There’s a Simpsons episode for everything.
In keeping with the popular internet meme about the long-running animated sitcom supposedly predicting the future, the latest instance has been sparked by President Biden ending his re-election bid over the weekend and endorsing Kamala Harris for the Democratic presidential nomination. A writer for The Simpsons even took to social media to remark on the show’s supposed foreshadowing of Harris.
It dates back to an episode from March of 2000, titled “Bart to the Future,” in which Lisa Simpson becomes the first female president of the US. During the episode, Lisa can be seen wearing the same purple suit, along with a pearl necklace and earrings, that Harris won during her 2021 swearing-in. And because so many fans pointed to that coincidence, Simpsons writer Al Jean took to X/Twitter to express his pride at the entirely coincidental similarity.
Personally, I think this kind of thing is pretty silly. Every woman who wears a purple suit with pearls in the context of a political situation is not an automatic reference to Vice President Harris. Nevertheless, the juxtaposition of the two images on social media went pretty viral, so much so that even a Simpsons writer felt compelled to weigh in (as you can see above).
As a reminder, other examples when it’s been said that The Simpsons, the entirety of which is available on Disney+, “predicted” the future include the 1998 episode “When You Dish Upon a Star,” which included a sign showing 20th Century Fox as being owned by Disney (a fact that came true in 2017).
The “Bart to the Future” episode, by the way, also prefaced another big moment in the future. President Lisa, in that episode, bemoans inheriting a “budget crunch” from the previous administration led by President Donald Trump. Not only did the show predict Trump’s presidency, in other words; but it imagined Trump being followed by the nation’s first female president. We’ll have to stay tuned to see if the show, created by Matt Groening, can add that one to its already long list of accurate predictions.
