The Simpsons Might Have Already Predicted the Events of 2020

For decades, "The Simpsons" has proven adept at not only standing the test of time, but even predicting the future.

Has the show already predicted the future for the 2020s?

In season 11, "The Simpsons" predicted a Donald Trump presidency in the 2000 episode "Bart to the Future." The year (on the show) was 2030, and the Simpson administration had inherited "quite a budget crunch" from President Trump.

It wasn't the first time the show predicted the future. It foresaw the plot twist for "Game of Thrones" character Daenerys Targaryen, Bengt R. Holmstrom's Nobel Prize in Economics and even the mass of the Higgs boson particle.

It might also have predicted coronavirus. In the season four episode "Marge in Chains," it predicted a global flu pandemic known in the show as the “Osaka Flu," and spread by a Japanese  factory worker coughing into a package.

That same episode also featured the citizens of Springfield in a desperate search for a cure, demanding one from Springfield’s medical community, only to ignore Dr. Hibbert’s medical advice. While overturning a truck, they unleashed the killer bees inside -- portending the arrival of the Asian Giant Hornet (also known as “Murder Hornets”) into the United States.

“Marge in Chains” is also about an unfair arrest which (through a convoluted chain of events) leads to widespread civil unrest and rioting in Springfield.

Sounds like 2020 so far.

From the purchase of 20th Century Fox by Disney to the creation of smartwatches, the show has been eerily accurate dozens of times. The episode that foretold the smartwatch (season 6, episode 19) provided another prediction, this time about World War III.

In the Emmy-winning 1995 episode, "Lisa's Wedding," we fast-forward 15 years to when Lisa is engaged to an Englishman named Hugh St. John Alastair Parkfield. Hugh eventually comes home with Lisa to Springfield, where he ends up in Moe's Bar with Homer. Moe, realizing Homer's drinking buddy is from England, predictably rubs his face in World War II history.

While there seems to be little danger of World War III breaking out at present and the 15 years since the episode aired have long passed, "The Simpsons" has proven time and again to be alarmingly prescient, accidentally predicting the future at least 30 times.

With this in mind, Hugh's response might make us take pause, as it predicts a third world war.

It's a good thing Trump is so chummy with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

Aside from predicting the rise of smartwatches, the episode also successfully predicted video communications such as Amazon's Echo Show and Facebook's Portal, the arrest of Heather Locklear, and virtual reality gaming in bars.

With this in mind, we can look forward to other Simpsons-related innovations, such as Ivanka Trump's 2028 presidential run and virtual reality fudge.

We will keep updating this article as 2020 continues to run rampant and unchecked.

-- Blake Stilwell can be reached at blake.stilwell@military.com. He can also be found on Twitter @blakestilwell or on Facebook.

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