Are the writers time travelers, or are they related to Nostradamus?The Simpsons never disappoints viewers with its eerie Simpsons predictions that ring true years later.The Simpsonsfamily is made up of several characters, but the main characters are Homer (voiced byDan Castellaneta), Marge (voiced byJulie Kavner), Lisa (voiced byYeardley Smith), Bart (voiced byNancy Cartwright), and Maggie. Each episode is filled with the Simpsons family interacting with other residents of Springfield including guest stars that appeared in some episodes onThe Simpsons. Yet what intrigues viewers is how some events were predicted byThe Simpsons writers at least five years before they happened.
So, what didThe Simpsonspredict? Could it be thatThe Simpsonsreally predicts world events or is the world just followingThe Simpsonsscript? With the 35th season of the long-running sitcom recently concluding, fans saw a return of more creative, powerful, and witty storylines that are reminiscent of the beloved classicSimpsonsseasons. There's no doubt that the wild narratives from more recent seasons will be added to the growingSimpsons predictions list, there's no telling exactly which ones will come true in the coming years.The bestSimpsons predictions aren't just shocking, they're also often strange, funny, and somehow make sense all at the same time.
57 The Longevity of The Rolling Stones
"Lisa’s Wedding" — Season 6, Episode 19 (1995)
With its story featuring Lisa exploring her future in a fortune-telling booth at a Renaissance fair,Season 6’s “Lisa’s Wedding” is understandably a popular episode forThe Simpsons predictions. The 1995-released episode journeys to the near future of 2010 to explore Lisa’s love story with university classmate Hugh Parkfield (Mandy Patinkin), with one of the more superfluous gags being a ‘The Rolling Stones’ “Steel Wheelchair Tour 2010” poster on the wall in a dorm room.
At the time of the episode’s release, ‘The Rolling Stones’ had been a global phenomenon for upwards of 30 years, and the band members were well into their 50s, sothe joke of them still being a powerhouse 15 years later struck many as an absurdist jape at the age of the musicians. It is now 30 years since “Lisa’s Wedding” premiered and, while drummer and founding memberCharlie Watts passed away in 2021, the rest of the group continue to perform live and release new music.
56 Lemon Tree Robbery
"Lemon of Troy" — Season 6, Episode 24
Another precognitive episode fromThe Simpsons’ sixth season, “Lemon of Troy” unfolds as Homer and Bart work together to retrieve Springfield’s prized lemon tree when it is stolen by kids from Shelbyville. Ranging from its basic premise to key details in Homer and Bart’s plan, the episode stands as a playful parody of ‘Helen of Troy,’ but it became known for its predictive prowess whenan eerily similar and strange theft took place in 2013.
The bizarre robbery took place in Houston, Texas, where a burglar dug up someone’s lemon tree and made off with it, leaving the owner stumped and with a gaping hole in her garden. While there have been a few pretty perplexing, profound, and outright petrifying predictions that have come to fruition in the years since, the lemon tree robbery of Texas 2013 remains one of the most peculiar The Simpsons got right.
55 Japanese PM Eats Fukushima Fish
"Two Cars in Every Garage and Three Eyes on Every Fish" — Season 2, Episode 4
'Japanese Prime Minister Eats Fish' doesn’t necessarily stand as the most shocking news headline of all time, but the circumstances around the politician’s pescatarian feast are eerily similar to what was depicted in the fourth episode of The Simpsons’ second season. While the episode features Mr. Burns running to be governor, the integral part of the episode, as far as predictions go, revolves around him being challenged to eat a three-eyed fish found downstream of his nuclear power plant to prove he hasn’t been contaminating the water.
In 2023, Japanese PM Fumio Kishida, along with several ministers, ate seafood fished from the Fukushima coast as a public display that the water there was safe following the discharge of treated radioactive water from a nearby nuclear power plant. While the real-life demonstration didn’t end quite like it did inThe Simpsons—with Mr. Burns unable to eat the fish, therefore proving his guilt—the episode still stands asan eerily accurate prediction of political posturing and paranoia surrounding the byproduct of nuclear energy.
54 The Shard
"Lisa's Wedding" - Season 6, Episode 19 (1995)
Many characters from fan-favoriteshows will travel to London for its iconic sights, andThe Simpsons is no different. One of these trips comes with a strange prediction, as Lisa's future is predicted and a flash-forward portrays her meeting with a fellow university student named Hugh Parkfield during a trip to London.
A blink-and-you'll-miss-it shot shows a familiar-looking pointy building behind Tower Bridge, which is recognizable to many London locals and tourists who know it today as The Shard. The only issue?The Shard hadn't been built yet at the time the episode aired, as it would only start being constructed in 2009, making its spot-on location and silhouette just a few of the weird predictions from this particular 1995 episode. Of course, that may be reading too much into a random building drawn by one of the artists from the show, but it's fun to see it that way anyway!
53 Ferrets as Toy Poodles
"Papa’s Got a Brand New Badge" - Season 13, Episode 22 (2002)
Marking one of the most peculiar yet uncanny predictions of the series,The Simpsons’ Season 13 episode“Papa’s Got a Brand New Badge” prophesied a bizarre toy animal scam that occurred in Argentina. The episode sees Homer form his own police force with his friends in response to city-wide riots that lead to Lisa’s Malibu Stacey doll collection being stolen.
One of the crimes Homer ends up stopping is Fat Tony’s scheme which sees his crooks gluing cotton balls to ferrets and selling them as pet poodles. Remarkably, in 2013, a retired man in Argentina was discovered to be doing the exact same thing in a market in Buenos Aires, selling the weasels for $150 each. The ferrets had been given steroids and groomed in order to resemble toy poodles.
52 Twitter Becomes X
"Ned ‘n’ Edna’s Blend Agenda" — Season 23, Episode 21 (2012)
“Ned ‘n’ Edna’s Blend Agenda” transpires as Springfield learns that Ned Flanders and Edna Krabappel got married. Marge decides to throw the new couple a belated marriage party so everyone in town can celebrate, leading to Bart advising Edna to connect with Rod and Todd by tearing down the Flanders household’s rigid structure and exposing them to the real world.The Season 23 episode also contains a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it foresight into the fate of one of the biggest brands in social media.
At one point in the episode, Homer checks his smartphone andone of the apps on his dock quite clearly contains an “X” as its defining symbol. While the resemblance isn’t quite as uncanny as some Photoshop-enhanced reports would have fans believe, it is still fun to look back on as yet another monumental moment in recent pop-culture history thatThe Simpsons referenced, even if it was in the most obscure and unintentional of ways.
51 Mr. Freeze’s Terrible Puns in 'Batman & Robin'
"Last Exit to Springfield" - Season 4, Episode 17 (1993)
Batman & Robinis a film that has become so infamous for a litany of different reasons, but one of the cringe-worthy factors that sticks in the mind the most is the god-awful dialogue, which was largely defined by Mr. Freeze’s (Arnold Schwarzenegger) terrible puns. While it was an exaggerated sign of the corniness of the times to some regard, it was also a laughably bad disaster that no one could have pre-empted, at least, no one butThe Simpsons.
The Season 4 episode “Last Exit to Springfield” opens with the Simpsons at the movies watching one of McBain’s cheesy action blockbusters, which features a scene in which his heroic leadinfiltrates a meeting in an ice statue before bursting out and saying “ice to see you” before gunning them down. It is truly comical how such a vague jab at Hollywood blockbusters would just years later prove to be a direct prediction of one of the worst major movies of all time.
50 Bloody Billboards
"Itchy and Scratchy: The Movie" - Season 4, Episode 6 (1992)
A hilarious exaggeration of cartoon violence, particularly pointed towards series likeTom & Jerry,The Simpsons’ ‘The Itchy and Scratchy Show’ stands as one of the show’s most shocking and hilarious ongoing gags. In Season 4’s sixth episode, Bart Simpson is punished for his bad behavior and negligence, with Homer refusing to let him see the episode’s titular film. As part of the marketing for the cartoon movie,a billboard is established in Springfield that sees Scratchy being decapitated with blood spraying from the poster.
The gag was as crudely humorous as it was realistically impractical, at least that’s what many would have initially thought. As part of the promotion forQuentin Tarantino’s revenge thrillerKill Bill,an advertisement in New Zealand saw the Bride (Uma Thurman) posing with her sword as blood sprayed from her blade and beyond the margins of the billboard, covering the wall and the street.
49 America Wins the Gold Medal in Curling
"Boy Meets Curl" Season 21, Episode 12 (2010)
Everyone loves an underdog story, andThe Simpsonswere able to predict the most unlikely of tales in the Season 21 episode, “Boy Meets Curl.” Released in 2010, it centers on Homer and Marge as their search for a fun date takes them to the winter sport of curling. Teaming up with Agnes and Seymour Skinner, they are brought into the U.S. Olympics team for the sport and embark on an incredible run to win gold.
While the episode was released in conjunction with the 2010 Winter Olympics in Canada,it would be eight years later that the prediction would come to fruition when America took home gold at the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang. Like in “Boy Meets Curl,” the Americans had to topple Sweden to emerge victorious.
48 J.C. Penny Files for Bankruptcy
"Please Homer, Don’t Hammer ‘Em" - Season 18, Episode 3 (2007)
WhileThe Simpsonsepisode in question technically featured a JCPenney’s as opposed to a JCPenney, many fans were still eager to give the series an emphatic nod when the famous American department store chainfiled for bankruptcy during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Amazingly, the prediction came 13 years prior in the Season 18 episode “Please Homer, Don’t Hammer’Em”.
The episode contains several hilarious gags—including a brilliantStar Wars-inspired duel between Bart and Principal Skinner—but it is the opening sequence with the Simpsons ambling through the dilapidated Springfield mall that proves to be the prophetic scene-stealer. Marge exclaims “Ohhh, a JCPenney’s… used to be here” as the Simpsons near the decrepit storefront. Granted, JCPenney never spiraled down that low even at the height of the pandemic, but the episode’s foresight remains truly incredible.
