,” Donald Trump becoming the US president remains one of the most talked about.

During another glimpse into the future in the 2000 episode “Bart to the Future,” it’s revealed that Lisa is elected commander-in-chief after the businessman and reality star.

“As you know, we’ve inherited quite a budget crunch from President Trump,” Lisa says from the Oval Office.

Trump was elected the 45th president of the United States in November 2016, 16 years after “Bart to the Future” aired in March 2000.

“Homer’s Paternity Coot” (Season 17, Episode 10)

In 2006, nearly two decades before a similar disaster unfolded in real life, Homer and a man thought to be his long-lost father set out on an underwater adventure in their own submersibles to find treasure in a sunken ship.

However, the pair’s deep-sea journey took a scary turn when Homer’s personal submarine got caught up in a coral reef, and he seemingly ran out of oxygen – until America’s favorite everyman wakes up three days later in the hospital.

In June 2023, 17 years after “Homer’s Paternity Coot” aired, an OceanGate submersible carrying five passengers (including a father and his son) imploded during a deep-sea expedition to see the ruins of the Titanic. All five passengers perished in the tragedy.

“Boy Meets Curl” (Season 21, Episode 12)

Besides being parents to Lisa, Bart and Maggie, Homer and Marge Simpson are also Olympic champions.

The central “Simpsons” couple beat Sweden and brought home the gold when they were recruited to the US curling team for the 2010 Winter Olympics in that year’s episode “Boy Meets Curl.”

It only took eight years for that prediction to come true, because Team USA went on to sweep Sweden and win its first-ever gold medal in the sport during the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea.

“You Don’t Have to Live Like a Referee” (Season 25, Episode 16)

To celebrate the 2014 FIFA World Cup, the creators of “The Simpsons” wrote an episode in which Homer was asked to referee a match because all the other officials were fired for accepting bribes to call matches unfairly.

One scene even depicts the executive vice president of the World Football Federation getting arrested for corruption while speaking with Homer.

Although Homer himself is offered a bribe to call the FIFA World Cup Final unfairly, he ignores the bribe and names Germany the winner over Brazil.

Not only did Germany go on to win the 2014 FIFA World Cup four months after “You Don’t Have to Live Like a Referee” aired that March, but the US Department of Justice launched a corruption investigation into numerous FIFA officials in 2015.

Eighteen individuals and two corporations were ultimately indicted on charges of racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering.

“The Serfsons” (Season 29, Episode 1)

Two years before “Game of Thrones” concluded with its widely panned series finale, “The Simpsons” kicked off its 29th season with an episode poking fun at the HBO hit called “The Serfsons.”

After Homer revives a dragon to restore magic to the kingdom, the mythical creature turns on the citizens of Springfieldia and begins burning the village down.

Flash forward to May 2019, and many Westeros fans were left furious when Daenerys (Emilia Clarke) mounted her dragon Drogon and burned King’s Landing to the ground in the show’s penultimate episode, “The Bells.”

“West Wing Story”

After “The Simpsons” predicted Trump’s ascension to the White House long before it actually happened, the show appeared to do it once more for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

In the August 2019 short “West Wing Story,” writer David Silverman parodied “West Side Story” and depicted then-President Trump in a sing-off against Squad members Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ayanna Pressley.

Trump ultimately lost the sing-off and was chased out of the White House, where he came face-to-face with a long line of 2020 Democratic presidential candidates.

Although they wouldn’t become running mates until August 2020, “The Simpsons” paired Biden and Harris together. The duo were elected president and vice president that November.